I'm also crossing fingers that poor dumb greydog feels compelled to explore these things and type aloud in regards to same.

Laffin'!
[/quote]
Boxer,
You are in luck! I have begun moving forward. Now, I know I will have to dumb things down quite a bit to give you some chance of understanding what goes on in a shop and on the range. Maybe if I type with a plastic bag over my head, the oxygem deprivation might bring me down to your level (I'm not sure I want to be there).
I think I mentioned having located a fine old Remington 700 barrel, chambered for the 222 Mag., under the bench. This barrel is of no use to me and looked to be the perfect vehicle for our trip in search of the truth ("Truth" refers to something which is not BS. I don't expect you to grasp the concept right away but you can study on it and you never can tell...). The problem I had was in deciding what action to use. The only rifle I have with a small bolt face is unsuitable because the threads are larger than on the Remington barrel. This rifle is a 223 but will probably stay that way. So the choices came down to a couple of push feed Model 70's, a Turkish mauser, a Savage single shot (A CIL 950T), and a couple of 40X's. All of these rifles have 308 bolt faces. The Savage was my first inclination but there were still thread issues. The Savage is an 20 TPI thread of the same diameter as the Remington so I would have to turn down, thread smaller, then sleeve the thread and thread the sleeve to fit the Savage. Way too much work. All of my Remington actions had been re-threaded so the threads were oversized so they were scratched. That left the Turk and the Model 70's. In the end, I selected the Model 70 action which was barreled to 6 BRX. This action was a fine example of a 1964 action; the worst of the worst. It had been re-threaded and trued when I barreled it for use as an "F" class rifle. More importantly, the bolt face had been bushed and the firing pin tip diameter reduced to eliminate blanking. The trigger pulled 14 ounces and it sat in a McMillan stock.
It was a simple matter to re-thread the Remington barrel to fit the 1 1/32" threads on the Model 70 (re-cut receiver threads, remember?). I set the barrel back about .150" so the 223 reamer would clean up the 222 Mag chamber. Installed, the barrel sat in the stock with a generous 1/4 inch of free float all around. Good ventilation for improved cooling! I didn't want to have to poke the empties out with a rod so I made up an extended extractor to reach the little 223 case. All told, it took about three hours work to end up with a fairly homely but servicable 223. I topped it off with a 36X Weaver which was unemployed. A couple of shots proved it functioned OK. So, the test rifle is ready to go. It will be a couple of days until I can spend a day on the range; possibly this weekend. I want to pick up a box of 40 grain bullets since those seem to be popular with the AI guys. I' ll load those and some 52gr match bullets. I want to use some new brass so I'll pick some up when I get the bullets. I am not going to wreck a bunch of Lapua brass but will be satisfied with Remington or Winchester.
This barrel is 22 inches long (it has been shortened at some time. I don't know who did it but he did a nice job and crowned it at 11 degrees). I would have preferred 24 but 22 is what I have. I am open to suggestions regarding the best powders. I think I'll post results in a different thread and perhaps the customs and Wildcats forum might be more appropriate. Stay tuned. GD

Last edited by greydog; 04/18/12.