[Unclenick]

On J.D. Pederson's rifle, you are correct. I was remembering Hatcher's description of the Thompson Caliber .30 Autorifle. On page 62 of The Book of the Garand, Hatcher says of it, "this system functions quite satisfactorily, providing the cartridge cases are lubricated with a thin film of sperm oil which is placed on the cases by means of a double set of oil pads located on each side of the interior of the magazine."

Regarding lug lapping, you need to know the heat treating method applied to the steel. Locally carburized (case-hardened) steel, or locally flame hardened and lightly drawn back surfaces may have a hardened skin that is just a few thousandths thick. If you don't lap below the hardened surface thickness, you should be OK, but you need some idea of what it is? You may not get much over 50-70% coverage on some guns with light lapping, but 100% is far from required. You are just trying to reduce elastic flow enough to prevent the bolt from tipping under peak pressure.

Harold Vaughn's, Rifle Accuracy Facts (Precision Shooting publisher, 2000), contains a good discussion quantifying of the effects of receiver pressure asymmetries on group sizes. I have to agree with you that this can get well beyond requirements for service rifle match shooting, but isn't always so. I find a lot of people blow-off gun accuracy errors, claiming "it shoots better than I do," only to find their scores go up when they get their hands on a better rifle. I rebuilt some of our club's old DCM Garands decades ago, and users of these loaner rifles were amazed by how much better they could shoot than they had previously believed. We had to pull bullets on a lot of our Lake City M2 ball and replace them with 150 grain SMK's to see the effect, but it did work.

Stainless is famous for gauling. I would not lap stainless before checking with the action maker to see how far it can safely be taken and to learn what kind of surface finish it requires? The radial ridges raised in normal lapping are unacceptable with some S.S. alloy/heat treatment combinations. The only way around it, if the bolt doesn't have enough side play to work them out, is to work only with extremely fine near-finish-grade abrasives, and just expect to spend a long time getting it done.

Are you making it up to Perry this year? I am hoping to, at least hit the EIC and the John C. Garand matches, but may have to be out of town to participate in testing some equipment during that period.