MINI PROJECT RIFLE


REMINGTON 700 SPS TACTICAL by Laurie Holland


away with those downstream jobs, although I don’t think that’ll apply with Armalon’s set-up. (If you look at current Mannlicher sporting rifles, you see the spiral flats left by the hammers on the barrel’s external surfaces, the factory only polishing and blueing them.)


The pros of this method are obviously its high output and low unit cost - assuming you make enough barrels to cover the substantial initial outlay if you’re buying new plant. It also imparts a very high quality and hard finish to bore and groove surfaces making for long life.


52gn A-Max groups


(Above) .223 Remington and Sierra’s 80gn MatchKing showing the bullet base position at various COALs, that on the left at the SAAMI standard 2.26”. Barrel freebore that suits the centre pair is where Laurie would like to be eventually.


progressively hammered onto the mandrel by opposed high- speed hammers while being turned around its axis. This process, rotary forging, literally squeezes the barrel steel onto the mandrel creating the bore and indenting the rifling grooves into it. The part-made barrel is then forced off the mandrel, a lot thinner and longer than it started out and is ready for threading, chambering and external profiling.


Once set up, these very expensive machines can produce a rifled barrel blank roughly every three minutes. Recent versions also form the chamber and produce the required external contour or profile at the same time doing


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