New build - 7 SAUM

[West_Bay_Wader]

The specs:

Benchmark 30" 5r 8 twist 7mm tube light varmint 5/8"x24 threads
Chambered in 7 SAUM.
Stiller Predator s/a 20 MOA rail
Stiller DBM
Alpha Type 4 10 round 300WSM Mags
Jewell trigger
McMillan A-3/5 , 2 flush cups
Kahle 6x24 56 MSR
Nightforce 6screw rings
Waiting on the stamp for my thunderbeast

Built by Omar Alonzo in the Houston area - builds a lot of 6.5 SAUM hammers.

I cannot wait to get some time to shoot it. I will break it in with 180 VLDs over a healthy dose of Retumbo and if I can ever find some H1000 will compare that to the Retumbo. Yes that is an 8 twist cited above as I have heard about some 195 VLDs in the future and I would rather have a little more than not enough.

This whole project started from me thinking about rebarreling a Rem 7-08 sporter that needs a need tube to be fun. But one thing leads to another and you need a new stock, why bother truing an action, that trigger needs work, etc.............

 

[tigerfan_9]

What reamer/freebore did you go with? What's your OAL to the lands?

 

[Glassaholic]

Awesome build. I will be very interested to see what kind of fps you get from the 30" barrel (my new build has a 26" bbl). You and I have the opposite problem as I have 8# of H1000 but no Retumbo I too am waiting on my stamp for a Thunderbeast 30BA... come on ATF!

Wish you lived closer, we'd have a lot of fun shootin' our 7SAUM's...

Bill

 

[bjay]

Great lookin rifle.. i started my 7 saum in SA aswell with 30" barrel but i fell inlove with 180hybrids and i didnt like seating hybrids too deep to fit on mags.. sent it back to my smithcut the shank and replaced action with long action bighorn.. mine still havent taste the range too..good luck!

 

[West_Bay_Wader]

Tiger,
I cannot recall the exact reamer at this time. It is a no-turn neck - I believe 319 but I am checking.

With 180 Berger hunting VLDs my OAL to the lands is 2.990"
With 168 Barnes LRX OAL to the lands is 2.962"

 

[Barney88PDC]

The OAL on my 180 Hunting VLD is about 3.020" to touch the lands. I load them to 3.035" OAL for a 0.015" jam (approximate as OAL varies I use 2.242" BTO as my "real" measurement for jamming). The reamer has a free bore of 0.180". I built on a long action so I could seat them long.

 

[West_Bay_Wader]

Well I made it out to the range last weekend. Unfortunately the wind was blowing a steady 15-20 with gusts 25-30. No problem I was mainly planning to do the barrel break in and get a lot of cleaning exercise in. The first 15 shots were some lightly loaded 150 NBTs over some H4831SC just to get things rolling and I needed to do something with the last 15 as I do not use them for anything anymore. The barrel stopped laying copper down very quickly and I was able to shoot a little ladder of 180 VLDs over some Retumbo as I was still waiting to find the ever elusive H1000.

The gun shoots great and it is always nice to be able to fire the first shot at 300Y just by pulling the bolt and looking through the barrel to get on the target ( a lot more precise at 100). I was not planning on doing much more than brake in so I did not run the 215M primers that I plan to run normally as I decided to burn up the last few WLRM that I had. Given the wind that was whipping of my left shoulder and quite variable from 6-8 I was quite pleased. The group in the pic was again from 300Y but ran a max vertical spread edge to edge of just over 0.7". This was a 180 VLD over 63.5 of Retumbo, Norma brass.

I love the Kahles 6x24 with the MSR. The floating dot is awesome for precise shooting.

Too make matters better the second pic shows what Fed Ex delivered today ----- two 8lbers of H1000 --- yoo hooooo... I canceled all of the back orders that I had elsewhere as I was lucky enough to get in on Powder Valley's latest shipment. I have been waiting on some 1000 for a long time as I know others have as well. Time to get busy and the winds have laid down.