Accuracy International Coopermatch

[Minutemanqvs]

Hello!

My gunsmith has an old Accuracy International Coopermatch with a shot barrel so it's a cheap but nice action (6 lugs, solid steel) I could buy for around $500. The stock is no bad and I could probably just keep it, it's a classical wooden stock from the nineties/early 2000. I wonder if any chassis or aftermarket stocks exist for these things?

Thanks

 

[Minutemanqvs]

It's actually exactly that thing: https://www.snipershide.com/shooting/threads/accuracy-intl-coopermatch.6995758/#post-8432652

 

[Eric32]

I would buy it but your gonna struggle to find a stock for it. is it a single shot? If thats the case you can have any of the stock makers build one for you.

 

[FatBoy]

$500? Solid bottom or repeater? Ahh, you’re Swiss... That explains it.

these go for many thousands of Dollars and are rare in the US. Pretty good target action. Trigger can be made to feel good with some work. Their two stage is different than US setup but works well. Irons are easy with the 11mm dovetail. Scope rail is a little harder if you shoot mostly prone. You’ll need an extended dovetail rail or a slotted rail bolt on so you can use standard rings. Stock is amazingly light and comfortable. Charge will have to be dropped some to ease primary extraction but the rifles are solid if you’re going to shoot a large rifle primer. A lot of cratering if you try to shoot Small Rifle.

stocks are easy here. Four pillars and any damn stock you want that is wide enough. It’s just a chuck of solid flat steel with a tiny integral recoil lug. Any stock makers can fit this action. Trigger guard may take some work but the shoe is changeable. The factory stock just has a square piece of aluminum the action sits on.


For $500 USD I’d buy it just to have a bolt I could have bushed without feeling like I’m butchering a rare bird.

 

[Minutemanqvs]

It's a single shot rifle with a square reciever. Yes, I'm in Switzerland and such used match rifles are quite common here.

Thanks a LOT for the information. Indeed it's a 11mm dovetail rail but there are good dovetail > 30mm rings out there, for example at Sako.
I would shoot this prone and it's a very good information that the plate under the receiver is as simple, I'll have to take it apart at the gunstore to confirm it's like that...it simplifies the potential new stock choice

About the primer cratering, is it because it has a large firing pin/hole? That's good to know.

 

[FatBoy]

Yes. Mine is from 1996, before the rage of SRP use so these have whore-ishly large firing pin holes. They were designed around 308Win so it makes sense. Firing pin hits hard and shit goes bang, every time.

I have burned down 3 6.5x284 barrels and was working with a 6.5x47 on there now. Very accurate and easy to shoot to 1k but I rarely shoot it because I can’t get firingpin parts and though I have never pierced a primer I worry about it. I should just bite the bullet and get LRI to bush it for me but I only know of about a half dozen of these in the US, all brought in through AI and Powell River Labratories in the late 90s. I just don’t want to devalue it. Must sound funny to you as $500 for this rifle would make it a throw away action here.

 

[Minutemanqvs]

What do you mean by bushing? Remove a bit of metal on the bolt face and insert a new plate with a smaller hole?

The action also seems to be from 96, it's marked on the side.

For the price...well...it's a bit like the Dragunovs. If you read the US media/youtube it looks like an unobtainable miracle rifle that cost an arm and a leg. I had one, was "cheap", it's junk, sold it. I guess that what you can't have is expensive, as always.

 

[FatBoy]

Bushing is a basically as you described. Hole is milled out. New insert placed and drilled. Then the firing pin ground down to fit the hole with minimal clearance. Works wonderfully when done properly and looks factory.

this action may be inexpensive for you but it’s by no means a cheap action. It’s good shit, especially for the time period. Lugs lock into a removal bushing, like the GAP Tempest uses now. It’s just sandwiched in. Bolt is massive and very smooth. Firing pin hits hard. Trigger is good (no Anschutz or G&E but what is?)

 

[Eric32]

Yea with all the info provided please go and get it so the rest of us can drool over it.

Restore it to its former glory. Please.

 

[Minutemanqvs]

Okkk, it's at home for inspection so I can decide what to do with it.

As expected it's:

• A flat-bottom action held in place by 4 screws
• 6 lug bolt, marked 7.5 because it's a 7.5 Swiss rifle. It's just a tiny bit larger than a 308 case
• Adjustable trigger down to around 2kg as far as I can tell
• Stock stock with an aluminium bedding surface
• Some old diopter sights mounted, but no iris
• The rifle has some "Aarau 2010" stickers which means it went to the Swiss national shooting challenge that year, which was in Aarau
• The rifle actually has a 5-round magazine (not shown) but it currently has a 1-shot plate
• The barrel is shot, but it's marked "1998"
• The receiver is marked Accuracy International England - Coopermatch Series -96 AT - *Serial number*

Yeah, at this point I still have no idea what to do with it but it looks at me and tells me to adopt it.

 

[FatBoy]

I have only seen one repeater, ever, and it was also in that walnut stock. The single shots are laminate pine. I would chose whatever large rifle primer caliber you like and re-barrel it, find a magazine and shoot the shit out of it as is. That is a beautiful rifle and I haven’t looked at the exchange rate between S.Franks and USD but for $500 I’d be tickled shitless. You could slap the smile off my face.

 

[Minutemanqvs]

CHF 500 = $500, same level at the time. I'll think about the rifle over the weekend and see it I'll buy it. 6.5 Creedmoor looks like a good candidate, but at the same time I'm building a 6mm BR rifle so it's close (and has SR primers).

