Help with Lawton Bench rifles, worth the price?

[Johnny Crash]

So I recently decided I wanted to get into some bench rifle shooting. I told a few of my friends that I was interested and one of those friends told me he was getting to old and was looking to get rid of a couple bench rifles. He told me to come by and check them out, see what I thought.

when I got there he pulled out 2 Lawton based bench rifles. One being a 6x47 Lapua (purple tracker stock) and the other was a 6.5x284 (wood tracker). I geeked out for a few mins and drooled on them just because of the cool factor.

I’m personally more of a tactical rifle guy and own several Deviant based rifles but I have no experience with true bench style rifles.

So I’m wondering what you all think of these builds. He told me I could have both rifles for 4K. Both have less then 500 rounds down the the pipe. They need cleaned up and need some love but I feel like it’s a pretty good deal. He’s gonna throw in dies, brass, and a bunch of other tidbits for each rifle but he literally told me to take them, work up a round for both and see what I thought.

the 6x47 has an older 8x32x56 Nightforce and the 6x284 has a 10x60 March on it. Both are Lawton 7500 actions with sub 1500 serial numbers.

I’ve done some reading on Lawton and what I gather is they were a pain to deal with but built a hellacious rifle, so I’m curious what you folks think.

Thanks, Crash

 

[OLD308]

After Barney died (RIP), his son destroyed the business. I ordered my rifle specked out with Barney. He passed as it was being completed. It took letters from my lawyer to get the rifle. Then took more time and money to have the new rifle fixed.
Still shooting it all these years latter. It’s a 8500 repeater in 338 Lapua magnum improved. Hope this helps.

 

[swampbuck]

That's a deal. If you want to get into benchrest these area no brainer. I'm sure those rifles are capable to take you as far as you want to go. Just hold onto your ass. Benchrest is a game of equipment as well as skill. You will be going through reloading components and barrels at a high rate. And your old RCBS charge master won't keep up. You will be investing in a pharmaceutical grade powder scale before you know it. It's a whole other kind of addiction with considerable time and expense involved. Lawton was a really good company and it is a shame how it went down.

 

[lennyo3034]

4k for both? Including glass and dies? Jump on that!

 

[THEIS]

Hi,

You will be replacing both of those barrels immediately if you are going to jump into the BR game, lol....by the time you work up load for them they will be unsatisfactory for BR.

Take that possibility into account, other than that...good deal going.

Which will then make the reloading dies useless because BR game...the chamber and dies are cut from same reamer.

Sincerely,
Theis