Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing who makes the best action wrench?

i'm looking to buy a remington action wrench. looks to me like the darrel holland is as good as any.what do you guys use? what kind of barrel vise?

I made my own wrench and vise. If you have a lathe and mill, you need to make your own.

I've got four different ones, all I made myself. Like Butch said, make your own and not an internal one.

Are internal wrenches bad, I just saw that pacific tool and gauge now has an internal wrench for Sako's

Internal action wrenches can twist that action, better to stick to the style that clamps around and supports the outside of the action.

An internal wrench that reaches the front ring will not twist the receiver.

The internal spade wrench for Sakos that PT&G sells it only for the TRG rifle. I purchased one and was told by the sales person that it would fit a model 75. It doesnt come close to fitting the 75's or 85's.

I have a Holland spade wrench for 700's and a internal spade wrench made by someone else for the Sako 75's.

thats what i thought,plus it looks to me like a external wrench could leave marks on the receiver very easily.so what brand ?

I do make my own. I have an external wrench that grabs the receiver and a couple internal wrenches that work on my L46 Sako and 721-700 Remingtons.

I've made a couple for myself, inside and outside. By far, the inside wrench is used more.

However, for the money, the inside wrench Graf sells is hard to beat. Well made, and under 50 bucks if I recall.

I make my own barrel vises and action wrenches.

well,i payed the price and bought a holland wrench. made my own barrel vise.

This is my vise. It is a copy of Jim Kobe's. I like the die springs between ea. part.


I make collets as I need them.

I have a 1965 Stackpole reprint of the excellent [1940s?] book "Introduction to Gunsmithing" by Harold Macfarland.

But the drawing in the book can be improved upon. For flat bottom receivers there must be opposing receiver forces lining up on top and bottom. To do this the action wrench needs to be relieved for the recoil lug, so more of the large ring fits into the action wrench. Otherwise, there will be a bind, and the top of the large ring can be scuffed.



Here you can see I made an action wrench per MacFarland's drawing and then one with a relief cut for the recoil lug. This is for Mausers, Win M70s, Howas, Mosin Nagants, etc flat bottomed receivers.

Round bottom receivers; Rem 700, Sav 110, etc must be gripped differently. One way is ~~ a barrel vise on a handle~~ as in the pic of my previous post. This has the disadvantage of squeezing the thin receiver and possible galling on the threads.