I had put this on Snipers hide and it was suggested that I include it here. I have 2 rimfire target rifles, a 40X and an Anschutz. I had been following people that got a 457 and the good results. Wanting to compete in ARA-50, I bought the 457 MTR rifle because my existing rifles don't qualify die to the fact they have been rebarreled.

I then have done the following:

1) Changed trigger to a Jard 3-6 oz trigger
2) added bolt shims to bring the headspace to the tightest it can be and still close the bolt without undue effort.

The only next change I can make that is legal besides refinishing the stock is to bed it. I have shot targets on various Lapua, RWS and Eley premium brands. As received the groups were in the .5 inch at 50 yards off of a bipod. Doing 1 and 2 they dropped to .35 to some in the .2xx. When I tested the bedded version they fell to some .3xx, more .2xx and 1 group of .195. I realized at that point I had reached my limit with a bipod and I needed to use a machine front rest, which all so necessitated getting new bags. I got some protector bags but my first attempt showed that the front bade, a medium rounded bag, was too big for the stock. So I put my 3" bag back on and put my 3 inch aluminum plate on the rifle. I know this is not a valid configuration for ARA-50 but it would at least let me make an assessment of the true capability of the rifle. Now groups with R50 and Center-X were mostly in the .2's to low 3's with several high .1 groups. I had also been shooting some ARA-50 targets and before I bedded it, the best was 2150. after I bedded it they jumped to 2300 but with the bags that let me have too much cant. When I shot the 3 inch plate my C-X was 2350 and my R50 was the holy grail of 2500-1X.

The 457 is a lot different than a remington 700 which I have done about 8 of them. They are easy. the 457 because of the trigger and magazine cutout holes doesn't have a lot of bedding area to work with. The pillars that are used in the standard MTR stock are plastic and somewhat soft. So they needed to go and I used Pete's Pillars to replace the plastic pillars. I also figured that I would lift the whole action about .030 to allow for and undulations in the inlet and get a nice thick coat of epoxy to hld the action and the first 1 inch of the barrel.

Attached is a full description of every step I did with pictures. I hope it shows any of you that are on the fence you don't need a lathe or mill to do this job (altough that would be awesome). A drill press and vice suffice.

Enjoy

David

PS, if you have questions feel free to ask. As a disclaimer, I am not a gunsmith but I am a retired engineer and grew up on the farm.

They aren't hard to bed once you do a few. They are just really time consuming. Plug all the holes on receiver and dam up the holes in the stock . Will make cleaning a whole lot easier. Biggest problem like you said 40x actions are easy . This is because they have a lot of room and you can use the action screws to keep the action lined up square in the stock or use stock screws. If you make you some long action screw to keep the action lined up while the bedding is setting up will help a lot

 

Make sure the legs of the trigger spring can seat down next to the rear pillar and are not on held on top of the bedding. Other than that they are pretty straight forward.

 

Pete’s pillars are machined fir clearance as log as epoxy doesn’t sneak in there.

david

 

Saw your post on this on SH. Appreciate you sharing here also @dstoenner

 

Can you use bolt shims in ARA Factory class?

 

That is a good question. I will read the rules again but I don’t remember it being called out. I know you cannot add weight.

david

 

I can not get the file to download.

 

I had put this on Snipers hide and it was suggested that I include it here. I have 2 rimfire target rifles, a 40X and an Anschutz. I had been following people that got a 457 and the good results. Wanting to compete in ARA-50, I bought the 457 MTR rifle because my existing rifles don't qualify due to the fact they have been re-barreled.

I then did the following:

1) Changed trigger to a Jard 3-6 oz trigger
2) added bolt shims to bring the headspace to the tightest it can be and still close the bolt without undue effort.

The only next change I can make that is legal besides refinishing the stock is to bed it......

The 457 is a lot different than a Remington 700 which I have done about 8 of them. They are easy. the 457 because of the trigger and magazine cutout holes doesn't have a lot of bedding area to work with. The pillars that are used in the standard MTR stock are plastic and somewhat soft. So they needed to go and I used Pete's Pillars to replace the plastic pillars. I also figured that I would lift the whole action about .030 to allow for and undulations in the inlet and get a nice thick coat of epoxy to hold the action and the first 1 inch of the barrel....

Attached is a full description of every step I did with pictures. I hope it shows any of you that are on the fence you don't need a lathe or mill to do this job (although that would be awesome). A drill press and vice suffice.

Enjoy

David

PS, if you have questions feel free to ask. As a disclaimer, I am not a gunsmith but I am a retired engineer and grew up on the farm.

David,
Your 40x and Anshutz were not qualified to shoot in ARA Factory Class due to their MSRP being higher than the (now) $1250 limit. But you are correct in that any rifle that has been re-barreled would also be disqualified for factory class. Your two target rifles would be qualified to shoot in the unlimited class, however.

I also think that you will find that most match directors would view the addition of bolt shim to be a violation of the rules. Bolt shims has been a pretty hot topic within the ARA community, and the general consensus is that "it didn't come from the factory that way." I'm not the ARA police so if you want to keep them in your rifle, you may find that it would be better if you just kept quiet about it.

You mentioned re-finishing your stock. I wouldn't do that either; leave the factory finish on the rifle. A re-finished rifle may indicate that you have somehow made a modification to the stock that is not allowed, and the re-finish is hiding that modification.

