Donor action question.

[SwampBuck]

I know this has been beat into the ground, but what’s the consensus on custom clone 700 actions these days versus having a donor 700 trued up? The threads I’ve found say after truing a 300-350$ action you're within a couple hundred of a custom.

Only asking because I found a couple of cheap used ADL’s for about 200$ apiece.
They’re the newer generation all black (plastic ADL’s) not the older generation wood stocked rifles.

Not in the process of building anything at the moment. Just figured they may be worth hoarding for when I do want something.

[150class]

Not much help here but I remember Robert with APR constantly complaining about the new 700 actions being a complete hit or miss

[SwampBuck]

Yeah that’s my other concern.
Hard to know what you’re getting

[150class]

Yeah that’s my other concern.
Hard to know what you’re getting

Quote from him about 10-12 months:

"However, their availability has become almost as spotty as their quality over the past year. Some are pretty straight, some take a lot of work to get trued and timed, and some are so far out that they simply can’t be. The bigger problem is, any other option automatically adds at least $500 to the price of a build. A deal- killer for folks trying to work within a budget."

Here's the other one I remember seeing on a thread complaining about the newer 700 actions:

"Uhhh Huhhh..... I was doing 4-5 of those a day........every day..... for waaaay too long! I feel your pain, brother. I'm averaging less than 3 a week now. And I'm fine with that

We were rejecting about 6 out of 10 for the timing issues alone, but still had to end up re-timing the ones that were "close" just to have enough to keep building on. At least you can see the timing issue before you invest any time into it. The real cussing starts when you get a crooked bolt head or receiver threads that take more than .020 to clean up. So far the shop record for receiver threads stands at .047!!

The funny part is after seeing hundreds of them come across the lathe, you get pretty good at spotting trends. A lot of folks search out the "older" ones thinking they are higher quality. The only thing I can see is the older ones are "smoother" because of the better finish and have better primary on average. Most of them are train wrecks in the other dimensions compared to the newer ones. One thing is for sure, finding a straight one with good primary from any era is like hitting the lottery."

Hopefully he see's this and chimes back in!

CB usually see's these threads and fines a beauty action from back in the day for a solid price for those wanting to do a build.

[SwampBuck]

That’s the issue, I’m not wanting to build anything at the moment.
So I don’t need the temptation. Haha

The ones in question sort of just fell in my lap

[150class]

That’s the issue, I’m not wanting to build anything at the moment.
So I don’t need the temptation. Haha

The ones in question sort of just fell in my lap

Just found another quote and threw it above.

Hopefully some others chime in to help but KCK had this to say also:

Default Remington action rant...

"Got 3 Remington actions sitting in the shop for minor surgery and 2 of the 3 aren't worth putting on a rifle after a standard action job. They both have a ton of slop and look like they were timed (or the lack of) by some guy that just quit heroine cold turkey and probably won't cam worth a dang. FYI, all 3 of these are newer actions. I could dust off the old torch and TIG rig but I'd prefer to send that out to the boys that have perfected that. Guess I'll call Kampfield and see what their lead is like. Don't know if the dude in Alaska is still doing it but any leads would be appreciated. Thanks for listening and rant over..."

[SwampBuck]

Timing was the reason I unloaded the last cheap
Action I picked up. By the time it would be done right I wasn’t ahead any money.

[Cajun Blake]

Swamp

If you’re committed to building on a Rem 700, find an older rifle priced right and send the action to PacNor where Chris will take care of you. $625 for a custom select match grade barrel, threaded, chambered, and installed on your action which they will true.

Custom actions based on the Rem 700 footprint will set you back $850 - $1500

I support you in buying/building whatever you want

[SwampBuck]

Thanks for the heads up.
I actually have a late 70’s 7mm magnum right now that I’ve been bouncing around the idea of sending to pacnor. Still in the air on it.

[Stick1]

Maybe I can help here. The answer is........it all depends. I hate that answer, too. There are a couple different schools of thought here. Let's assume you want the whole thing straight and right if you are going to invest money to build on it. It's not apples to apples if we're talking about a "just skimming the face and lapping the lugs" truing job, so we'll compare using a REAL truing job.

School #1 - If you already have it, or can get into it cheaply it just might be worth it. It wasn't that long ago that the 700 was the standard issue for almost all precision rifle builds that weren't straight up benchrest rigs - and it accounted for it's fair share of those too! It can be a solid foundation for almost any build, that's been proven enough not to even be a debatable topic. The big question is, how much $$ will it take to get it to where you want it to be? It may not need much work at all and it may be a train wreck. Odds are it is somewhere in between. Problem is they all look the same from the outside, mostly.

