Build, buy, or other

[caz41]

I am looking into doing something for a rifle. I want a bolt gun to do some LR target shooting (range goes out to 600) and I'm sure I could use it to kill a deer or coyote if I had to. I currently have a 700 in 7mm-08 that I hunt with that I could either sell to offset costs or put in the safe for when my son gets older. My initial plan was to pick up a 700 SPS Tactical and drop it into a AICS or JP-AMCS chassis, and then do some minor gunfu with the trigger, bolt knob, and such on my own. Of course then I start looking at classifieds at SH and others seeing full or semi custom guns that are all decked out with people talking about the guns putting up 1/4-1/2 MOA groups. I know that I don't need a $5K custom gun for what I want to do with it. I just wonder if there is another route to go that will give me a bit more accuracy than the stock gun. Of course as always I want to keep this project on the cheap (I know guns and cheap don't go well together)

Also is there somewhere that I can just buy a barreled action for cheaper than the rifle? I have looked at gunbroker and classifieds everywhere and every barreled action that I have found seems to be something custom that is double the price of me buying a SPS.

Any other thoughts on the matter feel free to toss them out there!

[whistlepig]

I don't mean to sound presumptuous, but do you just not care for the 7-08? A 7-08 is a FINE round for both target work and the occaisional foray into (banned topics). Have you wrung that one out? I imagine that it might surprise you. If the setup is more toward a hunting piece then you could re-stock or otherwise mod it to suit what you have in mind. If you wanted a diff caliber, you could stay short action with same bolt face, like a .308 win, and just re-barrel.

You could keep all the parts you take off in case you ever felt like returning it to original condition. A sexy setup would be a switch barrel setup, with .308, 7-08 and .243 barrels. I say that you have a good starting point right in your hands.

I don't know what the used gun climate is like there, but here the deals are found this time of year from somebody who has decided that they will never hunt again. You get lucky of you can find one that wasn't well cared for. Get a bottom dollar deal on it, chunk the crappy barrel, work the acion over, new barrel and refinish it. Voila, new rifle.

Good luck and let me know how it turns out

[warpspeed]

One way to go is to pick up a R 700 Varmint in 243 or 308. There are several gun smiths that offer a accuracy type package where they take your barreled action and set the barrel back, re chamber with a better reamer than the factory uses, lap the lugs, adjust the trigger etc. Price for this is usually much less than $ 1000 and the improvement can be quite amazing. On the other hand, you may just get a decent shooter from the factory.

If It were me, I'd drop the factory action in one of the various chassis systems and see just how well it shoots out of the box.

[MarkCO]

Read Post #2 again!

There are a lot of stocks out there besides the AICS and JP that are lighter and better suited to "taking your rifle for a walk in the woods" for a lot less $. Heavier is nicer for lay on the belly or benching it and shooting, so you do have divergent tasks.

I have a several 700s, and the 7mm-08 is a very good caliber for your stated purposes. Unless you just have a pencil barrel, you might find very good accuracy potential. My hunting grade 7mm-08 got down to about 1/2 MOA which is plenty. The 1/4 MOA guns are benchrest style for the most part.

It's all about what you want to spend and what you want it to look like, but you already have what most people consider to be the best "budget" precision action around.

Edited February 5, 2012 by MarkCO

[caz41]

Read Post #2 again!

There are a lot of stocks out there besides the AICS and JP that are lighter and better suited to "taking your rifle for a walk in the woods" for a lot less $. Heavier is nicer for lay on the belly or benching it and shooting, so you do have divergent tasks.

I have a several 700s, and the 7mm-08 is a very good caliber for your stated purposes. Unless you just have a pencil barrel, you might find very good accuracy potential. My hunting grade 7mm-08 got down to about 1/2 MOA which is plenty. The 1/4 MOA guns are benchrest style for the most part.

It's all about what you want to spend and what you want it to look like, but you already have what most people consider to be the best "budget" precision action around.

My 7-08 is a pencil barrel

[Caspian_45]

If you are planning to build, may I suggest a 6.5 caliber. Hornadays 6.5 Creedmoor is very sweet and there is factory ammo. .260 remington is nice too, but factory ammo is scares. And the brass is hard to come by, but you can make it from 7-08 brass. 6.5x55 no experiance. 6.5x284 is the king on velocity for the 6.5's. A real barrel burner, it will make a mile if you want to shoot that far. Brass is very expensive.