Bedding is allowed, and when I did my rifle, instead of lifting the action to allow for a thicker epoxy bedding, I used my woodworking tools to remove some wood to the interior of the stock (about 1/8") to allow for a thicker epoxy bed, while also drilling some very shallow holes in the interior of the stock so the epoxy had something to grab onto and really lock it in place. As has been mentioned, place some type of putty in those places you don't want the epoxy to enter, along with applying several coats of clear shoe polish to the action (buffing it off after each coat), to keep the epoxy from adhering to the action.

I did not make any changes to the pillars, as I didn't see the need to do so. Through the use of epoxy, I just made the perfect bedding of my rifle's action, the action is now fully supported, and any stress point have been removed, what are pillars going to do to improve upon this? If the rifle was of a larger caliber, I might think differently.

Now that you have your rifle bedded, it's time to adjust/experiment with the action screws. I think you'll find that a torque setting somewhere between 18–22-inch pounds will be your sweet spot.

I tried to open your attachment, but for some reason was unable to.

The final arbitrator on ARA rules is Killough Shooting Sports in Texas. If you have any questions with what is or is not allowed, give them a call and ask to speak with Dawn.

I will suggest you go onto the benchrest subforum here on RFC and read through the threads. I think you will pick up a lot of good information there. Most of the people who are on that subforum are ARA shooters so you can gain some knowledge from their experience.

It sounds like you are well on your way to be a competitive Factory Class shooter. Now, get some wind flags and you'll be ready for your first match. I've been shooting ARA factory for three years and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Like you, I am also not a gunsmith, and I did grow up on a hog farm.

 

For right now the nearest ARA match is close to ashville, a 4 hour drive so that is not happening. If one pops up closer i would do it. I agree that i ask a match director if the shim is legal of not and then handle it directly.


As much as i hated the finish on the stock my clean up on the bedding left sanded places on the stock and the only way to make it nice was to refinish it.

Right now i shoot on a 100M indoor range so don’t need wind flags but i do shoot in outdoor competitions out to 1000 yards.

i have a friend in California that shoots ARA and N50 and we are going to have a once a month postal competition between us. He has 2 cz457 mtr’s. He is who I originally wrote this document for in order to convince him it was within his abality to do it but he still isn’t convinced but he sure likes my groups i am now getting

thanks all for the comments

David

 

David, Thanks for the detailed bedding process. Looks like a project for this Winter for me, still a couple months of Snow up here in Eastern Canada.
I, too, was unable to download from this forum but I went to SH and it was FINE. Maybe too large for this server or the inet was too busy ?
Just as an aside, there has been a real shortage of good ammo across Canada But the main Distributor has just sent out a 'replenishment' of many of the SK / LAPUA labels. They are selling about the same cost as last year, but unfortunately not the same as 2-3 years ago. I hope the same goes for you guys 'down there'.

 

I had put this on Snipers hide and it was suggested that I include it here. I have 2 rimfire target rifles, a 40X and an Anschutz. I had been following people that got a 457 and the good results. Wanting to compete in ARA-50, I bought the 457 MTR rifle because my existing rifles don't qualify die to the fact they have been rebarreled.

I then have done the following:

1) Changed trigger to a Jard 3-6 oz trigger
2) added bolt shims to bring the headspace to the tightest it can be and still close the bolt without undue effort.

The only next change I can make that is legal besides refinishing the stock is to bed it. I have shot targets on various Lapua, RWS and Eley premium brands. As received the groups were in the .5 inch at 50 yards off of a bipod. Doing 1 and 2 they dropped to .35 to some in the .2xx. When I tested the bedded version they fell to some .3xx, more .2xx and 1 group of .195. I realized at that point I had reached my limit with a bipod and I needed to use a machine front rest, which all so necessitated getting new bags. I got some protector bags but my first attempt showed that the front bade, a medium rounded bag, was too big for the stock. So I put my 3" bag back on and put my 3 inch aluminum plate on the rifle. I know this is not a valid configuration for ARA-50 but it would at least let me make an assessment of the true capability of the rifle. Now groups with R50 and Center-X were mostly in the .2's to low 3's with several high .1 groups. I had also been shooting some ARA-50 targets and before I bedded it, the best was 2150. after I bedded it they jumped to 2300 but with the bags that let me have too much cant. When I shot the 3 inch plate my C-X was 2350 and my R50 was the holy grail of 2500-1X.

The 457 is a lot different than a remington 700 which I have done about 8 of them. They are easy. the 457 because of the trigger and magazine cutout holes doesn't have a lot of bedding area to work with. The pillars that are used in the standard MTR stock are plastic and somewhat soft. So they needed to go and I used Pete's Pillars to replace the plastic pillars. I also figured that I would lift the whole action about .030 to allow for and undulations in the inlet and get a nice thick coat of epoxy to hld the action and the first 1 inch of the barrel.

Attached is a full description of every step I did with pictures. I hope it shows any of you that are on the fence you don't need a lathe or mill to do this job (altough that would be awesome). A drill press and vice suffice.

Enjoy

David

PS, if you have questions feel free to ask. As a disclaimer, I am not a gunsmith but I am a retired engineer and grew up on the farm.

The attachment wont show or load ?

 

I don’t know why rimfire central is blocking the download. Ether pm me your email or it is aldo on snipers hide under a post by me dstoenner in the cz457 thread

david

 

I get an error message when I open the file. Can you send it to me please?