 

[Jrb572]

I would love to own that. To bad they are hard to find in the US

 

[supraguy88t]

thats cool looking! do it!

 

[Criver600]

Yes. Mine is from 1996, before the rage of SRP use so these have whore-ishly large firing pin holes. They were designed around 308Win so it makes sense. Firing pin hits hard and shit goes bang, every time.

I have burned down 3 6.5x284 barrels and was working with a 6.5x47 on there now. Very accurate and easy to shoot to 1k but I rarely shoot it because I can’t get firingpin parts and though I have never pierced a primer I worry about it. I should just bite the bullet and get LRI to bush it for me but I only know of about a half dozen of these in the US, all brought in through AI and Powell River Labratories in the late 90s. I just don’t want to devalue it. Must sound funny to you as $500 for this rifle would make it a throw away action here.

I have a 6-lug .308 bolt head and firing pin laying around if you want to get one bushed. I'm in Tennessee if your local.

 

[Criver600]

Hello!

My gunsmith has an old Accuracy International Coopermatch with a shot barrel so it's a cheap but nice action (6 lugs, solid steel) I could buy for around $500. The stock is no bad and I could probably just keep it, it's a classical wooden stock from the nineties/early 2000. I wonder if any chassis or aftermarket stocks exist for these things?

Thanks

Thats as clean a Cooper Match as I've seen, if you can get a .308 bolt head it will fit right up. Good Luck

 

[FatBoy]

I have a 6-lug .308 bolt head and firing pin laying around if you want to get one bushed. I'm in Tennessee if your local.

Yup. I’ll PM you and we can work it out.

 

[Minutemanqvs]

Yup. I’ll PM you and we can work it out.

You see, this tread was useful to someone!

So I'll take the rifle but do nothing with it at the moment, just to have a good action/stock for a future project

 

[FatBoy]

You see, this tread was useful to someone!

So I'll take the rifle but do nothing with it at the moment, just to have a good action/stock for a future project

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. They are no Bleiker or G&E but they shoot very well and at that price I just don’t see how you could loose.

 

[360°]

I have one of those as well, since I took this picture, I have removed the sight tunnel.
Just like yours, this riflle is chambered in 7.5 Swiss, so you can buy government subsidized GP11 ammo in every 300m shooting range, making this a very budget friendly shooter.
The scope mount is a HOP40C from sports match uk. I think they offer a very good value at ~130€. The scope is a Minox ZX5i 5-25x56 SF. That was the best 5-25x scope that fit my budget at that time. As there is a UIT-rail on the underside, you can mount a bipod by using a harris no. 6 or UIT to picytinny adapter.

 

[Forgetful Coyote]

@FatBoy - you have a Grunig & Elmiger? Thoughts on it?
Those and Bleikers are so sweet. Any chance you got pics?

Obviously gotta be a super baller to afford stuff like that. $$$

Bleiker — Don’t Ask the Price… « Daily Bulletin

You don't want to inquire about the price of a Bleiker competition rifle. As the expression goes, If you have to ask, you can't afford it. At the Pardini USA booth at SHOT Show we saw a pair of black beauties -- two full-race Bleikers, one a smallbore match rifle (.22 LR) and the other a 300m...

bulletin.accurateshooter.com

 

[FatBoy]

@FatBoy - you have a Grunig & Elmiger? Thoughts on it?
Those and Bleikers are so sweet. Any chance you got pics?

I don’t . I Have had plenty of opportunities to play with them, and for the kind of shooting I do (LR and MR highpower) there’s not a lot of advantage that I can see. For 300M shooting where every 1/8” matters, the extra cost may be worth it. That 300m target is tough…

 

[Forgetful Coyote]

I don’t . I Have had plenty of opportunities to play with them, and for the kind of shooting I do (LR and MR highpower) there’s not a lot of advantage that I can see. For 300M shooting where every 1/8” matters, the extra cost may be worth it. That 300m target is tough…

Do you recall around what year AR's started showing up/taking over Service Rifle High Power?

Whats the current landscape look like in Match Rifle High Power as far as bolt guns vs AR space guns?

 

[FatBoy]

I haven’t shot across the course in years. ARs were the mainstay in XTC in 2002 when I started shooting. With 70-ish % of shooters using a CMP legal AR. The rest, a mix of space guns, M14s and bolt actions. The Tubb gun was coming on around then too.

We still shoot 600 with ARs. 90%+ use the 4.5 power scopes, with March being the most used for serious guys. My sample is not very large, only three or four ranges around TN but it’s what I see here.

 

[Forgetful Coyote]

I haven’t shot across the course in years. ARs were the mainstay in XTC in 2002 when I started shooting. With 70-ish % of shooters using a CMP legal AR. The rest, a mix of space guns, M14s and bolt actions. The Tubb gun was coming on around then too.

We still shoot 600 with ARs. 90%+ use the 4.5 power scopes, with March being the most used for serious guys. My sample is not very large, only three or four ranges around TN but it’s what I see here.

Is a AR what you use? Im guessing running 77's up close and 80's for 600? Are the tipped match kings making any sort of appearance..??
Thanks for replying sir!

 

[FatBoy]

Yes, DPMS CMP rifle with a Jewell SR tigger. 69SMK up close and 80SMK at 600. 75s we’re just showing up when I stopped shooting XTC. No 77s at that point. Only tipped bullets then were Hornaday AMAX IIRC. I haven’t shot XTC in maybe 15 years. No idea what they’re using on the short lines.