Rem 700 Barrel Removal

[mosigdude]

There seems to be a broad range of knowledge on here, so I'll start with the question here.

Does anyone know, if I remove a barrel from a Remington 700 and then later reinstall the same barrel on the same action, is it still necessary to re-fit and re-ream the chamber to headspace it, or will this happen automatically if I re-use all the same parts?

I'm looking for a way to turn and thread the muzzle for a muzzle break and maybe someday (if we ever get legal in MO) a suppressor. I have the lathe and machining skills to do the threads, I just don't exactly know the in's and out's of the 700.

Any procedural / special tool advise would be appreciated.

[WhisperFan]

To answer your question, I think that if you remove the barrel, use the same action, barrel, and recoil lug, and you install it to the same torque, the headspace should be the same.

To be sure - you could scribe a small line that extends from the barrel, across the lug, onto the receiver that is below the line where the stock is.

This will ensure that you have the same headspace you started with, but it won't ensure that the headspce is correct.


Now - all that being said - you shouldn't need to remove the barrel from the action just to thread it. You need a lathe with a spindle bore large enough to have the barreled action go through from the back side.

[amafrank]

As WF stated, retorqueing the barrel to its original position will return it to its original headspace as long as you don't twist the receiver or do other damage. I fit and remove the barrels on all sorts of guns in order to ream the chamber to fit the receiver/bolt combo. Sometimes it takes a few fittings to get it perfect. I normally put a line up mark on the barrel and receiver once I get the headspace set. I can then remove the barrel to do whatever suppressor work, threading or receiver work I need to do. Lining up the marks puts it back where it started and its good to go.
In addition to what WF said, if you remove the trigger group from the receiver the whole thing should fit in a 4 jaw chuck quite readily. You can chuck the receiver up and indicate the barrel in to make sure its centered. Its pretty easy to see if the barrel is straight by turning the lathe on at low speed and looking down the bore. Wobbles or off center running are pretty easy to see by eye over the length of the barrel. Cut the muzzle threads with the muzzle on a live center. 3 jaw chucks are no good for tight tolerance barrel work.....

Hope that helps
Frank

[mosigdude]

Thank You both, When I was looking at the action I initally thought I could probably chuck the action and then indicate themuzzle but I wasn't sure how true action to barrel alignment normally is, I'm also not sure how true the threads need to be for a suppressor if I'm someday able to legally aquire one. I knew for a short muzzle break it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but, no doubt need to be fairly precise for alignment of a longer supressor.

[pug]

The threads need to be true to the bore but you won't find many suppressors these days that align using just the threads. You would be asking for trouble. The single point mount you may hear of usually refers to the suppressor screwing on by threads but locates to center using the shoulder behind the threads. It is the shoulder that must be perfectly perpendicular to the bore so when the suppressor tightens up, even if the threads are off a hair, the square shoulder will pull the suppressor inline with the bore. Of course you really don't want any kind of misalignment but the shoulder being off with the bore causes an alignment error that increases with the length of the can which may cause a baffle or end cap strike.