Build my rifle

[Cat64]

Can someone please guide me (including pointing to previous posts) towards building my own rifle. Someone who will not act like a know-it-all professor but one who is willing to be a patient mentor. Assume I know nothing about where to proceed. Thank you.
Jason

 

[Hairball]

We can give you more advice than you may be willing to receive; however, you need to give us more information such as caliber you may be looking at, purpose of rifle (target, hunting, plinking, or competition) and a rough estimate of what type of budget you may have for the build. Do you have any rifle experience at all? There are a number of posts under each forum heading that may also help you decide.

Read the stickys under each main thread topic and you will find a large amount of info

 

[richabri]

Im in with Hairball... ready.......Send It?

 

[Cat64]

Ok guys. Thank you. To begin with I have a very mathematical mind but i need to understand things first.. My experience with shooting is ...let's say I think I learned a significant amount in a relatively short time. I bought a novice rifle (Remington 770 in .243 caliber) then purchased a Tikka t3 lite in .308 caliber. Recently I have procured my loading kit (lee turret press) and started making my own ammo. ( that is another story in itself guys...trying to find the right combination of bullet powder primer and case to fit my rifle and achieve my goal of being as accurate as possible with that rifle at up to 500 yd). I was always fascinated by long range shooting. I want to be able to record a good group at 1000 yds and over. My desire at this point is mostly target shooting. As to the caliber and budget I am open to initiate a discussion with you guys. What would be a min budget I can conceive to get me to my goal? Ok those are my preliminary thoughts. You "fire" back now. A sincere thank you for your willingness to help. By the way my name is Catalin and I live in Louisiana.

 

[Bm22]

What do you consider a good group. I just started building my first long range rifle. I hope to shoot sub moa, i want a sub 10 in group at 1,000yds.

I started with a remington. 700 adl for $250 in .308. got a deal. Put it on a choate stock $200, dbm was $100, egw rail with tps rings. Right now i have a cheap scope on it. I hope to add a leupold mark 4 8-24x50 by the end of the year. I should have about 2,200- 2,500 by the end of the proj. Not sure if i will replace the barrel or not, most likely i will.

That should easily get me to 1,000 yards.

If you want to shoot 1,000 go with for 1,500 you going to need something more than a .308. And how much do u want to spend? U can get to 1,000 yards for under. $2k if you want to go further your going over $3k

 

[BoilerUP]

Where at in LA? There's a lot of cajun folks on the Hide, and Shreveport is like my second home (along with Lafayette, Lake Charles, DeRidder, Opelousas, Monroe, etc).

Scouring internet forums and buying used, you should be able to build a Savage in nearly the caliber of your choice for about $800, sometimes much less. That's how I got my start, but I admittedly have gone through a LOT of gear before finding what I like (which isn't atypical). Nice thing is you can always sell stuff for less than you bought it for

In all honesty, you'd probably be best served buying a factory rifle like a 700 AAC-SD in 308 or a Savage 12LRP/10 Predator in 6.5 Creedmoor and putting a couple thousand rounds downrange while learning what you like and what you don't...and trying others' gear along the way to help in that decision. Seeing, touching, using other people's gear will help you figure out what works for you and what doesn't which WILL save you money.

 

[Here2Learn]

Contact Precision Tactical 850-902-6162 ARMS - The Leader in Public Safety Software Solutions they can get you set up and it won't break they bank

In short I would recommend something in 6mm or 6.5mm. Something like 260, 6.5creedmoor or 243, 6mm Creedmoor. 24-26" barrel. They can set you up with one on a Remington action and a mcree chassis. I believe the guarantee half minute but you would have to double check that

 

[Cat64]

BM22 - thanks for the info. You are mentioning g all kind of parts I don t know anything about. What goes into building a rifle? Are there some manufacturers better than others? And if a purchased rifle is better why do people still build their own? Just some questions. Hope you guys are having a good weekend

 

[BoilerUP]

BM22 - thanks for the info. You are mentioning g all kind of parts I don t know anything about. What goes into building a rifle? Are there some manufacturers better than others? And if a purchased rifle is better why do people still build their own?

A purchased rifle is "better" because its cheaper and turnkey to learn with...bolt a scope base & optic on and go shoot. Options and calibers are generally limited.

A "built" rifle (be it a homebuilt Savage or a full-on custom from any proper gunsmith) can be done to the rifle owner's personal specification & preferences and can range from "just as inexpensive" to "very, very spendy".

If you are learning, there is zero reason to make the huge financial investment into a custom rifle. Get a factory rifle and shoot it a few thousand rounds, figure out what you do and don't like (and do/don't want) and if you enjoy this hobby THEN spend the money to have a rifle "built".

As far as building Savages go...they are good for tinkering and those DIY-minded folks; one can take a Savage and change it from a 223 to a 338 Edge with little more than a barrel and bolt head swap. They are 'uglier' than Remington or custom action and the bolt manipulation isn't nearly as smooth, but generally a homebuilt Savage can shoot "good enough" that the vast majority of folks behind a trigger couldn't see a difference between it and a top-end custom.

If you've got a huge budget, call up any smith that is well-represented on this site and they can build you whatever you want...but if you're like most of us you don't, so get something and shoot the thing and figure it out later.

 

[richabri]

When I had this same idea about 12 yrs ago I started with in my head only spending around 2000.00, ended up at 3500.00 before i was even remotely happy.

 

[Lafayette]

Catalin / Josh


I think its important to know what you want before you buy. Seems basic but people often find themselves with the carriage ahead of the horse when getting into a new hobby (its happened to me more than I care to admit)
So lets break your goal down and try to extract what will help focus you in and help you achieve your goal.


