It blows my mind that a reworked Rem 700 action bedded into a McMillan stock, and barreled with a Krieger barrel is famed to be any more durable than a Rem 700 or custom action barreled with any other well regarded barrel, bedded into another Manners or McMillan stock put together by any of the other top 10 gunsmiths in the nation.
Tac Ops rifles aren't
"famed to be any more durable than a Rem 700 or custom action barreled with any other well regarded barrel, bedded into another Manners or McMillan stock put together by any of the other top 10 gunsmiths in the nation". I've never heard or read where someone claimed Tac Ops are more durable than an AI. The durability champion is obviously AI. However, Tac Ops are battle-proven. Tac Ops
are famed to be consistently-built, built with extremely exacting tolerances, insane attention-to-detail, and consistent, repeatable, extreme accuracy. Proven accuracy with FGMM (Federal Gold Medal Match) ammunition.
Now an AX I understand but...
TacOps???
A reworked and rebarreled 700 over a custom????
Seriously??
I had to check three times to make sure this wasn't an old thread from 2003 or a time before custom actions, the AI AT, or the AI AX existed back when your only options were to rework a 700. In 2019 we have better options with an unlimited bugdet I wouldn't look twice at a TacOps.
IMO there isn't even anything brand-able about a TacOps rifle they just assemble other people parts and smith a 700 action in the same way any other good smith can do it so when people say it's "a TacOps" I'm thinking no it's a custom 700.
In regard to the notion that "there isn't even anything brand-able about a TacOps rifle they just assemble other people parts and smith a 700 action in the same way any other good smith can do it", I submit that is a false statement and that not all gunsmiths build rifles the same way. I won't list every method and procedure nor the stage at which Tac Ops performs them in while building a rifle, but a few things are:
(a) All actions are heat-treated prior to machining, ensuring that tolerances and parallelism (and thus P.O.I.) are consistent whether cold or hot bore. Consistent cold bore P.O.I. is critical when a bad guy is using a hostage as a shield
(b) Machined-in mud gutters to keep debris from fouling the lugs
(c) Hand-machined raceways
(d) Special barrel-to-receiver fit that allows Tac Ops barrels to be torqued up to 550 ft. lbs. when the average builder only torques to 75-100 ft. lbs.. Case-in-point: Another builder in Australia was trying to change calibers on a Tango 51, and the gunsmith broke his wrench! The high torque ensures that the molecular structure doesn’t change, thus the cold bore shot doesn’t fluctuate
(e) No rough reamers are used – only a finish reamer is used at a very slow RPM
(f) Some gunsmiths allow some bedding movement – Tac Ops bedding tolerance is zero to .001” (one thousandth). If Tac Ops bedding exceeds .001”, the bedding is machined-out and the rifle is re-bedded.
Because errors are cumulative, Tac Ops focuses on elimination of any errors in the building process.
