Update 2/8 - Help. Torque Specs for Precision bolt gun build, ammo questions, etc

[Eurodriver]

Guys, I've got the rifle completely assembled. Thanks for all of the info. Luckily, buying quality components they included torque specs for all of these.

However, the AAC 51T FH instructions say 5/8x24 requires 45-55ft lbs of torque. This seems extremely excessive for a precision setup. Can anyone confirm if this is necessary?

UPS didn't deliver the AAC 51T until 9:30 pm. I torqued it to 29~ft lbs as 55 seems absolutely ridiculous. The rocksett that came with the mount was already dried up, so it sort of came off as I screwed the mount on. I'm growing very weary of AAC lately, as it should not have been a pain in the ass to find the correct AAC mount to mate my my AAC suppressor to my AAC rifle. Their customer service is lacking, and their product quality seems to going down with it.

OAL with the suppressor is 44.5"

I'll get this rifle to the range Sunday. Zeroing at 100 and then immediately taking her to 600 and 1000.




I actually had to hack off a good chunk of material from this stock in order to get it to legitimately freefloat. The barrel rested on the stock both underneath and on the left side. The new X-Mark trigger feels remarkably better than the old one I had, and a quick adjustment had it breaking at 2.5lbs.

As far as torque specs, again, quality components provide the specs they want. The only thing that was difficult to find was the Action screw torque specs which slm4daddy provided. Also, AAC's Torque specs seemed a bit ridiculous and worry me a bit.

[MBtech]

Euro, I have that same rifle but 20". What did you "hack off"? Do you have pics of material you removed?

[Eurodriver]

Sure I can get pics.

All I did was take a dremel with a sandpaper bit, and shaved off about 1/8" from each side of the barrel channel and deepened the U shaped notch underneath the barrel by about 1/4"

It's barely noticeable but that barrel is not touching the stock regardless of what happens.

[Eurodriver]

I'm not sure what is going on with this rifle. Today I shot BH 168, BH 175 Moly coated, and Nosler 168 factory match ammo.

The *Best* 5 shot group I had at 100 yards was with the BH 168 and that was ~2 MOA. Take a look at some of these groups and tell me what you think is going on. I was firing from a Caldwell Lead Sled and I'm a decent shooter.

This is with BH 168gr. The middle group was my "boresight zero" I then did a 1 MOA come up and shot a 6 round group in the top left corner.

Then I attached the suppressor and shot the top right group without adjusting the sights. I came up ~3 MOA and left 1 MOA and shot the bottom left group (2 rounds in the writing). Then I made a final 2 MOA up adjustment and 1 MOA right adjustment and fired the bottom right corner 3 rounds. This was my best target all day. 5 MOA up seems very excessive for adding a suppressor to a stiff 16" barrel.


This is with Nosler 168gr and representative of the type of groups I got all day long


In hindsight, I wish I fired 10 rounds of each type of ammo at the same target to get a true group size/zero, but I went with a bunch of buddies who were too busy blasting away (with my ARs!) and hassling me with questions.

Thoughts? Is this normal for a brand new barrel? Is there anything I can or should be doing?

[mark5pt56]

Ok, barrel channel is clear, no issues?
All screws torqued to spec?
I would pull the action screws, make sure the bottom metal is seated properly and re-torque them. when done, make sure the mag box has a slight "wiggle" to it.
Check parallax on the scope?
make sure there are no issues on the muzzle crown?

Hope that helps-take your time and maybe have a buddy shoot it also.

[Hootiewho]

This is not a dig on your shooting, so please do not take it as me saying that, but also when you check the things Mark mentioned, I would dry fire 2-5 times prior to each shot at the next range trip. Get in position, dry fire....then one round live. This is especially useful with a new rifle that you are still learning. I would probably go ahead and pull the FH and try shooting without it on just to verify that is not an issue. I had a SF brake that I learned later on the guy who installed it had used used shims, making it off center and I was getting slight impacts on the aperature of the brake throwing my shots off by FEET at 100 yards. Same thing could possibly happen with a threaded muzzle that is not concentric to the bore.

Be patient when you take that shorty out to 1k in FL. You can do it, but I would look at the 185 gr Juggernauts or 178 gr AMAX. FWIW, Natchez did have Power Pro 2000MR in stock, which is a great powder for the heavies.

[mark5pt56]

This is not a dig on your shooting, so please do not take it as me saying that, but also when you check the things Mark mentioned, I would dry fire 2-5 times prior to each shot at the next range trip. Get in position, dry fire....then one round live. This is especially useful with a new rifle that you are still learning. I would probably go ahead and pull the FH and try shooting without it on just to verify that is not an issue. I had a SF brake that I learned later on the guy who installed it had used used shims, making it off center and I was getting slight impacts on the aperature of the brake throwing my shots off by FEET at 100 yards. Same thing could possibly happen with a threaded muzzle that is not concentric to the bore.

Be patient when you take that shorty out to 1k in FL. You can do it, but I would look at the 185 gr Juggernauts or 178 gr AMAX. FWIW, Natchez did have Power Pro 2000MR in stock, which is a great powder for the heavies.

Indeed, great combo--for me, for me 47 grains and the juggs for 2700fps, awesome, that would be a shoulder full for that rig

[Eurodriver]

Ok, barrel channel is clear, no issues? Correct
All screws torqued to spec? Yes, to the spec listed in this thread a few posts above
I would pull the action screws, make sure the bottom metal is seated properly and re-torque them. when done, make sure the mag box has a slight "wiggle" to it.
Check parallax on the scope? Several times
make sure there are no issues on the muzzle crown? There wasn't before I installed the MD

Hope that helps-take your time and maybe have a buddy shoot it also.

I also had 2 buddies shoot it, and even swallowed my pride to have the guy next to me (who was shooting sub MOA at 100 with a R700) shoot it. All 4 of us managed no greater than 2.5 MOA with the Nosler ammo.

Hootie, I am absolutely not taking offense to anything. In fact, I hope you offend me with a simple solution! I don't mean to sound like the frustrated "no, no, no, I tried that and it still didn't work!!" but I did dry fire quite a few times to ensure I wasn't jerking after experiencing the recoil and the reticle didn't move. I even tried using several different areas of my finger to pull the trigger.

Hootie and Mark - I spoke to a smith around here who does excellent work (I have seen it firsthand shoot sub MOA at 1000) He isn't cheap, but this project has already gone from a $1500 "budget" build to a $2500 "decent" build, and will soon be a $3500 "okay" build. I certainly don't want it to be a $5000 piece of garbage that still can't shoot MOA. Anyway, he is going to put it in an HS precision stock (my preference), bed it, and install a Timney. He's also going to remove the muzzle device, check for concentricity, and then give it back to me to try.

The unfortunate bit about the entire thing is that

A) If it's the muzzle device causing the issue - well, that sucks. I bought the 16.5" specifically to suppress it.

or B) If the threads are the issue, it is 16.5" as is which means there is no room to chop off the existing barrel and re-thread. I'll have to rebarrel which means that I will have literally paid $700 for a Remington action and bolt at that point.

[mark5pt56]

Don't be offended, sell it as a barreled action-for the action, you will save money in the end. If staying with the .308, buy a Tikka CTR

New or see if this guy will sell the rifle and hopefully has the original stock/mag.

http://snipershide.scout.com/forums/...-valdada?s=541

[Eurodriver]

I just sent him a PM with a couple questions. He does not have the original stock or mag per his post.