Thought I'd give an update. I'm still doing bolt work (I reduced the firing pin protrusion by about 15 thou and polished everything then promptly put the rear indexing spacer on backwards and then couldn't figure out why the pin assembly was sticking in the bolt...) but I got the new barrel on and decided to just reuse the factory lug and nut. Why? well, 1) I figured I'd run the experiment 2) my last trip out shooting on the old barrel with ammo out of my new press I was grouping around .2", conservatively 3) the closer I looked the more I was convinced that the ones I had were just fine. The lug is not the regular stamped factory jobby that comes with most of them. Maybe because this was a mid-range model in an the old accustock? Either way it's much flatter and more uniform than I have the ability to measure. My calipers will only measure to half a thou but it's reliable. I couldn't get a single variation in the thickness, it just slammed to the same reading over and over everywhere. The thinnest feeler gauge I could find is .0015 but I couldn't locate any gaps between any faces even with the lightest pressure. Maybe I'm way off but I think it's worth a try just to see. And despite what a pain it is I like the smooth nut, I don't know why.
Anyway, We'll find out. Ready to start building test loads. next time around I might have more ambition to get it trued up by a smith and the whole works but at this point it looks very unnecessary.
