**I'M DONE WITH IT**And the odyssey continues. Christensen 338LM.

[Bear44]

Maybe the new bullets, with the non-melting tips will be more consistent. Their brass does suck.

LOL!

When they first introduced their brass I was very interested because they said it would be consistent from lot to lot. That's a big deal when loading for extreme accuracy. Then I got my first order in and weight sorted it. I guess they were technically telling the truth, but when you have weight variation of over 8 grains within a single lot, that's not going to be very hard to reproduce. Worthless for accuracy, but "consistent".

 

[Bear44]

NOTHING is easy!!!!

I got the new rifle on Monday, not Friday, so I lost two days trying to get ready for the Legion shoot on the 14th. My first impression of the rifle was very positive. It's a very good looking rifle with very nice bluing. Satin, but not glossy or overly reflective.

The second thing I noticed is that the brake is not quite indexed properly. It won't have any effect on performance, but I'm way to anal to leave it that way. It has a pressure collar on it, so all it probably needs is a moment in a barrel vise and a tweak, but I don't have a barrel vise so it will have to wait until after Saturday.

Next, I discovered that I could not adjust the X-Mark Pro trigger bellow 4.5lbs. On previous rifles with this trigger I have had no problem getting them down to 2.5lbs, which is my preferred trigger tension on all of my bolt action rifles. Upon calling Remington I was told that their triggers are now designed so they cannot be adjusted any lower than 4.5lbs unless it's done by a gunsmith. I guess they finally got tired of getting sued by idiots that don't know what they're doing, so now we all have to pay for it. However, after doing a little research I found a quick and easy way to adjust it to 2.5lbs. (YouTube is your friend). Of course, this voids any warranty on the trigger, but it was either this or replace it. 4.5lbs is way too heavy for precision shooting.

Of course, the fireformed brass I have would not fit the new chamber, so I had to pull all the loads and do a full length resize...again...before reloading to fireform to this chamber.

Tomorrow and part of Thursday are supposed to be dedicated to breaking in the barrel, fireforming my brass, working up a load and then get all the brass loaded for the shoot on Saturday. Cutting it close, but possible as long as nothing else goes wrong. Which of course it did.

I went to mount the scope and found that some of the screws for the Nightforce rail are too long. The rail takes four 8-40 screws and it came with five. Unfortunately, only two of them are short enough to seat properly and not interfere with the bolt. I've had rails that took two different length screws before, but this isn't one of them.

Unless I can get ahold of two more of the correct screws first thing tomorrow morning, this rifle simply will not make it to Legion.

DJD

 

[sc951]

your screws are an easy fix. use a belt sander and grind a thread or two at the time and SLIGHTLY touch the burned metal on the belt sander to make a very shallow point. you should have no problem with the threads lining back up. each time you do this only take a couple of thousands off until you get the length you need.

If you were closer OR if you want to ride to Griffin I will do it for you

 

[chopper duke]

Do you not have a screw cutter? One of my many wire strippers has a portion where you can trim screws down, specifically small screws like an 8-40.

 

[Bear44]

Do you not have a screw cutter? One of my many wire strippers has a portion where you can trim screws down, specifically small screws like an 8-40.

I didn't even know those existed. I thought the only other option would be to grind them down, but that mess up the start of the thread. Does the cutter leave a clean thread start?

 

[jpm2953]

Bear44 if you wanna drive to Braselton, I'll shorter those screws for you.

 

[Bear44]

You know, I never even seriously considered shortening the screws. Now that you guys bring it up, I bet I could ask Rusty at David's Gun Room to do it for me while I wait and they're close to me. That was going to be my first stop looking for the proper length screws, too.

Man, I'm tired and my brain isn't hitting all eight cylinders right now.

 

[chopper duke]

I didn't even know those existed. I thought the only other option would be to grind them down, but that mess up the start of the thread. Does the cutter leave a clean thread start?

Yeah, it does. And because it's screwed in you can break any part where it may have made burr. If you grind them down, put a nut on first so you can take it off and break the burr.

 

[Bear44]

Yeah, it does. And because it's screwed in you can break any part where it may have made burr. If you grind them down, put a nut on first so you can take it off and break the burr.

I don't want to take the chance of damaging the thread in the receiver. If I can find a thin enough nut that will fit, I can probably do it with a dremel.

 

[cmshoot]

I've got a whole box of overly long mounting screws for the Rem700 I keep on hand. I cut them down all the time, usually on a bench grinder.

If they are waaaaay too long for what I need, I cut them off with a dremel, then grind to length.