My LR rifle started out as a Rem 700 varmint in 308. I had the barrel cut to 22.5 inches (better balance IMO). I can still get the velocity to make 1000 yards easy. I bedded it in a B&C stock. Put a Rad-Tac systems DBM (takes AI mags)when I did the bedding. I am using an EGW 20 MOA 1 pc. base and a SWFA Super Sniper 10x scope. Ammo is handloaded 175 SMK or 178 Amax bullets and RE15 powder. My load in this gun will shoot as well as I need. Factory Hornaday 168 ammo shoots even better. We have been shooting clays on the berm at 650 yards. If I read the wind correct I hit every time. Is it a 1/2 moa gun?.....maybe. I'm not into shooting groups, I just want to hit what I'm aiming at.

I have shot several high end LR rifles, both bolt and AR type. Out to 650 yards in my experiance they didn't perform any better than my rifle. If anything made them a better setup, it was they all run very high end optics. If you don't plan on shooting past 1000 yards. A factory barreled gun will do you fine as you get good at reading the wind. Then you could do a custom barrel.

Ymmv.

Used Rem 700 = $500

B&C stock = $280

Rad-Tac = $300

SWFA SS 10x = $300

Barrel cut = $20

Bedding material $20

= $1420 with scope and ready to play.

[rtr]

Snipershide is a good place to look for equipment. I shoot .243 with the 115 DTAC a caliber I would suggest you consider n

[caz41]

I'd like to either roll 308 or 7-08 since I already load for those and have components.

[00bullitt]

Given you already load for 7-08, I'd look at that cartridge. Sometimes, the cons for some cartridges, are the lack of availability for loaded match ammo. If you are loading your own, sometimes that makes it an easier and better choice. The 7-08 also provides good barrel life.

There is an excellent selection of high BC bullets available for the 7mm that give it a huge edge over the 308 as goes the same for the 6 and 6.5mm.

Sounds like you have a donor action. Rebarrel it in 7-08 and have it reamed to chamber the higher BC VLD bullets and you will have a serious performer. Consider a 26" light Palma or #4 Bull contour barrel and couple that with a good stock or chassis. You can go with a shorter barrel, but its much easier to achieve the higher velocities with a longer stick. You'll be glad you have the longer stick once you start to get addicted to the Precision Rifle Bug and want to poke out further and further.

The 7-08 will work excellent double duty as a light tactical rifle and a hunting rifle. I recently had the same setup with a 22" barrel and just could not get the velocities I wanted, so I rebarreled and chambered for the 284 Winchester but kept the 22" barrel. If the shorter barrel is something you want, you might consider the 284Win.

[dskinsler83]

Cheap and a AICS or JP or chassis period don't go together well lol. The XLR chassis is nice for the money but like others say I'd just try to action u have now in a quality stock then move from there. I just jumped into this myself and will be keeping the status updated as my project progresses. As we speak my barreled action is being blue printed and trued lapped and all with a new match grade chamber recut into the factory barrel. After it's burnt out I'll move to a match grade barrel

[caz41]

Given you already load for 7-08, I'd look at that cartridge. Sometimes, the cons for some cartridges, are the lack of availability for loaded match ammo. If you are loading your own, sometimes that makes it an easier and better choice. The 7-08 also provides good barrel life.

There is an excellent selection of high BC bullets available for the 7mm that give it a huge edge over the 308 as goes the same for the 6 and 6.5mm.

Sounds like you have a donor action. Rebarrel it in 7-08 and have it reamed to chamber the higher BC VLD bullets and you will have a serious performer. Consider a 26" light Palma or #4 Bull contour barrel and couple that with a good stock or chassis. You can go with a shorter barrel, but its much easier to achieve the higher velocities with a longer stick. You'll be glad you have the longer stick once you start to get addicted to the Precision Rifle Bug and want to poke out further and further.

The 7-08 will work excellent double duty as a light tactical rifle and a hunting rifle. I recently had the same setup with a 22" barrel and just could not get the velocities I wanted, so I rebarreled and chambered for the 284 Winchester but kept the 22" barrel. If the shorter barrel is something you want, you might consider the 284Win.

What brand barrel would you recommend if I were to stay with the 7-08?

[dskinsler83]

Rock Creek, Bartlien, Lijia...any barrel that is single point cut rifled and hand lapped to perfection and a place that can cut your twist rate to what ever ur desire is.

[dskinsler83]

Not sure on my spelling lol oops. Also if it's isn't a scary pencil barrel try some kroil and jb bore paste to clean it up and see if it improves. Thin barrel means it'll heat up faster so initially if u upgraded stock first you'd hve to shoot slowly

[PistoleroJesse]

Sniper Central has a decent sounding semi custom setup.

[Chills1994]

Hey, I am cheap bastard, so I guess I will be the first to suggest get something from Savage, say like a 10FP, or at least that is what I think it is called.

I have heard/seen/read that to swap barrels is easily done on the Savage's.

