Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Custom Action

BAT and surgeon, they are the only actions I know of that offer both an intergral recoil lug and the option of a machined in picatinny rail. to me might as well just use a 700 if the recoil lug isn't machined in.

my BAT action is like a bank vault and I personally don't care for fancy coatings and actually like my bolts left uncoated and polished doesn't hurt. my action has the picatinny rail built in and it came with a bead blast matte finish, which suits me just fine.

I like an action that is stiffer than a 700 this BAT fills that nicely. but man they are pricey actions.

Butch, in all fairness, he only had problems with the $350 cheapies that he was selling sans bolt. His main actions (I got one of the first ones he built under the Phx name) are top notch and properly executed. That said, my buddy and I ordered a Pierce action yesterday.

To answer the OP's question. I suggest you call around see what's available. Pretty much all of them named here are good actions, All of them named here make actions for custom rifle manufacturers and they shoot great.

We bought a Pierce this time around as it met the price point sought and has an outstanding reputation. We tried to buy a Borden but he was 6 months+ out on the action we wanted. I bought my Phoenix action (Defiance now) as I wanted a one piece bolt milled from a single block of steel.

We tried to buy a Surgeon but they kept telling us one thing but when we actually tried to buy an action, they admitted they didn't have one in stock after all!

It is hard to believe that with 10+ custom action builders out there that not ONE of them seems to be able to keep any in stock. Looks like there's room in the market for a few more action building companies to me!

That's the dumbest thing I have read in this whole thread. A properly fitted rail, epoxied and pinned in place and secured with 8-40 screws is going no place and will make the action more rigid. BAT and Surgeon actions with the integral rails are a nice touch, but make up but a small percentage of custom builds out there that are used by F-class, 1000 yd BR and professional marksman world-wide. If it was such a must-have feature, they would have garnered the lion's share of the market!

A Remington 700? Wow! Typically, they have the scope mounting screws drilled out of alignment, threads are not square to the body. The body itself is never perfectly round after heat treat. The bolt fit is major sloppy, the firing pin hole often needs to be bushed, the recoil lugs should be thrown away or surface ground... A Stiller has all of those problems licked.

I've used the following & will give my thoughts:

Stiller Predator = action wasn't square, alot of slop in the bolt, scope base holes were off, & customer service sucked. I'll never use another - like someone said above, I'd use a trued Rem 700 instead!!!!!!!!!

Surgeon 591 = very good machine work, built like a tank, love the intergral picatinney base & recoil lug. A little heavy & takes some time to get after ordering. Would use another in a heart beat!!


Defiance Machine = excellent machine work, perfect fit/finish, customer service is second to none. Loved it some much, I had to get another!!

The Pheonix club!

Defiance and Surgeons intergral bolt handles are a very nice feature on a hunting rifle,and they aren't charging and arm and leg!

We have a few guys on these forums that just have a beef with us. Anytime anyone asks about our products, their same story comes out. We tried to take care of their issues and they obviously were not happy in the end. The trued Rem 700 remark is just rediculous. We have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of satisfied customers including big OEM builders and the US Military that use our actions and are very happy. Our squareness, bolt fit etc are second to none and we set the bar for extraction. Both surfaces are helically made on the CNC 4th axis and match perfectly and are very linear and easy to run. We had this before any of the others were even building actions. We have a dedicated person working customer service and orders and everyone has been complimentary to him. IF anyone ever has an issue, call us, we will fix it or return your money.

PS. All of our new actions have bolts that are one piece too and our prices are either better or in line.

Funny, I have never heard a bad thing about Jerry Stiller's actions. I have 3 or 4 of them and cannot say a bad word about them, other than I wish they had started coating the bolts in predators before I got mine.

BTW Mr. Stiller thank you for sending out a rail that I needed on December 23rd two years ago. When I called I expected to leave info on a voice mail. I was surprised when I got you, and that you took my order, and even more surprised when it arrived on like the 26th. Thanks for the service.

I heard a rummor that you have a big contract to fill, congrats on that. I hope that it is not going to slow down the supply of actions to general public?

Lawton.......

IMO, in the beginning you guys put out some actions that were "kinda sloppy", shall we say.

From what I can tell, QC is much better now, and so is your product....

No issue, all 500 already shipped.

Funny, the negative talk about remington 700 actions with how many long range bench rest competitions they have won and BR matches period.No action has done better over the past 50 years and they have built way more actions than all the customs combined.Alot of precision actions are just 700 clones so I am more willing to give remington some credit...

Really?

What's funny Mr. Stiller is that you are always on several forums such as this one defending your product when someone (you know, us guys with a beef - LOL!!) brings out a problem we had with your action. Of course, its the same old song and dance with you: we are full of it, don't know what we are talking about, & there was really no problem.

Ever wonder why you don't see Glen Harrison, Preston Pritchett, Bruce Thom, and John Pierce on these type of forums defending their products.................because they handle issues without getting on a public forum and telling everyone that one of their customers with a complaint is full of schit & doesn't know what he's talking about!!!

I agree, Remington designed a great action,the guys building the clones are just tightening the tolerances and refining them, IMO most customs are much more consistant platforms to build on than a 700,but I still like my 700's!

how longs the wait for an action?

Braggin or bitchin!

I quess the next question is how long do you usually wait to receive a action. Someone mentioned Borden is 6 months out. Thats almost as long as getting the rifle built.

Some are in stock. Some take 3 to 4 months. Usually somewhere in between.

Defiance is 3 months or sooner.
Surgeon is making a 100ct RSR run in 4-5 weeks.
Pierce is 8 weeks out on S/A repeaters
Bat Machine can be purchased from Bruno supply today.

All these actions are top-notch