However, you CAN judge the condition of the primary extraction from a quick measurement. If it fails that test it's going to be less than a break-even proposition. Walk away now. If its a 223 boltface, RUN. If it passes, you have about an 75% chance of getting what you want for just a couple hundred bucks of investment. There are still some surprises that can ruin the deal like the action being warped, bolt bore being too oversized at the feed ramp, crooked bolt head or receiver threads being too far out to correct. All of those things aren't too uncommon, and most aren't fixable without throwing more $100's at it. You likely won't know about any of these issues until someone has spent some time setting it up and has billable shop time invested in it. It's a gamble that pays off MOST of the time. I will say this - several of these issues I've seen lately are coming into the shop as stripped actions that customers bought from other individuals already broken down. My guess is the problems got passed along as soon as they were discovered. Be wary buying a used action. There are no guarantees anyway, but I'd feel like I had a better shot on a donor if it still had the original pipe on it.

School #2 - In most cases, it's just not really worth it these days. The industry used 700s so heavily in the past......because that's mostly what was available with any form of aftermarket support. Unless it was free, you will probably be money ahead going custom. A smoking deal on a 700 would be $250, a great deal would be $350 and an avg deal would be $450. So after truing it up you'd be looking at $450 - $650 if there were no timing or feed work involved(best case). It will have no real features, and will actually lose value on re-sale in most cases. Remington won't warranty it. You can add $100s to that basic cost with things like bolt stop release upgrades, extractor upgrades, ignition tuning......basically all the things that it takes to make it competitive with the custom actions. The kicker is, there are customs out there now that start in the $700 range and don't break $1k. Kelbly's, Bighorn, GW and our action are all cheaper than a fully loaded 700 project. All of them will be better from the start than the 700 will be in the end, all will have support from the company that sold them, and all will do much better holding their re-sale value down the road.

I support both schools of thought and find both to be valid options depending on the situation. That is changing quickly however. As more affordable and well-built alternatives continue to hit the market, gambling on a 700 is becoming less attractive.

[SwampBuck]

That’s an awesome break down.
Thanks a lot guys for the help.
That spells it out a lot better

[kck]

My quick $.02 is this. If you have an older Remington that has sentimental value but you’d like it to be part of a custom build then go ahead and have it worked on. However, if you can spend a little more then go the custom route as, just like Robert said, Remingtons have become pretty bad and are hit or miss more so than ever. APR’s G2 is a helluva deal for what you get in a custom action and I’m building a rig for myself on one now.

[TXBRASS]

Have built no less than a dozen full custom rifles and specialty pistols from 700 actions. I found a late '60's and another early 70's model 700 rifle that I built complete custom hunting rifles for me and my son from. They were from the beginning, extremely smooth and what one would expect from that era, but still were trued and brought to absolute zero by my smith during the build process.
The Specialty Pistols of course have to use a virgin action to be legal so they were built from new undesignated/bare actions and underwent the same truing process, but in the end they ALL shoot sub-moa shot after shot. The new actions need a little more TLC to make them as smooth as the old, but in the end the result is the same. I have shot custom actions, but can't personally justify the price difference when in the end, the accuracy results are the same. just my $0.02....

[Stick1]

I have trued over 1K of them in the past few years. That's a pretty good sample size to pull from. There are definitely some trends that come to light in regards to the date of manufacture. There are also trends that show up depending on which plant they were manufactured at (NY vs. AL)

RR prefix actions(current production) - These actions will have a very high rate of primary extraction/bolt timing issues. These actions get a bad rap because they are "rough". Most of them are pulled from the lower end of the product line and have the "SPS" type finish that contributes to this. However, they are still sometimes available in the polished blue finish from several sources and accordingly, are just as smooth as the old school actions. If you can dodge the primary extraction issue and live with the finish, these actions are usually far straighter than the older versions on the lug abutments and receiver threads. It seems like the scope base holes run much truer on avg. The polished blue versions do exhibit a higher rate of misaligned bolt heads and a few other quirks. Those are, or have been coming out of Ilion. Receiver face runnout averages about .002. Receiver threads are usually around .006" or less off center, and usually show less than .010" deflection when measured at the face and 3.5" out from there. Many times a facing cut will bring that all down to .002" or less.

Pre RR prefix actions - This encompasses several generations, but the points we are talking about stay pretty consistent throughout the entire range. Primary/timing issues on these versions is much less common, as the bolt handle geometry was a better design. They still have their fair share of primary issues, though. These actions do indeed "feel" smoother. Primarily due to the fact most were blued and some of the raceways have more clearance. The trade off is that they almost always have significant runnout compared to the newer ones. When you come across one making no contact or partial contact on a single lug, its almost always an older one. Faces run about .004" out on average, and threads are off-center by about .009" on average. Deflection numbers are usually pretty far out there. Scope base hole alignment issues are very common.

These are all just averages, and there are plenty of outliers on all versions. I just did a RR last week that took almost no cleanup. Threads were as straight as any custom action. Go figure.

[TXBRASS]

Just ordered my first single shot SS 700 action for a Specialty Pistol build. Excited to see it come together.... Love me some 700’s.


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