My Remington 700 PSS Cleanup Operation
I'm not going to call myself a gunsmith - however, I'm pretty handy around the shop. On that note, I decided to clean up my Remington 700 PSS. This is the rifle that I took last year to Storm Mountain Training Center for the Long Range Rifle III train-up course and the 1999 Carlos II Sniper Shoot. I was of course excited about this training environment - and did whatever I could to fit in.
Trying to do my best with camouflage - I painted my rifle - to the same Color Scheme as my camouflage utilities. This was of course against the recommendations of my shooting partner - who had already been through having to clean this crap off of a rifle. I understood later why he was grinning while I proudly painted my rifle.
After several hours with paint stripper, paint thinner and patience - I finally managed to get this rifle looking pretty good - back to the basic Rem PSS flat black. I have to say - the Leupold scope cleaned up nicely too. I was afraid the paint stripper would attack the flake finish on the PSS barrel and the flat black original color of the Leupold scope - however - I had no problems with this. I will put camouflage pajamas on my rifles in the future. Lesson learned there.
While this rifle was broken down - I noticed the hollowed area in the inside of the stock forearm. The best answers that I could get out of my comrades - was that this was done to reduce weight. HA! this rifle NEEDS weight. It beat the living heck out of my shoulder last year. I decided to fill this area with lead pellets and 2 ton epoxy devcon. Yeah - I know - a lot of you are freaking out right about now - have faith - this turned out pretty good. Take a look at the filled stock, and the finished filled cavity. This resulted in re-enforcing the stock and adding about 1/2 pound of weight.
I purchased a Pacmayer recoil pad to add to the length of pull on the stock and to dampen the beating you take when shooting this thing. First order of business was to remove the old recoil pad, mount the new recoil pad, and tape the stock to guard against accidental sand paper scuffs. Pacmayer recommends using a sanding disc with 80 grit paper to shape the recoil pad to your stock. This worked quite well. I had really good luck with a variable speed drill - which allowed me to turn the sanding disc at a slow speed. If you try to turn too fast - you will tear the rubber part of the pad, and the drill in general will be hard to control. After about an hour or so of work - I ended up with this as the finished recoil pad. Just to give you an idea of the improvement in length of pull and recoil dampening, take a look at this comparison of the factory to Pacmayer recoil pad
Onward... to reassembly. I had picked up one of those Kokopelli scope ring alignment and ring lap combination kits (30mm) awhile back to lap the rings on another project. Well - since we're here why not check the alignment and prepare to lap these rings. As a starting point, note the original unlapped rings. I covered the action with a cloth with slits cut for the rings - kind of like a barber shop veil.
Next, I mounted the Kokopelli lap bar covered with lapping compound, and inserted the top scope rings. Note - these rings were not tightened down. Only enough pressure to feel some drag with the lapping bar. There are folks out there that do the top rings separately. Well - have at it. It just makes more sense to me to lap it as it will sit. The lapping instructions in the kit says to go slow, and rotate the bar - don't take too much material out of the rings. Believe it .... It didn't take me very long to end up with these rings looking nice and shiny. This means much better contact area between these rings and the scope body - plus - any slight misalignment stress presented to the scope by the unlapped rings has been eliminated. Of course - I have to assume the Kokopelli lap bar is perfectly straight.
After cleaning these shiny rings with lacquer thinner, I applied some cold bluing with Q-tips to the shined surfaces, following with the water cleanup of the bluing with Q-tips and cold tap water.
Hang with me - we're about done for this pass. Now the finishing part was to mount and align the scope. Here's what I ended up with: Rear view, Middle view, Front view
If anyone is interested - this rifle IS for sale. Contact me for details.
Please feel free to provide feedback. Contact me at: ken@hunters.org.
Ken Hunter
