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Nathan Foster

Its alive!!!

Hi Everyone, the third book of our series is finally here! The Practical Guide To Bolt Action Rifle Accurizing And Maintenance.

If you want to know how to make your rifle truly accurate and how to keep it that way, this is the book for you.

As many of you already know, the book series has been based on my email queries. The questions come in each day from around the world, I observe the trends and from these trends I can see how I need to best place myself to help gun owners. Typical questions have been "which is the best rifle for my needs?" resulting in the first book and "which cartridge best suit my needs?" resulting in the second book. Long range hunting has also been a major trend which is why the books were tailored towards this subject. Having said this, long range shooting is to some degree an extension of precision shooting at ordinary ranges and as I wrote in the first book, as hunters, we should always seek to obtain a reliable and accurate rifle whether shooting at ordinary hunting ranges or long ranges. To this end the first book served as a basic yet critical guide to rifle accuracy. With this fundamental information, the shooter could then select a rifle or components with a full understanding of what he or she was getting into. I went over all of the traps and tricks of the industry, the book serving as a buyer beware.

Having selected a rifle and with a solid grounding in the principles of rifle accuracy, we can then move onto the process of accurizing, leading to the third book in the series. In this third book the reader learns how to accurize a rifle based on my own processes in chronological order. The book is therefore broken down into steps, starting from the moment I receive a client rifle and first inspect it through to its final conclusion and ongoing maintenance. We go over the rifle from one end to the other, addressing each critical aspect, working towards a truly accurate and useful rifle.

The book is written for end users and can be used by both gunsmiths and hobbyists alike. Key words in the book title are “A Practical Guide” which remains a constant throughout each chapter. It is time to get our hands dirty, working through the process of rifle accurizing step by step. I have tried to avoid theory as much as possible in order to maximize the how to elements of The Practical Guide to Bolt Action Rifle Accurizing and Maintenance.

Throughout my many years of researching rifles and cartridges, Steph and I have met so many wonderful people. When I write, I feel a great responsibility to help readers as best as I can. The methods taught in this book have served me very well as a complete process for many years now. As a side note, the mock bedding for preliminary testing section of the book came about as a result of the days when I used to offer guiding services rather than our accurizing and tutorial sessions. The clients would often arrive on a Friday afternoon wanting a weekend hunt. We would go to the rifle range so I could check the client’s rifle accuracy and zero - the shots here have always been challenging and clients need to be able to shoot well out to 300 yards at a minimum. Quite often, the rifle was not up to the task but with evening closing in and the client determined to use his rifle the next morning I would have perhaps two hours to address issues. Most of you will have seen those reality TV cooking shows where the participant gets an hour to cook some fancy feast. Well that was me, an hour or two to get a rifle up and running. As a result of performing such operations, I was able to develop a process for preliminary rifle testing. And so it goes on, many years of experience, the gradual implementation of processes resulting in a step by step set of procedures for preliminary testing - through to full accurizing procedures. I have also included our intensive dedicated barrel research from the last sixteen months, getting to the bottom of what makes an accurate rifle barrel and how end users can enhance performance to optimize results.

I very much hope that you find this new book to be a valuable asset - a genuine keeper that will be of service to both current and future generations of shooters.

All the best, Nathan.

To purchase the Practical Guide To Bolt Action Rifle Accurizing and Maintenance, please visit the store tab above.

The Practical Guide To Bolt Action Rifle Accurizing and Maintenance

Contents:

Introduction
Part 1 - Preliminary inspection, rifle setup and testing.
My kit list
Step 1 - Inspect the bore.
Step 2 - Inspect locking lugs (how to lap locking lugs).
Step 3 - Disassemble rifle, inspect and adjust trigger.
Thoughts on trigger tinkering
Step 4- Check fit of action, magazine box and trigger in stock.
Step 5 - Assemble rifle
Mock bedding
Glue it and screw it
Glue and screw instructions for semi-permanent rifle set up
Tikka T3 setup for testing and final field usage
Torque settings
Step 6 - Fit optics
Step 7 - Test rifle, break in barrel
Tools for breaking in a rifle barrel
Preparation for test shooting
Hand lapping
Test fire
Custom rifle set up
Step 8 - Assess rifle accuracy
Barrel stress and double grouping
Fire lapping
Action problems and flaws
Further thoughts
Rifle bedding with epoxy resin
To pillar bed or not, that is the question
Barrel knox bedding
Rifle bedding
MatchGrade Stock Stabilizer instructions
Mixing instructions for Stock Stabilizer
Clean up
Job planning
Stock preparation
Dams
Mixing and applying Stock Stabilizer compound
Curing
Finishing the job
Some notes about our bedding compound
MatchGrade Bedding Compound instructions
Mixing instructions for MatchGrade Bedding Compound
Clean up
Mindset
1. Stock preparation
2. Barreled action preparation
3. Stock preparation second phase
4. Action preparation second phase
5. Bringing it all together
6. Curing
7. Finishing the job
Rework
Extra tips for military bolt actions
8. Bedded rifle re-assembly
Part 2 - Ongoing rifle maintenance
Step 1 - Bore preparation for field work
Step 2 - Field care of the rifle
Step 3 - cleaning the bore
Thoughts on bore cleaners
Bore cleaning method
Step 4 - Bore polishing routine
Step 5 - Storage. Rust prevention of the bore
Stainless
Chrome moly - regular usage
Chrome Moly - long term storage
Bolt maintenance
Protection of exterior metal work
Paint surface coatings
Tape and paint
Care of painted stocks, painted metal and plastics
Wood and laminate stock care
Rifle suppressor care
Muzzle brake care
Care of optics
Conclusion
Full bolt action rifle checklist:
Yearly bolt action rifle strip down checks:
Long term rifle storage:
Semi and full automatic rifle care:
Lever action rifle care:
The seven basic rules of firearms safety (NZ Arms code)
About Nathan Foster