I might have this next tidbit of information wrong, but somebody once told me that it was easier to start out with...oh...I dunno...say a 26 inch barrel (by Savage?) and as the barrel gets burned out just in front of the chamber area and again at the muzzle, that their cheap solution was to cut an inch off the muzzle end, re-crown it, cut an inch off the chamber end, re-ream the chamber, and basically now screw this 24 inch barrel back into the (Savage?) receiver. Then go back to shooting it.

[Chills1994]

Caspian .45 wrote:

....Put a Rad-Tac systems DBM (takes AI mags)when I did the bedding....

How is that working out for you? I guess that means that the mags truly are detachable then out of your Remington 700 action. AI mags sound expensive.

on a different note, I have heard some good things about the Tikka line of rifles too.

[JimmyZip]

Have you seen the new anniversary editions of this gun? They are beautiful, and would make a great base for a gun build.

[dskinsler83]

The savage M10 PC w/ 5R 1:11.25" twist is nice but it has a short 20" barrel. I traded mine to my buddy for his Remy 308 SPS YMMV

[Chills1994]

The savage M10 PC w/ 5R 1:11.25" twist is nice but it has a short 20" barrel. I traded mine to my buddy for his Remy 308 SPS YMMV

I am guess your Savage M10 came with a threaded on muzzle break???

The short length barrel with threads at the muzzle was probably meant to be so short so it could take a muzzle can and not be too awkward.

[dskinsler83]

Yep it was threaded and with my hand loads shot like a scalded dog. Barrel clean up so easy and balanced nice. I was able to keep my ammo supersonic at 1000 but just barely. I only traded it due to the lack of after market support I have the remy already getting trued and blue printed all I wish it had diff was remingtons 5R 1:11.25" twist but oh well. As soon as I get the money this remy will be wearing a new Rock Creek 26" with 1:11.25" single point cut rifleing . Combine that with the new stock sitting in my shop and new vortex viper pst ffp on the way and a well developed hand load with 175 SMK HPBTs i will only be able to blame the Indian for the lack of performance

[dskinsler83]

Another note I wanna add is that Predator Customs also gave me the option prior to trading the savage of if I wanted they could true it's action and blue print it and make it to where it would thread on a barrel just like a Remington 700. So if I could have found what I was looking for that did cost a rediculous amount of money just because if being a Savage to buy I'd prob kept it. If I'd known I liked long range shooting so well I'd opted for one of Savages out if the box F T/R rifles first off. But I'll be happy with my 700 and the savage has a great home now too.

[Caspian_45]

Caspian .45 wrote:

....Put a Rad-Tac systems DBM (takes AI mags)when I did the bedding....

How is that working out for you? I guess that means that the mags truly are detachable then out of your Remington 700 action. AI mags sound expensive.

on a different note, I have heard some good things about the Tikka line of rifles too.

I have AI mags and Alpha precision mags. I prefer the AI mags. The Alphas are 10 rounders too, but they have a tendency to swell when loaded. So they are hard to get in and out from time to time. The Alpha 10 rd mags are shorter than AI 10rd mags but just a little longer than AI 5 rd mags. All the mags I have feed great. I load ammo to the max OAL the mags will allow. I have the type 1 Alpha mags. The Rad-Tac uses the same foot print as a Badger Ord DBM. Yes the AI mags are a little pricey, where as the Alphas are several $$ cheaper. I probablt won't buy any more Alpha mags because of the swelling issue, but you really don't need a bunch of mags. I would like to try one of the Ruger polymer mags to see how they run.

[Caspian_45]

I had the chance to test a Night Hawk Custom in 308 against a Sako TRG in 308. Both shot extremely well. But I found the TRG to be the one I prefered. Both had the same scope, shot the same day in the same conditions. The TRG was just more fun and comfortable to shoot.

To to OP. I have not tried the lighter bullets (155's)in my 308, but hear that they shoot very well. Faster, flatter and much less drop at longer ranges. Even factory Winchester 150 gr ballistic silvertip ammo shoots great out to 650 yds.

I will say that the Savage rifles I have tested all shoot really well for factory guns and the accu-trigger is sweet. I tested one in 6.5 creedmoor and if I can come up with the coin and justify the purchase I will own one. I tested one in 338 Lapua Mag. SWEET, but cost a bunch to shoot.

If you are looking for custom smith to build one or buy from their custom line. I highly recommend Les Baer.

[caz41]

Thanks for all the responses, you guys have managed to screw up my head even more on this

[warpspeed]

Thanks for all the responses, you guys have managed to screw up my head even more on this

You really can over think it. One of the vendors here, Bobby Kiegans @ Freedom Gunworks is extremely knowledgeable about such thinks. I get the impression he is busy and does not browse the forum much but a call to him with your requirements and budget would likely yield a clearer picture.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showforum=196