How critical is the quality of the barrel nut?

[Qbert]

Is there a real benefit to getting a premium barrel nut such as Northland's 'squared and trued' unit? It will be for a target/competition rig.

http://northlandshooterssupply.com/nss-tools-and-upgraes/nss-upgraded-components/

I have a Criterion barrel and a precision ground recoil lug, but a factory nut. If beneficial, I'll bite the bullet and order one up. This project is nickel and diming me to death!

[darkker]

.... Well... Think of how many people "heard" how fantabulous Savages shoot. All done with "crappy" factory nuts... It is a jam nut, to keep the barrel from moving and changing headspace. Do you think it matters? If so buy, then buy one.
You thought the recoil lug mattered, so maybe the nut matters for your application.

[foxx]

In your experience darker is it worth the extra cost?

[sharpshooter]

There's nothing bad about the factory nuts.......if you knew how they were made, you'd know that they can't be anything but square.

[darkker]

Personally, no.
It is a jam nut, that's all.
I need it to maintain the position of the barrel, relative to the receiver. If the factory nut can accomplish this task, while only using (for the sake of argument) 20% shoulder contact; I fail to see the rationale for a 98% contact nut.

Sex appeal and necessity are two different things. Do you want a sexy magic nut that was sent down from heaven? Maybe you do. But the question of do you "need it". That answer is absolutely not.

Fashion Vs. Function. Neither is the "wrong" choice, but be honest about what it is you are choosing.

My $0.02

... and there is 2 K's in Darkker:cool:

[foxx]

Thanx.
Auto corect

[LongRange]

personally when i when i built my 260 i went with the lug and the nut and the reason being is after removing the factory barrel and seeing how tight the factory put the nuts on and knowing that im going to reinstall the nut at 25ins lbs my thought was the more nut contact the better...now does it matter? maybe not but im a firm believer that the truer a mating surface is the better...if your rebarreling or doing a custom build why use a factory nut that a gorilla tightened? plus you bought a nice barrel and the lug why not the nut to finish it off?...you can get nuts from mcgowen as well that are pretty nice and a little cheaper.

[scope eye]

In this order of necessity Barrel, recoil lug, barrel nut,

Dean

[Steelhead]

personally when i when i built my 260 i went with the lug and the nut and the reason being is after removing the factory barrel and seeing how tight the factory put the nuts on and knowing that im going to reinstall the nut at 25ins lbs my thought was the more nut contact the better...now does it matter? maybe not but im a firm believer that the truer a mating surface is the better...if your rebarreling or doing a custom build why use a factory nut that a gorilla tightened? plus you bought a nice barrel and the lug why not the nut to finish it off?...you can get nuts from mcgowen as well that are pretty nice and a little cheaper.

Ditto for my 260, I could see uneven marks on the new savage nut I initially used.

[northlander]

Several shooters have asked me that very question. When you remove the factory barrel nut you can look at the contact surface and see for yourself how uniform they are. If the barrel nut does not sit square the internal threads that engage the barrel will not allow the barrel to sit square either. Almost every Gunsmith that I know offers some sort of a squaring and trueing on the barrel nut along with a precision ground recoil lug. The more you can align your barrel and action the better most rifles will shoot.

Their have been several posts where shooters have received new rifles from Savage only to see several inches of scope windage or elevation required to get them close to dialed in. A lot of these rifles were corrected by swapping out the factory parts for those parts that were more precise. There have been several posts on here as well as on Accurate Shooters discussing this in detail.

Jim Briggs
NSS

[Qbert]

Thanks for all the replies!

[geargrinder]

There's nothing bad about the factory nuts.......if you knew how they were made, you'd know that they can't be anything but square.

So tell us how they are made. What about their process makes them inherently square?

[Savage6x284]

So tell us how they are made. What about their process makes them inherently square?

Having been heavily involved in the QC labs of several aerospace machining firms I can tell you that if a part, any part, is made on a machine, any machine, then there is always a chance that the part will be wrong.
Whether these are made on screw machines, CNC lathes with live tooling, manual lathes, or 8 axis vertical machining centers costing a million bucks each there will be parts made that are not within the tolerances allowed.
No machining method known to man is utterly perfect all the time.

If I were to use a factory nut I'd screw it onto a precisely made mandrel placed between centers on my lathe and face both ends of the nut to ensure that they were square to the threads within .0001" or so. If the mandrel was already made the entire process would be completed in under 10 minutes.

[sharpshooter]

Thery are made on a bar fed cnc lathe. A bar feeder pushes stock through the headstock of the lathe. The tools do all of the work as it is held in a rotary collet, so all of the operations are done in one fixturing. There are bored, threaded, faced, contoured and milled before they are cut off. A secondary axis picks off the part and deburrs the tapered end.
So the business end is always square with the threads. You may notice on some that there are some minute burrs left from the slot milling operation on the face, but that can be remedied quick with a couple of swipes on a stone.

[BillPa]

If I were to use a factory nut I'd screw it onto a precisely made mandrel placed between centers on my lathe and face both ends of the nut to ensure that they were square to the threads within .0001" or so. If the mandrel was already made the entire process would be completed in under 10 minutes.

Don't forget the receiver ring while you're at it! :p
http://i43.tinypic.com/30mqxir.jpg

[Savage6x284]

Thery are made on a bar fed cnc lathe. A bar feeder pushes stock through the headstock of the lathe. The tools do all of the work as it is held in a rotary collet, so all of the operations are done in one fixturing. There are bored, threaded, faced, contoured and milled before they are cut off. A secondary axis picks off the part and deburrs the tapered end.
So the business end is always square with the threads. You may notice on some that there are some minute burrs left from the slot milling operation on the face, but that can be remedied quick with a couple of swipes on a stone.

As I expected they were.
I've rejected countless parts made precisely like this using some of the finest European and Japanese live tooling, bar fed CNC lathes.
They can, and do, make out of tolerance parts. With the modern CNC lathes an operator can make a BUNCH of out of tolerance parts very rapidly.

[Savage6x284]

Don't forget the receiver ring while you're at it! :p
http://i43.tinypic.com/30mqxir.jpg


No question!
A perfectly made nut is no good if the face of the receiver ring is not square as well.

[sharpshooter]

So why would you think Jim's nuts are made any different?

[Savage6x284]

So why would you think Jim's nuts are made any different?

I did not imply that they were.

There are ways to make a part such as this perfect within a tenth or better but the methods are either slow and laborious or very fast but with 100% inspection.

Neither is a viable option in a production environment.

It may however be perfectly viable given the small quantities made for Jim.

[darkker]

If the barrel nut does not sit square the internal threads that engage the barrel will not allow the barrel to sit square either.
The more you can align your barrel and action the better most rifles will shoot.

Their have been several posts where shooters have received new rifles from Savage only to see several inches of scope windage or elevation required to get them close to dialed in.

.... Are you implying that the barrel nut not being square can somehow, pull the barrel sideways in the receiver? But won't need the threads or bore then fixed, if you buy a squared nut??

If the customer needs a bunch of windage to get his scope on, either the scope mounts are drilled out of alignment, or the rings are off. If it was the barrel pulled out of alignment from the receiver, you now have a stretched receiver bore. A squared nut doesn't fix that.