Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Montana Rifle Actions ?

Thoughts on the Montana actions..?

My brother is returning soon from Afganistan and wants to build a rifle...

...he's left handed
...prefers a "Mauser Type" short action

How about a Left-hand short action Ruger?

Guys tend to have some strong feelings for or against MRC actions.

FWIW, I've had three, though never actually built one.

But just playing with them as bare actions, I was plenty impressed. Mine were all finished well and operated smoothly.

I've had several and they've all been good. A lot of nice features to them. They were unfinished/rough under the stock line, but that made no difference to me. They are a little on the heavy side, but not any more than a M70. The bottom metal is a little heavy, but nice. All of mine seemed well finished above the stock line and the actions feed well. Mr. Feldkamp commented on how smooth the action is. They make a nice looking rifle and with a good barrel, screwed on by a good smith shoot VERY well......even with factory ammo!





You can hunt with them.... The Whelen is a little overkill though....it hit this doe hard enough to make her sprout bone I sure wasn't there before the shot...

I'm in the other camp. In my experience, MRC has been dishonorable, and the actions have been very problematic. Lot of people have had my experience, and a lot have had a good one.

From my experience, I would never deal with them again. It's not even a close call.

Steve

Ditto

Wow, so what has been the issue (S) ?

Steve and Steelhead...could you elaborate...

this has been my take on this company. i have used probaly close to a dozen of their actions for myself and clients. i never had an issue with the way the actions actually worked. they are useable as they came, on par with remingtons, winchesters,rugers, etc, but they also finished up nicely with some polishing and tweaking.
the management of the company is something else. if the action is in stock you may be ok. if it isn't you can not believe anything they tell you as to the delivery. the excuses will range from they are all in "some stage of assembly" to "the plant will be casting in ? days to a vendor who makes the parts is in receivership/bankrupcy, ad nausium. they also issued letters at one time allowing customers who pre purchased some actions to buy more for the introductory price because of production delays but i was told that the "letter is not valid" when i went to purchase more actions.

I have had 3 MRC actions and still own one and have not had any trouble with mine, not the smoothest actions made but never had any issues.

I have 2 of their initial RH, SS, SA offerings. One is a 25-284 that I bought as a barreled action from MRC. It rides in an Accurate Innovations wood stock.

The other is a 350 Rem. Mag. That Mickey Coleman installed a Douglas SS barrel and McSwirly stock on. Both shoot, feed & function very well.

These "Short" actions have about a 3.1" OAL maximum, so seem to be more of a medium action & allow for seating bullets out a bit. Something to keep n mind when throating is discussed.

With respect to the poster (JCMCUBIC) who commented on the roughness under the stock line.... Did you have your 'smith clean it up or did you have that done as an extra service in-house at MRC?

Also since this action does appear a little heavy, 44oz in the LA version. does anyone know of any smiths who could lighten it up to get the weight down...or is a fella better going with a remington or custom version of a remington if trying to save ounces?

If you are trying to save ounces, the Remington 700 or a clone is without a better place to start. The MRC is a beefy action, and the machine work needed to lighten it to anywhere near a Rem would be prohibitively expensive, even if possible.

Go to their website and check out the completed rifles. They list one at just over 6lbs.

oulufinn, What McMillan stock pattern is that?

The one in the pic was smoothed up below the stock line and lightened by Mr. Feldkamp. The recoil lug was hollowed (it's thick) and a little machined off the edges of the action. He did a great job. It is in an Edge stock with a blind mag and Sunny Hill trigger guard. Going blind mag took around 6 oz's off the action. It has a Shilen #3 on it (22 inches) which is a fairly hefty barrel. With the Conquest it's 7 3/4 lbs. Fluting the barrel and bolt could lose a little more and going with a Leupold 4x would lose 4 oz's....but I prefer nonfluted and liked the 4x Conquest. It turned out exactly like I wanted it....

The others I've owned I did not have them smoothed below the stock line....it really made no difference for me there. It wasn't like they had edges hanging out...they bedded just fine. All of them were finished well above the stock line when I received them. I believe MRC will lighten the action if requested, but I've not had that done by them.

Hope this helps,

JCM

Oh.....if light weight is the purpose of the build, you're better starting with a 700. If you're close to the wieght then it a little can be lost on the MRC, but better to start with something lighter if a true lightweight is the goal.

JCM

i built my only custom rifle on mrc and have had no problems yet mine is heavy but i didn't spec it to be a featherweight either and choices for lefties is slimmer then right handers

Idea and theory of the action is great. Really well thought out. A little on the heavy side but you can work with it.

Execution of the design seems to be hit or miss. Big misses with me on the two actions I've had. Neither would feed or shoot. One wouldn't close properly without a little jiggling of the bolt. Tolorences are pretty loose. Very poor finish. And I paid extra to have the action cleaned up and trued that was never done.

Mangement of the company is completely untrustworthy. Missed deadlines, work not done, and always an excuse.

You'll do better with a Winchester as a starting point and be cheaper in the long run. There is also more aftermarket parts for the Winchester.

MRC really missed a golden opportunity when Winchester closed. If they could have turned out a good product they really would have taken a large market share.

mine was a nightmare wouldnt feed(375h&h) and thats a big no no on any rifle . it would ride over cases.sent it back and got the same result. so i dumped it and got a winchester what i should of done from the start!!!! they will promise you the world over the phone and dont deliver. just stay way. there are many posts there on mrc make your own decif you are right handed your choices are endless on price.