I got my dream rifle put together by GAP recently and I'm in love with her.
Specs:
.308 Win
Badger M2008 Action
22" Bartlein Barrel 1 in 10 twist
M5 Bottom metal
Jewell Trigger
McMillan A5 stock with KMW loggerhead cheekpiece
AAC Blackout flash suppressor
AAC 762SD suppressor
Nightforce NXS 3.5-15x50mm NPR1 scope with zero stop
Weighs about 18.5 lbs
The stock mix is supposed to be 33% each of Black, Olive Drab, and Tan. If you handed it to me and asked me to guess at what the mix really is, I'd say 50% black, 30% OD and 20% tan. It's custom stuff and you never know exactly how it's going to turn out, but it ended up a little darker than I really wanted. I love the stock, absolutely love it, but a little black goes a long way and I wish I'd gone a little lighter with the black.
Couple closeups with different lighting:
I fired a few different loads through her today while sighting in the scope and I think I'm going to go with 155 grn Lapua Scenars over 43 grains of Varget in Lapua brass and 210M primers. I was getting around 2750 FPS with it, which isn't blazing fast, but it shot pretty well. With 44 grains of Lapua I got right at 2800 FPS, but when I was seating the bullets I was worried I was compressing the load, it just didn't look like there was much room for the projo in that case with 44 grains of Varget. Made me nervous, but I didn't really see any major pressure signs today with the load.
Group from today:
.751" edge to edge
.443" after subtracting .308
There is only one thing that I noticed was a little bit of a problem with my setup. I LOVE the adjustability of the KMW Loggerhead cheekpiece. It can go up and down and also is adjustable side to side. I fiddled with it for about 10 minutes to get it just right so it fit right under my cheekbone and I had a perfectly natural cheekweld. Unfortunately once I tightened everything down, I ran the bolt and realized that it impacted the cheekpiece. There's a cutout in the cheekpiece so if you adjust it straight up, the bolt will slide into it. Problem is, if you adjust it side to side as well as up, the cutout isn't in the right place. I could probably have the cheekpiece cut so it would work, but I found that if I adjusted it off to the side and then put my old Eagle stock pack on it, it gave me the same cheekweld and also allowed me to run the bolt. Not a bad solution since I like to have the stock pack on the rifle to carry my drop chart and suppressor paperwork.
Bolt hitting cheekpiece:
One bit of good news is that I'd been having problems with my POI shifting down majorly as it heated up. After 2-3 shots, it would shift around 2-3 inches down at 100 yards. With the new rifle, I shot it fairly rapidly and didn't notice the shift. I was shooting different loads through it, so each load went to slightly different places on paper, but I didn't see the problem today. That's very good news.
The rifle is extremely easy to shoot. It's a heavy monster and with the suppressor the recoil is almost non-existent. I did shoot it 2 times without the suppressor and the POI is 2.5" vertical. With the suppressor off, it shoots 2.5" higher than with it on.
Thanks George from GAP for being patient with me while I kept changing my mind on things and thanks Marty from Badger for also being patient with me while I scraped together my pennies for the action! I love the rifle!
Shawn
Specs:
.308 Win
Badger M2008 Action
22" Bartlein Barrel 1 in 10 twist
M5 Bottom metal
Jewell Trigger
McMillan A5 stock with KMW loggerhead cheekpiece
AAC Blackout flash suppressor
AAC 762SD suppressor
Nightforce NXS 3.5-15x50mm NPR1 scope with zero stop
Weighs about 18.5 lbs
The stock mix is supposed to be 33% each of Black, Olive Drab, and Tan. If you handed it to me and asked me to guess at what the mix really is, I'd say 50% black, 30% OD and 20% tan. It's custom stuff and you never know exactly how it's going to turn out, but it ended up a little darker than I really wanted. I love the stock, absolutely love it, but a little black goes a long way and I wish I'd gone a little lighter with the black.
Couple closeups with different lighting:
I fired a few different loads through her today while sighting in the scope and I think I'm going to go with 155 grn Lapua Scenars over 43 grains of Varget in Lapua brass and 210M primers. I was getting around 2750 FPS with it, which isn't blazing fast, but it shot pretty well. With 44 grains of Lapua I got right at 2800 FPS, but when I was seating the bullets I was worried I was compressing the load, it just didn't look like there was much room for the projo in that case with 44 grains of Varget. Made me nervous, but I didn't really see any major pressure signs today with the load.
Group from today:
.751" edge to edge
.443" after subtracting .308
There is only one thing that I noticed was a little bit of a problem with my setup. I LOVE the adjustability of the KMW Loggerhead cheekpiece. It can go up and down and also is adjustable side to side. I fiddled with it for about 10 minutes to get it just right so it fit right under my cheekbone and I had a perfectly natural cheekweld. Unfortunately once I tightened everything down, I ran the bolt and realized that it impacted the cheekpiece. There's a cutout in the cheekpiece so if you adjust it straight up, the bolt will slide into it. Problem is, if you adjust it side to side as well as up, the cutout isn't in the right place. I could probably have the cheekpiece cut so it would work, but I found that if I adjusted it off to the side and then put my old Eagle stock pack on it, it gave me the same cheekweld and also allowed me to run the bolt. Not a bad solution since I like to have the stock pack on the rifle to carry my drop chart and suppressor paperwork.
Bolt hitting cheekpiece:
One bit of good news is that I'd been having problems with my POI shifting down majorly as it heated up. After 2-3 shots, it would shift around 2-3 inches down at 100 yards. With the new rifle, I shot it fairly rapidly and didn't notice the shift. I was shooting different loads through it, so each load went to slightly different places on paper, but I didn't see the problem today. That's very good news.
The rifle is extremely easy to shoot. It's a heavy monster and with the suppressor the recoil is almost non-existent. I did shoot it 2 times without the suppressor and the POI is 2.5" vertical. With the suppressor off, it shoots 2.5" higher than with it on.
Thanks George from GAP for being patient with me while I kept changing my mind on things and thanks Marty from Badger for also being patient with me while I scraped together my pennies for the action! I love the rifle!
Shawn
