450 Rigby Part 3

D'Arcy picks up the 450 story again in part 3 

"As mentioned before this FZH receiver was ordered in the annealed state to allow the required machine work to be completed without the use of carbide tooling. It was time to ship the receiver and bolt off to be carburized. 

If you wanted to start a lively argument on the subject of re-heated treating 98's toss out this question in a scrum of rifle builders anywhere in the world, trades shows and conventions are the perfect venue. Liberal alcohol should be applied say an hour before you start this discussion. Let's just say opinions will very. 

This FZH is made from a modern carbon steel with its DNA and heat treating requirements well established and easy to acquire the proper surface hardness and penetration depth when done by professionals.

In due time both parts returned and the work began to re-polish the bolt body and receiver. Yes you can chemically strip off some of the scale and then bead blast the surfaces but the final work is a loathsome job requiring tedious hours of hand work, especially the 2nd time around. But you now have a complete surface envelope of hardened steel on your modified receiver and bolt body.

Once re-polished the receiver face, inner collar, bolt face, lug seats and the rear face of the recoil lugs are trued once again. These operations were all done prior to heat treatment but during the carburizing process  some minor warpage will occur, it is inevitable. If you're lucky very little material will have to be removed  .001 or less would be typical on each surface.

Now the the barrel is properly head spaced by calculating the math and setting back our pre-chambered barrel to accomplish this task, compared to polishing this is easy work. Gauges confirm we have everything in order and dummy rounds are again fed through the barreled action to ensure all is well in the Galaxy6. With the exception of the sight work the metal-work is functional and ready for the pattern stock. 

If you have followed this blog at all you know I prefer to use a pantograph and pattern stock, period. However I did not have a drop box magnum left handed pattern in my inventory. I had couple left hand patterns for Model 70's so I cut the butt section off a right hand 98 long magnum pattern as well a butt stock from a left hand stock and went to work. Sort of like grafting apple trees. 

Having built quite a few iron sight rifles using my receiver sights I have had a fair idea of what my typical LOP, drop and cast measurements were going to be. If you look at these pattern stocks you can already see where the cut pattern has been altered in the past for a previous project, note the saw cut just ahead of the comb nose and the wooden dowel exposed mid way down the grip. Visible below the dowel you can see Bondo and Marine Tex filling in the voids that held the whole thing together. The same application is applied here, cut, move, and splice. Right hand to left, add a bolt stop shelf to the opposite side, more drop, less drop, cast off or on, whatever is required so the client can mount the rifle and be looking down the line of sight comfortably. This grip would feature a Wundhammer swell and a few other cosmetic effects to the comb nose and cheek piece that are out of the ordinary for me, but LB had left index finger damaged in his youth so we needed to deal with how to allow him to best reach to the trigger lever and quickly as this rifle would not be used on ground squirrels. 

When I felt the pattern was pretty close to what we'd need, I installed a secondary recoil lug that was both screwed and soldered on the bottom side of the barrel shank. This barrel would be free-floated once completed so placing the second lug  5" or so forward the receiver would be useless, to say the least. I then installed a Universal Recknagel banded front sight ramp. Normally I would make the front sight ramp which would allow me all kinds of height adjustment correction during the sight regulation process something that was now quite limited with the banded design. I was reminded of the quote from Chief Dan George in the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales "We endeavored to persevere", and so I did. 

It was at this stage, I called a good friend of mine in town who is also left-handed and serves as my test engineer when left handle issue have to be addressed. I handed Roger the 450 and asked him to step outside and mount the rifle quite a few times and give me his impression. As I am a devout right handed shooter that is not all the fond of palm swells I just couldn't get the right feel for what I'd put together. Roger is a keen rifleman and has shot a few buffalo so any input would be appreciated at this point. I got the thumbs up and I went back to work. 

The barreled action was now glass bedded into the pattern stock and the selected piece of California English Walnut was put into the Hoenig Pantograph and cut .250 oversized externally and internally from the pattern then removed from the machine and hung on a peg to breathe. In this roughed state any internal demons bound up in that blank were hopefully set free. 

While installing the barrel band front ramp I also installed a Recknagel barrel band swivel base and cut a dovetail slot into the rear square bridge to accept my rear receiver sight base. Doing some preliminary math gave me the approximate heights required to first shots close to the desired point of impact. 

LB would soon be in the area on his way to hunt deer in Wyoming and a shop visit was planned for him to handle the assembled work to date and allow me to fine tune the pattern as I stood by with a collection of rasp and files and watched him mount the rifle.