Custom action with 3 - position safety?

the other Matt

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Minuteman
Feb 22, 2018
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I started with a Winchester M70, then moved to an H-S Precision take-down. Now I am looking to build a custom rifle (or purchase a high end factory rifle). Along the way I fell in love with the 3-position safety. Does anyone offer a custom action with a 3 - position safety? Should I avoid it because it limits my ability to customize stocks or other parts of the rifle? Help me understand the trade-offs.

The goal is to have an accurate and lightweight hunting rifle. I am leaning toward 300wm or PRC, suppressor, proof barrel. I am open to other options.
 
Yes, Defiance Machine makes an action with a three position safety. They provide the trigger tech trigger as well. They are tuned to work together from Defiance. there are pictures of it on the website, looks just like a model 70 3 position.
 
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Yes, Defiance Machine makes an action with a three position safety. They provide the trigger tech trigger as well. They are tuned to work together from Defiance. there are pictures of it on the website, looks just like a model 70 3 position.
Defiance just let me know they are no longer taking orders for the 3 position safety version of their actions.
 
Kimbers are 3 position safety and if I recall correctly, controlled round feed.
I have a Mountain Ascent in 280 Ackley. I really don't like the rifle at all but there are lots of folks that do love these Kimbers.
 
I've never understood the preference for a safety mounted on a bolt shroud. You're going to take your hand off the grip to switch it from safe to fire. The R700 style is perfect for those situations when you actually want to use a safety. Pretty much hunting. You can just use your thumb to push if forward while keeping your firing hand where it needs to be. So you can deactivate it when you raise the rifle to shoot. You're not moving your hand to deactivate a safety as an extra step while bringing the rifle to your shoulder. In any sort of competition setting you just wouldn't use the safety at all.
Shotgun is the only type of shooting where I have a safety preference

Other than that a savage/R700/Tikka/AI hasn’t held me back a bit
 
I started with a Winchester M70, then moved to an H-S Precision take-down. Now I am looking to build a custom rifle (or purchase a high end factory rifle). Along the way I fell in love with the 3-position safety. Does anyone offer a custom action with a 3 - position safety? Should I avoid it because it limits my ability to customize stocks or other parts of the rifle? Help me understand the trade-offs.

The goal is to have an accurate and lightweight hunting rifle. I am leaning toward 300wm or PRC, suppressor, proof barrel. I am open to other options.
Here is the Gentry on one of my Remington 700's. This one has been tuned up...blueprinted, if you prefer. I have these on 3 700's and am in the process of putting them on every 700 I own. I'm also having the M16 extractors installed and on a couple of them, dual ejectors.
I am probably going to leave the 40X Ti unmolested.
I like that the firing pin is blocked, no way to fire. I like that the bolt can be locked so that it cannot be inadvertently opened by brush or whatever. You can load/unload the rifle with it on safe. It's too bad that Gentry was not able to secure a contract with Remington in the day as these are the way Remingtons should have been made. I am fairly certain these can be added to most of the 700 clones.

EDIT TO SAY: NO STOCK MODIFICATIONS REQUIRED.


Gentry on 30N.jpeg
 
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I've never understood the preference for a safety mounted on a bolt shroud. You're going to take your hand off the grip to switch it from safe to fire. The R700 style is perfect for those situations when you actually want to use a safety. Pretty much hunting. You can just use your thumb to push if forward while keeping your firing hand where it needs to be. So you can deactivate it when you raise the rifle to shoot. You're not moving your hand to deactivate a safety as an extra step while bringing the rifle to your shoulder. In any sort of competition setting you just wouldn't use the safety at all.

I like that the firing pin is blocked, no way to fire. I like that the bolt can be locked so that it cannot be inadvertently opened by brush or whatever. You can load/unload the rifle with it on safe. It's too bad that Gentry was not able to secure a contract with Remington in the day as these are the way Remingtons should have been made. I am fairly certain these can be added to most of the 700 clones.

EDIT TO SAY: NO STOCK MODIFICATIONS REQUIRED.


View attachment 8306565
I've hunted with and shot Win Model 70s for most of my life and find the 3 position safety to be very intuitive. The Rem 700 style safety levers are a PITA. Too easy to move it when running the bolt. With the 3 position there is never any confusion or accidental movement, the safety features also speak for themselves.
 
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I started with a Winchester M70, then moved to an H-S Precision take-down. Now I am looking to build a custom rifle (or purchase a high end factory rifle). Along the way I fell in love with the 3-position safety. Does anyone offer a custom action with a 3 - position safety? Should I avoid it because it limits my ability to customize stocks or other parts of the rifle? Help me understand the trade-offs.

The goal is to have an accurate and lightweight hunting rifle. I am leaning toward 300wm or PRC, suppressor, proof barrel. I am open to other options.
I do love a model 70 with the control feed and that 3 safety for hunting. It’s a shame more people don’t build on that platform.