On a stock Remington 700 action, the cocking piece slides up the cocking ramp. It’s steel on steel friction the entire way.
Precision rifle shooters must lift the bolt handle easily, slide it back to pick up the next round and drop the bolt into battery in a single smooth, fast motion.
A light bolt lift is essential, and to engineer this typically requires either a lighter firing pin spring or an increased bolt throw.
We needed to keep a heavier firing pin spring for consistent primer strikes. Lighter firing pin springs were not an option because they lead to more misfires.
We experimented with different bolt handle lengths. While a 6-inch bolt handle makes a really light bolt lift possible, its length created other issues. It looks silly and gets caught on everything.
A light bolt light and smooth bolt throw with a heavy firing pin spring is seemingly impossible.
OUR SOLUTION: THE ROLLER WHEEL COCKING PIECE.
Pristine’s Roller-Wheel Cocking Piece, a hardened steel roller, eliminates the friction from sliding the cocking piece up the cocking ramp.
This sounds simple, yet it proved to be another long process of trial and error to figure out what would work best.
We tried tiny ball bearings and needle bearings, but they couldn’t withstand the pressure. Because the bearings were loading up on one specific point the entire time, they would only function for six or eight cycles of the action before shattering.
We tried a variety of rolling wheels before we settled on a hardened steel roller wheel held in place by a hardened 1/16 dowel pin. There’s not much force on the roller pin because the firing pin spring is only 20 pounds.
Our testing rifle has cycled over 4,000 rounds without a failure, so we’ve proven it’s an extremely rugged design that can meet the requirements of the most demanding precision shooter.
