New Rifle: What do you think about this?

[angus-5024]

Hey guys, its time for a new baby. Well, im kind of replacing my old baby. I've just sold my .340 wby and 300 rum (that I never shot, just found a good deal on when i happend to have a little extra cash). replaced the 300 with a .243win + cash (needed somthing for coyotes) and now I need something for the big stuff (moose, elk, grizz, ect.). I loved my .340 for its knockdown power, but it had some qualities that I just didnt like (blueing was rusting, high price of brass, liked light bullets just to name a few). I'm dead set on a .338 cal. just like them... alot. so what I was thinking was a rem 700 XCR in .338 rum. my smith has an edge reamer, so i was thinking that i would do that right away (so I dont have to buy 2 sets of dies). add a break and a recoil pad and call her bob (for now). I know that a custom would be better but i dont have the cash for that, so is this a good option? is there a better route for the same price in a .338 testosterone mag?

whatever i get will be topped with 4.5-14 Mark IV (got a smokin deal on it).
By the way, I live in Canada where everything is more expensive.

Thanks fellas and God bless!!!

 

[Michael Eichele]

Sounds good. The only advice I would offer is that you try it first before you ream it out. You may have a gem to begin with. If it isnt broke dont fix it.

 

[Russ M]

i have a remington 700 xcr and am very happy with it other than the stock it is a throwaway, i replaced it with a mcmillan a-5 from jwprecision (home) ya the exchange rate is a killer right now but i think it is worth it. if you go that route a smith isn't needed to swap the stocks it is just 2 bolts.

 

[glockman55]

My buddy has one and loves it, He didn't put a brake on it and says it don't hurt too bad...but he's only 30..LOL I just looked at one on gun broker.com buy it now for $819.

 

[royinidaho]

Double dog dittos on what Michael Eichele said.

I started with 338 Win Mag which shot beautifully, but wasn't sexy enough. Got a Rem sporter take off barrel in 338 RUM got it fitted and added a Holland QD brake.

See's a sweetheart for accuracy, is plenty sexy enough has plenty of umph with the 300 SMK trucking along starting at 2730 +/-1 with IMR 7828ssc powder. No animal will know the difference between it and the Edge though the Edge has the edge


http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/members/michael-eichele/

 

[devildoc]

If your gonna spend $800 on a factory rifle, you may as well go at least semi-custom.
action $350 (rem 700)
Barrel $300
stock $200-?
fit&chamber $225

So you end up spending what? $275 more on a rig with top notch components. You can always blueprint the action later when you have more dough. If you buy the factory rig, you're basically spending $800 for a mediocre rig that you're gonna live with until you have the dough to completely overhaul it. Alternatively, you spend a little bit more, but are buying only stuff you really want that you can upgrade later.

 

[Fiftydriver]

Iam in no way trying to offend anyone but I personally would never fit a $300 match grade barrel to a Rem 700 receiver that has not been accurized. It may shoot better then the factory rifle, it may not, pretty high risk for the money.

Personally, I get this type of question alot and my comment is always the same, if your buying a new rifle, as already mentioned a couple times, shoot it, do a bit of load development and see what it will do. In many cases, it will serve you very well for what you want to do. I assume that since you want a lighter weight sporter rifle design, this rifle will not be used for shooting much past 700 yards if that.

As such, give it a good barrel break in and see how it shoots.

"IF" it does not shoot well, there are some minor things you can so to possibly improve performance. Those being:

-Trigger job(often a big help with a factory rifle)
-Lap lugs into better contact without getting to carried away.
-Recrown the factory barrel(better be done when you have the MB installed)

Those are the simple, least expensive things that MAY get you noticable results. After that, you get into more serious surgery such as restocking with quality bedding and then serious rebuilding and rebarreling.

Again, I have a hard time putting an expensive barrel on an out of box receiver. Just call it the rifle builder in me and not wanting to waste someones money. Not saying it would be a waste but it may not shoot any better then the barrel you took off. If the receiver is the problem for the poor accuracy and consistancy, you will see that again if that problem is not corrected.

Just an opinion.

 

[devildoc]

I have a tough time believing that a match grade barrel would not show significant improvement over the factory hammer-forged *** that comes on most factory rifles. I have a 6mmAI that I had fit&chambered to a all factory REM 700 VLS action and bedded into a H-S sporter that shoots like a barn on fire. Maybe I got lucky, the rifle did shoot respectably (under 1 MOA) as a stock 6mm VLS. But I have a tough time believing that the fact that I had a top notch barrel installed with the chamber cut with a piloted reamer wasn't at least mostly responsible for the accuracy gains I observed after I got it back.

