Torque Wrech or Screwdriver

jimy

jimy

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Southern Gulf Islands, B.C.
It's time to buy a torque tool for working on my rifles.

I have a new Remington 700 338 Lapua that I want to swap into an AICS stock and mount a rail and scope onto.

What are you nutz using for this kind of work?

I have done a couple of searches and Midway has the Wheeler Engineering Fat wrench. Any comments on that wrench or any others? Ease of use, quality vs cost etc. are what I'm wondering about mostly. Also where did you buy yours.

Thanks in advance.

SW
 
Utica is a brand that blows away the Wheeler in build quality. Its industrial, all metal. You can sometimes find them on ebay for under $100
 
Seekonk torque wrenches, one for stock bolts and one for scope bolts. Got them pretty cheap years back in a group buy on snipershide.
 
mysticplayer said:
Using "alot" of torque to hold an action into the stock is a bad idea.

Jerry
Click to expand...

Hence...a torque wrench or torque screw driver.

My first choice would be Snap-On : http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?P65=&tool=all&item_ID=55247&group_ID=953&store=snapon-store&dir=catalog

Borka driver is a little smaller and less expensive : http://www.borkatools.com/pages/atd12/mtsd.html

I just ordered the Borka, but the wife found it in the mail and stole it to put under the tree. I'll do a review after christmas.
 
I use one of these from Sinclair....does everything I need it to do.

l_749102025_1.jpg


Action, Scope base, Scope rings.
 
Ahem. Maybe I say so and shouldn't - but the best guys for any job are the specialists. I am somewhat educated on torquing and bolting tools and recommend these guys in Canada:

www.torquetools.com

Not only do they sell the torque tools - but they repair and service them too. They meet ISO17025 and are the only guys in western Canada that carry that level of certification. Call them up, tell them what torque range you will need - and they will set you up.
 
Torque wrench. Anything else is a poor guess. There are charts online to find the proper torque setting for whichever diameter fastener you need to use.
 
I use a Torky that I bought 35 yeasr ago for $35. It allows me to set whatever in-pound i want.

Anchutz sells a nice little one, but it is calibrated in fig-newtons, which I do not relate to.

In a wood stock, the wood will compress and crush if the action screw is over-torqued. According to the remington Custom Shop:

Wood stocks 35 in lb front and 32 rear.

Pillar bedded stocks 60 front and rear.
 
cycbb486 said:
Jerry what do you consider to be a lot??

I do mine around 30 inch pounds.
Click to expand...

I believe the bedding holds the action and stock together NOT the force of the action bolts. Action bolts are not designed to be load bearing devices.

Just to keep the action and stock from separating under use - and that takes very little force.

So when I bed my rifles, the action and stock are like one with no wiggling around. They feel like you should be able to shoot them as is.

I then hand tighten the action bolts so they don't loosen. No idea what that relates to in torque value as I have never measured what it is. certainly not much.

Most of my stocks are also pillar bedded so the bolt snugs up tight when it hits that pillar.

Many suggest 65 in lbs or a value similar to this to secure the action in the stock. It can work but if the action is poorly supported, the action will squirm in the bedding and cause all manner of flyers over time.

The worst have been the alum chassis V block stocks some of which aren't even level to the action. After use, you can see two lines worn on the bottom of the action and usually a grey/black sludge - that would be a mixture of bluing and alum dust. Wear caused by high freq vibration.

And indicates the contact point of that action to the stock. Not much in my books.

You can also sometimes see this on the back of the recoil lug - but only if it made contact with the chassis. Many don't

Most fun is to look into the action bolt holes in the chassis. If all went as planned, there will thread marks inside this hole. Considering that this hole is not threaded and sig larger then the bolt going through it, how did those marks get there?

I have seen bent action bolts too.

You can torque till the cows come home but if there is nothing solid holding that action in place, the action will move until something jams into something else. In general, that is the action bolt against that hole.

And given how the marks are typical all around the chassis hole, that poor bolt moved around alot.

Proper bedding supports the recoil lug fully ON ALL SIDES. The recoil lug is there to take up the recoil loads and torque (why it needs to be bedded on all sides). The recoil lug touching the stock through the bedding (better if it made direct contact but that is also rare) transfer that force to the rest of the stock. The action bolts are isolated from both recoil and the vibration (why they shouldn't loosen so you don't need alot of force to keep them in place).

My thoughts on the matter.

Jerry
 
I would say that Jerry is mostly right. While over-torquing is certainly a bad thing, inconsistent torque from bolt-to-bolt can be less than ideal too, depending on your setup.

For a properly bedded stock the torque setting used is mostly irrelevant, so long as it's sufficient to hold everything together. You can even 'tune' many barreled-actions in a bedded stock by changing the torque setting on the rear action screw (Starting at 35 in/lbs and working up in 5lb increments).

For an unbedded stock, you'll want to ensure that all action screws share the same torque settings and that it does not exceed 60in/lbs (many stop at 40in/lbs), so as not to crack/split/crush the stock material under the action.

Facts to Remember:
  1. Using screw Lube/Never-Seez/Oil will increase the torque applied by 30% - 50%
  2. Stay away from Loctite Antisieze!! - it's crap.
  3. The Max torque value for a stainless steel screw is less than half of what a standard black steel cap screw is.
 
As a licensed M1/M2 AME, I torque bolts/screws on a daily basis. Correct tooling is essential. I use Snap-On torque wrenches because "there is a difference."

I can tell from taking apart other peoples work, that if you torque by "feel", 90% of the time you have OVER-STRESSED the parts. The other 10% of the time you will be under.

The only way to be sure, is to use a CALIBRATED torque driver.

The big problem with almost all princess-auto/Canadian tire/el cheapo brand torque drivers, is that they CANNOT be calibrated. Therefore you have no idea if you are over stressing the parts.

A good tool may appear expensive, but it will last your lifetime and beyond. I'm sure everyone on this site could say they invest in precious metals...Fancy firearms. Why not invest in some nice tooling to help maintain those fancy firearms.

Buy once, cry once.
 
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