1. Youre a novice. Which for practical purposes means you need a rifle that will help you learn. To me that means trigger time and experience watching bullets fly – theres no substitute for experience. You need a rifle that will allow you to shoot a lot, that means youll want a cost effective, easy on the shoulder and easy on barrel package. All of these are relative, some have tougher shoulders and deeper wallets but you know yourself best.


2. Your shooting targets (not hunting). Your goal is met when you hit the target and don’t care if the steel is wounded. This allows you to shoot a cartridge that has less kinetic energy down range, something to think about when others rightly suggest 6mms.


3. You know you want to shoot +1K. Having a known “target” distance makes things a bit easier. Generally you will want to shoot a cartridge that will sustain supersonic flight to your desired distance. While some bullets fly straight in transonic and subsonic states they often fly better supersonic.

If I were you I would start with what you have. Pick the .243 or the .308 and get shooting, get your load development, chronograph and dope work done. Then shoot as much as you can and record everything, even if you don’t understand why. Eventually you will start to see patterns and better results; by then youll be just like the rest of us – hooked for life.

 

[Cat64]

Thank you for you patience and meticulous reply. I will do exactly that at this point. Tell me when running the OCW TEST DO I NEED TO RUN IT FOR EVERY DISTANCE or once I identify the "perfect marriage" @ 100 yds I can replicate same loads for 200 yds and up?

 

[Nutro]

Lots of helpful folks here but I wanted to point out that there are members in here posting with the screen names Cat64 and Hairball. Haha

 

[libertyman777]

I had a buddy talk me into a 6.5 CM and I couldn't be happier. Hard to beat a Savage for DIY.

I hear good things about Steiner glass.

 

[bluto77]

I'm not that far ahead of you in my own long range shooting "career" so to speak. I've hunted all my life and been around guns, but never really shot them at targets longer than it took to sight in the rifle. I started going to the shooting range last summer. Around Feb of this year, I started going to the range on nearly a weekly basis. My target shooting abilities have gotten considerably better this year. I'm regularly in the 1 to .75'ish area with my gas guns at 100 yards and .75 to .5'ish with my bolt guns at 100 yards. I'm still honing my techniques, and I'm also working on my equipment. I've tried quite a few different rifles, both gas gun and bolt gun, as well as a variety of optics from the $150 NC Star to much more expensive US Optics, Steiner, Vortex Razor. I've had "out of the box" Rem 700's and Savages up to Rem 700 based custom rifles. All of my custom rifles were been used when I bought them. I'm a few weeks out from having my first brand new custom rifle that was built for me. That should give you enough background info about my shooting and knowledge (or lack thereof) for you to determine just how much of my "advice" is worth listening to!

The thing about that custom I have coming to me...... I'm lucky my gunsmith hasn't strangled me yet. I really shouldn't have jumped into that arena yet because I had no idea what I wanted. I thought I had an idea of what I wanted because at the time I had a Rem 700 5R .308 mounted in a JP Enterprises AMCS (chassis) with a Jewell trigger. So I kind of already knew everything. I mean, I had an aftermarket stock AND trigger!!! This is a very expensive hobby, and if I could go back and do it over again, I could've saved myself quite a bit. The mistake I made was doing things backwards. I ordered a "custom" rifle for an elk hunt, which the gunsmith had to set up for me. Once I ordered it, I started camping out on snipershide to learn more, and as I learned more, I wanted to make changes to the build. Gunsmiths don't really like that. I will have to give many thanks to Russell Banks owner of Scout Supply Company for being patient with me and not telling me to go fly a kite by now. I highly recommend Russell, and he would walk you through the process whenever you're ready.

You're on the right track with your .243 and .308. You can learn and practice the fundamentals with those rifles, and through that practice you will start to find out what you like and don't like. And since you have relatively inexpensive rifles, you can easily start upgrading things such as the trigger, stock, optics, scope mounts, etc to learn more about your preferences. The For Sale board here on snipershide will be your best friend on this part of your journey. You can buy used parts to try on your rifles. If you like them keep them, and if not, you can usually sell it and get most of your money back out of it.

Another thing you're already doing that is HUGE is reloading. Since you know how to do that, you will be able to get as much performance as you can possibly get out of your rifles. It will help you learn what makes your rifles tick. Such as how the different barrel contours and twist rates perform based on the different bullets shapes, weights, loads, etc that you run through them, which in turn will help you figure out what barrel you like and will be needed to meet your requirements when it's time to build. The reloading will also help you determine what cartridge you're going to prefer for that 1000 yard rifle. I say prefer, because by the time you're ready to have your own custom built from the ground up, you're going to know about a million different cartridges that could work, but it will all boil down to personal preference. I highly recommend buying and reading "Applied Ballistics for Long Range Shooting" by Bryan Litz. It's easy to read and follow, especially if you're a math guy. Gaining an understanding of ballistics will completely change the way you look at long range shooting, which also entails your opinion on how your rifle will need to be set up to accomplish your goals.

And on that note, I am going to digress for a minute. Figuring out how you will want a custom rifle built and configured to your needs is about much more than just learning the differences in a Manners T3 stock and an AICS AX chassis or Surgeon action vs Stiller Tac 30AW. You need to understand how the entire "system" works on a whole. Understanding how each component of the rifle effects the ballistics, trajectories, flight paths, ballistic coefficients, etc., are the most important concepts to learn. Getting a firm grasp on those concepts naturally progresses into being able to figure out how you would like that custom rifle built. In other words, you have to learn more about shooting than the equipment at first in order to be able to choose the right equipment for the build in the long run.