I'm curious as to what damage you would be doing? At worst you could blueprint the action and have the barrel set back at a later point if accuracy was sub-par.

 

[Fiftydriver]

Devildoc,

You need to reread my post. I never said that a new match grade barrel would not likely improve accuracy.

What I said is that there is a decent chance that there would still be consistancy and accuracy issues by just screwing on a new barrel. Let me explain why. A factory rifle is generally finickier then a custom rifle, why? Because machining quality is often very poor in many area:

-Poor bolt lug contact
-out of square bolt lug supports
-out of square bolt face
-out of square receiver face
-inconsistant recoil lug thickness
-out of axial alignment receiver threads
-loose receiver/barrel thread fit
-out of axial alignment chamber/throat
-off axis crown

All of these lead up to many things we see from factory rifles, including poor consistancy, poor accuracy, mystery fliers, etc.....

So lets pull the factory barrel and machine up a quality match grade barrel, with a quality machined chamber. AT this point, the barrel will be a shooter, BUT, now lets screw it onto a receiver that has out of axial alignment receiver threads onto a receiver face that is out of square as well.

When you torque the barrel down, even if you use a match grade recoil lug that is consistant in thickness, because of the out of axis receiver threads, when you tighten the barrel down, one side of the barrel shoulder will contact first and when you fully torque the barrel down, the barrel will flex at the shank until the barrel shoulder is solidly supported by the recoil lug with is supported by the out of square receiver face.

You just took a quality, stress relieved match grade barrel and imposed a hell of a stress into it because of this flexing to adhear to the receivers flaws.....

Stress will result in many potential problems on target. Ranging from fliers to stringing to walking groups. As the barrels heat up, this stress will change its results on paper. This is one reason many factory barrels are very inconsistant or have mystery fliers.

we have not even fired the rifle yet and we already have a stress in the rifle. Now lets look at what happens to the rifle when its fired.

When you touch a round off, you will have 60 to 65,000 psi slaming against the bolt face. This compresses the bolt until the uneven lugs contact one lug, then more compression will occur as the pressure builds and the bolt is flexed until it is pushed back and stopped by the on baring recoil lug. Again, flexing and stressing occurs when firing. This can lead to consistancy problems again.

Now lets look at the bolt face. Slam it with 65K PSI and the taper on the bolt face WILL act as an inclined surface as will the uneven bolt lugs. The bolt will be forced in the direction of the incline on the bolt face. It may also be driven in another direction because of the unsupported bolt lug contacts. This mainly results in fliers more then anything.

These conditions also worsen on average if the bolt is preloaded. It also increases on average with the larger the case head size is as well as the increase in chamber pressure.

This is often why a rifle with an unsupported bolt lug will shoot well at lower pressures but go to hell at higher pressure.

Will the rifle shoot better then the factory, likely yes, BUT, why spend X amount to get "Better but likely still some issues" when you could spend a bit more and get "Solid consistant performance".

Now I am not saying a fully accurized receiver based rifle will shoot every load into bug holes. BUT, it will shoot a much larger range of loads much better then a rifle that has not been trued.

As far as taking the barrel off and doing the accurizing afterward if the rifle does not shoot, well to some degree that is true, you could do that. But remember to properly accurize a receiver, it ALL has to be done. That means that the receiver threads will need to be single point cut which will increase their diameter. Which will mean existing barrel threads will not fit. You can cut the old threads off and refit the rifle but this is pretty much a complete new barrel fitting job.

Also, some barrel contours will not allow this because their barrel shanks are not long enough. some will some will not.

My comments and opinions, if your going to spend the money, why not spend a bit more and do it all and do it right from the start?

Again, I am not saying a barrel replacement will make the rifle shoot better, but better is not good enough for me. Better could still mean average......

That is my only point. See how the factory rifle shoots, if you can not get it to do what you want, there are some minor tricks that can be tried, if those do not work then if you decide to do more involved surgery, I would recommend doing it all and doing it right from the start just to save time, money and headaches, thats all.

Again, there was no flame intended toward your post, none at all, just offering my opinion as well.

 

[Naymola]

Very well said Kirby!

 

[devildoc]

Well I guess all I am saying is that if you're going to go out and spend $700-1000 on a factory rifle. You're basically doing exactly the same thing as you're saying. Going halfway and hoping you'll get exceptional performance. Although, if you start out semi custom, (granted you'll probably spend a little more to begin with) you'll be getting the exact components that you'd like to have. You may have to trash a barrel and refit a new one once you get around to blueprinting the action. But you're gonna do that anyway if you buy a factory rig, so not much difference in my opinion.

