[caleb]

After perusing Benchrest.com I am not sure what the retailers mean when they say that the buyer supplies the action. What is the action? I have an M-24 and is the bolt and receiver the action? Then what is the point to use the action of a perfectly good rifle to build another one. I know this sounds sort of uninformed, but point me in a direction I can understand. Thanks

[Crimper-D]

Is to build a More Accurate Rifle ;) Benchrest shooting is about hitting Very small targets at long distances:p As close to dead center as often as possable:eek:
A variation of this exercise is to shoot several very expensive bullets into as small a hole as possable. It's kind of like targetshooting with a micrometer.
The "action" is the receiver and the bolt = attach a tricked out barrel, customized stock and an adjustable hairtrigger to the action, bolt on a large, very precise (and expensive) scope, load up some top-of-the-line Match ammo or special handloads, and you got a Benchrest Rifle:evil:

Then there's the additional items you'll need - like Windflags, spotting scopes, Front rests, front and rear bags. That's pretty much the basic package:) There are 'refinements' to this, like a case and a little cart to transport all this accumulation to the bench.

Is THIS the 'Direction" you wanted to understand? :confused: :evil:

[craigz]

For benchrest rifles, you generally don't use a factory action; you buy a custom made one and send it to a smith to have it built into a rifle. Therefore, you're not taking the action from an existing rifle. A high-quality custom benchrest action will set you back about $1000.

[js2013]

The action is the bolt and the receiver. Benchrest rifles usually use custom actions these days, but if you're looking for more performance out of a stock rifle like an of-the-shelf Rem700, you can send the action/rifle of to a quality gunsmith. They'll "true" or blueprint the action so it as close to perfect as possible. This means the bolt will be lapped and the action squared, sometimes the treads are recut and recentered, etc. This is all done because the massed produced actions goal is low costs not precision.
Once the action has been trued then a premium barrel is installed, a precision chamber is cut, and then bedded in a quality stock. All of this will usually result in a much more accurate rifle than it was before. Lots of folks go this route after shooting out the barrel of their rifles.