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I never said that they were torqued to hundreds if not thousands of pounds, what I said was that they use a machine that had that amount of hydraulic pressure to screw them on with...big difference.

This gunsmith runs the barrel through the headstock of the lathe and indicates in both the inside of the chamber and the muzzle to make sure that there is perfect alignment so the bullet will go through the muzzle break straight. He would also recut the factory crown at this point. If he left the action on the barrel, he would have to indicate on the outside of the barrel. The bore in factory barrels are rarely in the center of the barrel. He indicates both ends in to the 0.0001 if it is possible. On factory barrels, you often have to split some hairs on alignment.

Bayou, good luck with your new Ruger, glad it worked out, and I hope that you never have one with a problem. Like I said earlier, I had rebarreled two Ruger 77 Tang safety actions and the same friend had a Stainless 77 Mark II rebarreled last year with a 26" brux 6.5x47L.

In the end, Ruger's commitment to their customers won out, and for that, we are very grateful.

So, in other words, this smith is limited in his ability and understanding of how to do certain things and when he hits a problem with a tight barrel he has no qualms about wrecking an action in an attempt to make it conform to his skill set instead of stopping and examining things and looking for another approach or admitting he doesn't know what he is doing.

Just to hopefully add a bit of additional reality to all of this, I called Ruger this morning and asked a lady at their technical help desk if their Model 77 rifles are capable of being re-barreled. I recognize this is just one call, but here�s what I heard���.

Her response was as follows:

1. Yes, their Model 77 actions are perfectly capable of being re-barreled if the proper tooling and knowledge of their barrel process is used to do so.

2. Ruger naturally prefers to do any re-barreling themselves, and if you send them a rifle, if at all possible, they will only re-barrel it to the chambering it was in originally to avoid any other problems with feeding issues, etc., that might require additional work and expense on their part.

3. If you do have a Ruger action re-barreled by a custom smith, Ruger is reluctant to work on the rifle later if things don�t go as planned with the smith�s work. And they consider any work done such as barrel work as being custom and not to Ruger�s specs. She did say it would not automatically void the unwritten warranty but that it makes it tougher to rectify all issues that might arise due to incorrect work being done by others.

With that information I asked if there would be any additional difficulties re-barreling a Model 77 action versus any other make of gun. She did cite the well known and recognized characteristic of the flat sided feature of the Ruger action as causing some difficulties if the proper tooling and equipment are not used. Due to the flat sides on the action, she stated that the metal thickness in those areas is thinner than other places on the action, and the action can possibly be crushed during barrel removal without use of the proper tooling. (Imagine that. - My comment)

I asked if their barrels were torqued to higher than normal barrel torques, and she told me that she doesn�t know precisely how much torque a specific technician might place on an original factory barrel or on a specific and particular re-barrel job, but that she feels that doing it is just like any other maker�s actions and barrels.

At that point she once again pointed out that Ruger would prefer to do any re-barrel work on their rifles as it puts then in a tough and sometimes costly position trying to fix someone else�s problems.

At that point I thanked her for the information and said good bye. I�m not sure what the next call might result in as far as conflicting information is concerned, but that�s what I got with the female tech person that I talked to.

Edited to add: Any time I send any make of action off to be re-barreled, I recognize that the maker is not probably going to be overjoyed with the fact. Armed with that, I'd never in good conscience expect a manufacturer to bail me out if something unexpectedly went wrong along the way. That information would be between me and the smith to deal with in a private and fair way.

3. If you do have a Ruger action re-barreled by a custom smith, Ruger is reluctant to work on the rifle later if things don�t go as planned with the smith�s work.

I�m not sure what the next call might result in as far as conflicting information is concerned, but that�s what I got with the female tech person that I talked to.

Just to hopefully add a bit of additional reality to all of this, I called Ruger this morning and asked a lady at their technical help desk if their Model 77 rifles are capable of being re-barreled. I recognize this is just one call, but here�s what I heard���.

Her response was as follows:

1. Yes, their Model 77 actions are perfectly capable of being re-barreled if the proper tooling and knowledge of their barrel process is used to do so.

2. Ruger naturally prefers to do any re-barreling themselves, and if you send them a rifle, if at all possible, they will only re-barrel it to the chambering it was in originally to avoid any other problems with feeding issues, etc., that might require additional work and expense on their part.

3. If you do have a Ruger action re-barreled by a custom smith, Ruger is reluctant to work on the rifle later if things don�t go as planned with the smith�s work. And they consider any work done such as barrel work as being custom and not to Ruger�s specs. She did say it would not automatically void the unwritten warranty but that it makes it tougher to rectify all issues that might arise due to incorrect work being done by others.

With that information I asked if there would be any additional difficulties re-barreling a Model 77 action versus any other make of gun. She did cite the well known and recognized characteristic of the flat sided feature of the Ruger action as causing some difficulties if the proper tooling and equipment are not used. Due to the flat sides on the action, she stated that the metal thickness in those areas is thinner than other places on the action, and the action can possibly be crushed during barrel removal without use of the proper tooling. (Imagine that. - My comment)

I asked if their barrels were torqued to higher than normal barrel torques, and she told me that she doesn�t know precisely how much torque a specific technician might place on an original factory barrel or on a specific and particular re-barrel job, but that she feels that doing it is just like any other maker�s actions and barrels.

At that point she once again pointed out that Ruger would prefer to do any re-barrel work on their rifles as it puts then in a tough and sometimes costly position trying to fix someone else�s problems.

At that point I thanked her for the information and said good bye. I�m not sure what the next call might result in as far as conflicting information is concerned, but that�s what I got with the female tech person that I talked to.

Edited to add: Any time I send any make of action off to be re-barreled, I recognize that the maker is not probably going to be overjoyed with the fact. Armed with that, I'd never in good conscience expect a manufacturer to bail me out if something unexpectedly went wrong along the way. That information would be between me and the smith to deal with in a private and fair way.