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Custom Barrel vs Pre-Fit

longrangeautist

Private
Minuteman
Apr 8, 2022
3
0
Montana
So I've been interested in grabbing a Tikka for its Pre-Fit capability, but I've got a few Remington 700s and Bergaras which brought me to the question:

Instead of buying a Tikka, could I just have a barrel spun up by my smith for the 700's or the Bergara and swap them at my bench on their respective receivers as I please?

Thanks.
 
Yes. Same barrel to same action

You just need barrel vise and action wrench. Smith can headspace with a shoulder. Or you can do a barrel nut combo with prefits. Good idea to use go/no go gauges. Especially with the nut
 
So I've been interested in grabbing a Tikka for its Pre-Fit capability, but I've got a few Remington 700s and Bergaras which brought me to the question:

Instead of buying a Tikka, could I just have a barrel spun up by my smith for the 700's or the Bergara and swap them at my bench on their respective receivers as I please?

Thanks.

You could probably take all the Bergara actions or all the 700 actions to the smith and have him create a “best fit” barrel that could be interchanged between each of that action. However, what you are proposing generally won’t work as there is too much variation between actions, of even the same manufacturer…certainly among factory Remington 700s. I’m not familiar enough with Bergara actions to speak definitively but if you trust the smith, he should be able to tell you
 
You mean swap between receivers? Each barrel will fit only the receiver it was fitted to.
Yes. Same barrel to same action

You just need barrel vise and action wrench. Smith can headspace with a shoulder. Or you can do a barrel nut combo with prefits. Good idea to use go/no go gauges. Especially with the nut
Yeah, I guess I didn’t really word that very well. I meant that if I took that bergara or a 700 and had a 308, 260, 7mm-08, 243 barrel made on the same receiver I could just treat that receiver and those barrels spun up for it as prefits and just go/no go them at my bench.
 
I just mentioned the gauges because you mentioned pre fits. If you chose a route that you utilized a nut system, the same as a savage, you would not need a smith. Just want gauges to check headspace in that case