 

[Pdvdh]

Well I guess all I am saying is that if you're going to go out and spend $700-1000 on a factory rifle. You're basically doing exactly the same thing as you're saying. Going halfway and hoping you'll get exceptional performance. Although, if you start out semi custom, (granted you'll probably spend a little more to begin with) you'll be getting the exact components that you'd like to have. You may have to trash a barrel and refit a new one once you get around to blueprinting the action. But you're gonna do that anyway if you buy a factory rig, so not much difference in my opinion.

The costs quoted in your second post back are on the low side - my opinion. Plus you left out the costs of bedding the barreled action to a stock. And a muzzle brake would be nice on a 338 RUM, which could be an additional cost either approach. I understand your point, but I'd caution the guy to confirm your cost estimates for the semi-custom or custom build - parts and labor. You can't hardly send a factory rifle to a smith for truing, bedding, and trigger work and be done without exceeding $1075, let alone buy the individual components and have them turned into a rifle. And if that kind of money up front is out of the question, the option is off the table. After that, the advice given by the others becomes the default, best available option.

A fellow shops long and hard enough and he might be able to find a used rifle that fits the bill and purpose at a reduced cost - my best 0.02 cents. If the factory rifle ends up being a shooter, leave well enough alone.

 

[devildoc]

The costs quoted in your second post back are on the low side - my opinion. Plus you left out the costs of bedding the barreled action to a stock. And a muzzle brake would be nice on a 338 RUM, which could be an additional cost either approach. I understand your point, but I'd caution the guy to confirm your cost estimates for the semi-custom or custom build - parts and labor. You can't hardly send a factory rifle to a smith for truing, bedding, and trigger work and be done without exceeding $1075, let alone buy the individual components and have them turned into a rifle. And if that kind of money up front is out of the question, the option is off the table. After that, the advice given by the others becomes the default, best available option.

A fellow shops long and hard enough and he might be able to find a used rifle that fits the bill and purpose at a reduced cost - my best 0.02 cents. If the factory rifle ends up being a shooter, leave well enough alone.

I understand your point too; but, a donor action can be found (with bottom metal, trigger and magazine) for around $350 (I find them fairly regularly). a full blueprint will cost you $400-500 bucks. Alternatively, you can buy a fully blueprinted action from some places for around $600 bucks (rem 700) and then of course you have to buy bottom metal, trigger and a magazine which pretty much makes it a wash. Then a barrel, for a good one $300. Then a stock; that's where price can vary quite a bit. you could go from $200 to the sky's the limit. If you have some technical skill you can bed it yourself for the price of some DEVCON, Acrarelease and tape (which is nominal at this point). $225 for fit & chamber.

So a fully custom rig could be had for as little as say $1500.

Now alternately, you buy a good factory rig for say...$700 ( a sendero, VLS, VSSF....whatever). Still have to blueprint the action ($400-500). Still have to get a barrel ($300). Still have to have the barrel fit and chambered ($225).
Minimum- $1625. And You're stuck with the factory stock (provided it's worth keeping) and barrel contour. Any deviation from which would cost much more. And you stilll either have to bed it yourself or have it bedded by the smith. And if you want a brake installed it will cost you the same no matter what barrel you have it installed on.

So, that's my point of view as far as economy goes.

Granted, some of my prices may be lower than yours, but I've kept them equal in my comparison. So the comparison should be relevant.

No matter what, if your end goal is to have a truly custom rig......you will pay more if you start from a factory *** than if you start putting a custom rig together in the first place. Your mileage may vary. But mine hasn't.

P.S. I understand that the prices I have quoted are on the slim side. But not overly so. I don't think any of the smith's here are going to jump on me for misrepresenting current price list's, I'm on the low side but well in the range of components and labor.

 

[Russ M]

devildoc spending more in the long run by buying factory my not be true and here is why if you are thinking factory you are probily just starting out in the long range game you won't rily know what you like and what works for you so if your are in that situation and you go custom and what you pick is wrong for you then you are stuck with this expencive rig that you don't like and then you have to start over from scratch, wasting a buch of money were as if you buy a factory at a lesser cost and use it to learn what is right for you then you have made that learning stage cheaper and not as big of a loss, if you are wrong. now if you are all set up and know what you like and works for you then i mostly agree with you if you know all that you need to know about your self and skills to pick the right rig, then don't go cheap go all out and get your self that $5000-$6000 tac driving weapon.