All,
I want a custom rifle built but as my title states im on a budget. I do not have an exact budget in mind but am starting to save. My original thought was to buy a cooper rifle but now im thinking I may just go custom depending on costs. What can I expect? This will be a handy rifle and not a dedicated long range. I am thinking along the lines of a sporter type weight in a sporter style stock. I am mostly concerned about accuracy and weight and do not need ultra fancy (such as custom milling of bolts and barrels and such for appearance sake). So what do you think the cost would be for a reputable company to build me this rifle? I am thinking something in a Remington 700 style action. Mcmillan stock would be sweet but they are expensive so not sure if there are other budget friendly options which are almost as nice. I definitely do not want a wood stock as this rifle will be carried in dense woods. I think id prefer stainless but not settled on that. Caliber is also not decided but is between 6.5prc, 6.5x284, 280, 280ai. Game will be 99% whitetails with a very rare opportunity on a black bear. I do not hunt for black bear direct but if one comes by during deer season, id take one so let's focus on that. This rifle MUST be sub 1 MOA out to 500 yards and would prefer closer to .5MOA. So what do you think im looking at for costs and which companies should I look into to build me this rifle? Thanks!
I've found that for custom rifles costs rise significantly for weight savings, 'name brand', and aesthetics. You can have a full custom for the price of most Coopers.
Gunwerks GRB/Bighorn Origin/Alamo Precision Hunter = ~$825
Bartlein/Benchmark/other/other = ~$325
Timney/TriggerTech = ~$150
Chamber barrel & thread muzzle = ~$450
For the stock, you can easily spend over $1,000, but for a budget build, you might look into KRG Bravo (~$400) or some of the Stockys offerings (~$200 + ~$150 bottom metal).
All-in you should be ~$2,200.
Any of the sub-$1000 actions provide far more features than a Tikka and will retain value longer as a 'custom' action over the factory Tikka.
For gunsmith, you might look into who you have locally. Some of the 'bigger' names that have good prices are LRI, Patriot Valley Arms, Alamo Precision, Northwest ActionWorks...lots of others around.
For whitetails out to 500 yards, I would go with the lighter recoiling 6.5 variant.
I would agree that in my time buying, building, and selling custom and factory rifles... the cost is indicative of how much weight you want to save. Custom components will certainly give you an edge.
First thing first to help you out... absolutely peruse the Rifle buy sell trade pages from numerous forums including this one... I find almost 99/100 that folks spend BIG money on a full custom rifle and then life happens (happened to me several times) and end up selling basically brand new rifles for about half of what they spent. From here on out, unless I am looking for something very very specific, I'll be buying used.
Now... we are in a very exciting time where ingenuity and lots of new players in the market want their share... there are tons of excellent factory rifles from the big players such as Tikka, Remington, Savage, Weatherby, etc... but even more of the folks like Alamo Precision, Fierce Firearms, Cristensen Arms, to name a few... which all build EXCELLENT and very accurate rifles fr the money over a true "custom, gunsmith built" rifle.
The other worst part about rifles is the fact that you have to budget also for an optic. I've used bargain bin scopes and also own the most expensive scopes money can buy and let me tell you... optics should be priority.
Something you can think about which in my opinion is the way to go nowadays with he quality of CNC machining and prefit barrels... is to purchase something like a Northland Shooter's Supply Trued Rem 700 action, buy a barrel nut Rem/Age system, and spin on your own prefit barrel to your specs. Same goes for if you want a true custom action like say a Bighorn Origin (I personally own one) which many manufacturers and smiths sell prefits for. The best part about this concept is that for the most part...if you decide down the road you prefer a different caliber, it's fairly easy to make the swap. Multi-caliber rifles arent going away and personally I wish all of mine were that way.
As far as your caliber choices above... wise man once told me... don't purchase a rifle/caliber based upon what you will use it for 1-5% of the time, purchase it for what you will mainly be using it for. Since you say 99% Whitetail hunting, any of those above will be more than appropriate.
In regards to Tangent's reply, I ould agree with all that he has said... the costs are usually fairly close on smithing fees and cost of the main components.
All in all, it's kind of like building a shop... always build bigger than you think you need... cuz you can always use the extra room. --- This equates to save save save ad buy exactly what you want...it would be a shame to buy something and then not like it and have to spend even more money on another rifle (or be a poor sap who has to sell his custom rifle for half of what he paid...)
Hope this helps and feel free to message me if you hve any other questions.
-Darin