Rifle Assembly

[Marine4life]

I consider myself a novice when it comes to rifles and hunting with a firearm. I do much more Bowhunting and have killed a lot more animals with a bow than firearm. But I am also an opportunist and am a few years over the half century mark. So, like it or not, it is getting harder for me to go deeper, hunter harder and do that for longer periods of time to get myself inside my effective range with a bow. As I continue to age I am looking for other opportunities to help put the odds of success in my favor.

I have assembled a lot of ARs and have reloaded both for them and the few production rifles I have owned. When I started reloading 40 years ago it was really the only way to consistently get accuracy and dependable bullets. I completely understand that today’s factory ammo and many of the productions rifles shoot lights out. But, just like in archery I like doing shit myself, having hobbies that give me the motivation to better myself and learn more about what will make me a better hunter. With all that said I have decided to assemble a long gun for the sole purpose of using my accumulated pref/bonus points in western states and being capable of shooting some critters at distances a little further than I have in the past.

Looking forward to sharing with you how this assembly goes and hearing your feedback.

 

[Marine4life]

One of the reasons I was considering a new rifle was because I was very lucky and drew a Nevada California Bighorn tag. After drawing the tag, I realized I wouldn’t have the time to assemble a new rifle before the hunt and I didn’t want to buy another production rifle so I decided to stick to a rifle I have in the gun safe and instead, upgrade my binoculars. Since then I have continued to research several production and semi-custom rifles knowing I wanted a new gun. As I researched I became even more confused as reviews for each firearm were “the best I have ever owned” to horror stories of issues and poor CS. So I decide to buy components and put the damn rifle together myself.

I thought my very first decision was to determine what cartridge I wanted for this amazing rifle I was going to assemble. I scoured the ballistic charts and read a lot of articles and forum posts about this cartridge and that cartridge. Already in the gun safe was my old REM 700 BDL in the great 30-06 which was the first rifle I bought back in 1984, a Winchester M70 243, a Marlin lever 30-30, an A-bolt 270 WSM (actually my daughter’s rifle), an X-bole 243, my trusty A-bolt 300 WSM which is now lthe business end to a successful bighorn hunt and a dall hunt. Plus there are a few ARs in there.

Based on experience with those rifles and a few that have come and gone in 300 Win Mag, 7 REM Mag, and 338 Win Mag I have realized a couple things. First, I don’t want a rifle I don’t enjoy shooting whether it be because of recoil, noise, etc. I want to go out and practice with this rifle and not leave the range with a sore shoulder which is one of the many reasons I love my 243s and ARs. I also wanted a rifle that would greatly stretch my comfortable range of 4-500 yard currently.

I am also a gear/gadget guy and enjoy checking out the newer technology. So to get to the point I decided on a 6.5 PRC because I felt it gave me some really good long range ballistics for the most likely critters I will use to kill - deer, antelope and the occasional elk. Secondly, I wanted to go thru the entire rifle build and reloading processes with a cartridge I have never played with before.

6.5 PRC!

This was probably backwards but over the last several months I purchased brass, bullets, dies, etc so I was ready to reload once I had the rifle assembled. I wanted to make sure I have several option for bullet and powder choices. Once I had most of that in hand I began to assemble to actual rifle components.

Next up - reloading components


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[Marbles]

Bat Machine action (Vesper M perhaps), get a prefit steel barrel, pick your stock, pick your trigger.

Or, a Masefield action.

Or just get a Sako 90 Adventure, but that takes away the fun of building.

I'm not really any help.

Have fun.