Slickest bolt action?

[jason miller]

[FLshooter]

[A5BLASTER]

I have a bit over 3000 rounds on my CZ varmint grendel and smooth is never going to be a word I use to describe that action.

Granted it's not bad but it is nowwheres in comparison to any 700 action I have ever felt and not even close to the howa mini I had.

Maybe it's just my action. But for my first experience with a cz action it's no smooth. Now I will never part with it because it's such a accurate rifle but it's not what I had hoped for after so many folks saying CZ 527's were a smooth action.

[FLshooter]

I have a bit over 3000 rounds on my CZ varmint grendel and smooth is never going to be a word I use to describe that action.

Granted it's not bad but it is nowwheres in comparison to any 700 action I have ever felt and not even close to the howa mini I had.

Maybe it's just my action. But for my first experience with a cz action it's no smooth. Now I will never part with it because it's such a accurate rifle but it's not what I had hoped for after so many folks saying CZ 527's were a smooth action.

[nuthead]

I've got a CZ527 a CRF will never be as smooth as a push feed but I still reckon it's pretty smooth. It's a cool little action I reckon

[jason miller]

[JSH]

Krag rifles are slick.
Said to be brittle in years past. That has been disproven. The military tried to bump them up to 06 levels with the higher pressure loads is what the problem was.
They exceeded the working pressure of the design, which can be done with any rifle.

[Kswhitetails]

Impact 737R. Better than everything else mentioned so far, by far. You can't get Bighorn or Defiant actions as smooth until you send the bolt off for some DLC/PVD treatments. And even then they don't do as well in the moon dust. Seriously, if you're looking for smooth out of the box, Impact Precision is the place to look first.

[Stevil]

without coating probably a Sauer 200 6.5x55, and recently probably my CZ550 magnum 500 A square that got the CZ custom shop treatment ($6K build back in 2007) so much Polishing has made it slick as.

[Yendor6.5]

The slickest bolt gun is my old Remington 700, in 223. I shot it every other weekend for 8 years, in Hi Power competition. 88 rounds a match. Then there was a couple of prarie dog hunts. The Krieger thats on it, has been set back once. Hard to beat something that's been cycled 10-15 thousand times.

[EigerWand]

Tikka T3 and Sako 85 are fairly slick but not 100% goof proof.
The Tikka of course comes in one size big enough for a WinMag so not that ideal for a Grendel.
I believe the Sako XS action isn't designed for Grendel power so you're into the S action which will take a 260 Rem. Again, a waste of space for the Grendel.
They seem streets ahead of every other action except the SMLE.

[AgedWarrior]

My old Ruger 77 in .308 is really smooth; yeah it has had a few rounds through it, but very smooth. My CZ rifles are good, but the 527 needs to smooth out a bit more with age and use, whereas the 455 is one slick .22 action. My Howa mini is quite good and presumably will get better. Later model Rugers are pretty clunky as are Savages mostly too. My Savage 10 FCP, however, is quite smooth. Out of my limited experiences I would go with Howa as being best out of the box. I have never run a new Tikka, and the Weatherby Vanguard is a Howa with another name...
My experience with Rem 700 and Win 70 has been great with older rifles...newer stuff is not quite as good.

Focusing on Grendel bolts, I would say the Howa mini is best out of the box with CZ second place. Ruger American bolts are...clunky?

[tdbru]

well, since i've never had or shot every style of bolt action out there, it's hard to say. at one time i had a Nazi 1936 98 that was incredibly smooth. built with good steel, surface hardened, and had probably been cycled 100K times i suppose. many of the higher end actions/rifles mentioned so far i've never had the opportunity to try so i cannot judge. where i think manufacturers could improve, though it's probably too cost prohibitive to do so, is to case harden or surface harden the cocking cam ramp and the cocking cam piece nose that rides on the cam. this is where most of the effort at raising the bolt comes from as you are retracting, via the cam surface, the striker spring, which is pretty stout. and where a lot of drag adds to the effort. i have heard that some custom actions us a little miniature caged ball bearing assembly on the cocking piece nose to reduce the drag between the cocking piece nose and the cocking cam. i don't think i've had a bolt gun yet that was so rough that it was unusable. some are better than others, of course, but i am not sure if that is due to design and manufacturing procedures or if they've just been worn in smooth.
-tdbru

[se3388]

I have never owned what I would call an expensive rifle but of all the rifles (and actions) I have owned I would also cast my vote for the Tikka rifles. I just sold a left hand stainless Tikka T3X Lite in 6.5 Creedmoor, the action on it was slicker than the proverbial snot. The Wife wanted it and after getting a new one, scoping it and sighting it in she decided she didn't like it. The things we do........