Gunsmithing First trueing of an action, And I even used my mill for it!

[csdilligaf]

I work way to much. It takes 7 days a week to keep up with work and I alway say "I'll get to this or that". Well I've had it and its time to enjoy my new found gunsmith hobby. I put a Kreiger on the Surgeon action that has sat for a year, a couple days ago and was so jazzed with how it went I decided to true up and rebarrel a Remington 700. This is my first action trueing and I really was trying to avoid doing it on the Prototrak 1630 lathe because it is conversational programming and was not catching my practice threads as well as I wanted.
I took the lathe fixture and put it on my Haas MiniMill, trued up the action with a .7025" range rod, caught the thread and offset the thread mill in Z and pushed go. Had to lower the first tool .0015" to clean up the top and lug faces, Ran a chamfer on it and then the threads.
Man I love this. It felt really good to finally get to do some of the things on the list. I almost feel like its a "bucket list" and something got checked off.
I figure I can spend a day or two before paying jobs start to fall behind but I plan on scheduling a vacation and just stay in the shop and finish a few more things on my list.

 

[LRI]

Very cool. Welcome to the revolution!

 

[7mmRM]

Thats awesome!

 

[jrm850]

looks great! Were you happy with the surface finish? Was the truing fixture rigid enough?

 

[bodywerks]

Question: what are you truing here? Just the face? If so how did you ensure it stayed inline with the tennon threads and centerline? Or do you plan on truing the threads also? If so, how? I've only seen actions trued on a lathe and the threads were usually cut at the same time (well, right after truing the face).

 

[csdilligaf]

In this fixture I got the action true with a .7025 shaft, cut the top face, opened the ID for a larger thread and cut the face of the lug surfaces at the same time and then recut the threads to a larger dia all in one set up. This is doing all the same things as done on a lathe but I think the mill does a better job and faster set up than a lathe.
If you use the right tools, feeds and speeds the finish is great. The fixture is the same one I did my barrel with on the lathe and worked really well here to. Very solid. Getting it true on the mill takes about 5-10 minutes. I would still be there on the lathe going back and fourth.

 

[LRI]

Now figure out how to truncate the lead thread!

 

[jrm850]

Csd, thanks for sharing your setup. I'm a little more confident about welding a base on my truing fixture and will hopefully get to try it out within the next several days.

Chad, I'm not sure if you were the first to do this or not, but you are the first that I know about. I think it is mighty altruistic of you to share what you know with the community. I'm pretty sure that you set the new standard way of action truing for a lot of us. My hat is tipped, Thank you.

 

[bodywerks]

Thank you. I'm just excited to learn. I have a mill and lathe and would some day like to build my own rifle.

 

[csdilligaf]

Yes, Chad Dixon was point man on this way of trueing as far as I know also. I'm only doing work for myself and a friend or two. The action trueing went fast but it was the chambering that took forever. Manually pecking .025 deep and pulling out to clean the chips with out that fancy pressureized system took me way to long. If it was a paying job I would have lost money on it. But since I have the machines and enjoy making my own stuff it works out fine. Now I have to get back to paying job of thermal image optics.

 

[chefcam864]

That's awesome! I didn't know you could do that on a mill. Damn, I wish I were a machinist!

 

[LRI]

That's awesome! I didn't know you could do that on a mill. Damn, I wish I were a machinist!

We've been accurizing receivers on a VMC for four years+ under our flag and I started doing it back in 2004 when I worked at Nesika. It started when customers were sticking barrels and galling threads on the Nesika actions. Reinterpolating the threads allowed the action to be saved instead of scrapped.

Don't know if I'm the first guy to do it, but I've been at it now quite awhile.

Nice to see others getting their heads wrapped around it as I've taken a bit of flack for it over the years by "sacred cows" that insist that it must be done in a lathe.

A VMC offers additional options a conventional manual lathe just can't do. Believe me, if it could I wouldn't have just dropped my panties on the new Kitamura Mycenter 2X that we now have sitting on our shop floor. (Woo Hoo!)

Cool stuff and hats off for figuring it out OP!

C.

 

[me124704]

Yes, Chad Dixon was point man on this way of trueing as far as I know also. I'm only doing work for myself and a friend or two. The action trueing went fast but it was the chambering that took forever. Manually pecking .025 deep and pulling out to clean the chips with out that fancy pressureized system took me way to long. If it was a paying job I would have lost money on it. But since I have the machines and enjoy making my own stuff it works out fine. Now I have to get back to paying job of thermal image optics.

I feel your pain on the chambering side....I finally rigged up a barrel flushing system and did my first chambering with it a couple of weeks ago. Unbelievable - you really need to rig one up.