Savage vs Remington vs tikka vs browning vs custom

[Deederswy]

Thank you everyone for your replies. When i talk about a tac driver i understand that hunting is much different than competitive shooting. Im not looking for anything that would be sub MOA at 1200 yards, but living and hunting in Wyoming with a lot of wide open spaces i have taken one deer and one elk just over 500 yards. I would like to have that confidence in reaching out there and touching something out to 700-800 yards. I would also like to try to keep my bill under $1500 if possible. Is it possible to use my action and have a rifle built for that? Or am i better off weighing pros and cons with the Tikka T3 and the Savage LRH?

 

[Joe King]

Thank you everyone for your replies. When i talk about a tac driver i understand that hunting is much different than competitive shooting. Im not looking for anything that would be sub MOA at 1200 yards, but living and hunting in Wyoming with a lot of wide open spaces i have taken one deer and one elk just over 500 yards. I would like to have that confidence in reaching out there and touching something out to 700-800 yards. I would also like to try to keep my bill under $1500 if possible. Is it possible to use my action and have a rifle built for that? Or am i better off weighing pros and cons with the Tikka T3 and the Savage LRH?

That price break down I used was pretty high end, Fluted Lilja barrel, McMillan A5 stock, muzzle break, Timney trigger. You can do some shopping and get your price down some. Or just go with a Savage LRH I see em on Gun genie quoted for $835 and up. Where my daughter is concerned the savage is likely the route I'm gonna go. Fugly but it gets most of the important things pretty right.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Since you mentioned hunting, I'd take a hard look at Tikka. Dependable, accurate and lightweight. The plastic puts people off in the show room but that all goes away at the range and in the field.

The one that I shot had a walnut stock, and just felt really good in the shouldered position. One thing I didn't like about the Tikka was the magazine. The best magazine I've ever used was the one on the original Marlin MR-7 of about 15 years ago. The Tikka shot five shot groups at slightly over 5/8" center to center with hand loads. I'd call that real world good in my book. To compair this with something else in a hunting rifle, I have one older Vanguard (wood stock) that is a rock solid half inch gun with 150 grain bullets in 30-06. I also have a MK.V light weight that is a good 3/4" rifle shooting off a cold barrel. The Marlin MR-7 started out at about one inch and is shooting about .70" groups with 150 and 165 grain bullets. I can't get it to shoot good groups with 180 grain bullets for some odd reason. I get similar groups with my MK. V in .270 mag with out doing much reload development. All these rifles have either Leupold 3x-9x or the VarIII 3.5x-10x scopes.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

It all comes down to money and how much of yours you'd like to get rid of !! Out of the box the Savage rifles dollar for dollar are hard to beat and being the range master at one of the long range groundhog matches in the east for 10 years I've seen them all shoot and I get to see them all in all calibers and cartridges. For normal big game hunting when your shooting at a volleyball to basketball sized target any of the above will do in most cases, now shifting down to to squirrel and dog sized targets is another story, your wallet is going to get involved. For that adventure your 700 Remington action will be more than good enough, an action truing, a new barrel and chamber cut and installed, a new trigger, stock and bedding will set you back well over a $1200 bucks plus your action...then we get to scopes and the sky is the limit in that department... So it all comes down to your wallet size, what you want to hunt and how far you'd like to shoot at em... $$$$$

Basicly your showing $2K without sights. The rifle even then probably won't shoot any better than some of the better long range newer rifles. To seriously get that 700 to shoot lights out, I think your talking $2200 (including the action).

1. barrel blank will be about $350
(machining the chamber and headspacing is another $150)

2. a cheap custom trigger is about a $100, and many guys will want a Jewell at close to $275

3. trueing the action and recutting the threads in going to hit you for about a $150 if your lucky

4. a good stock will cost you about $250 minimum, and then you have to bed it, so expect to see about $325 to $400 finished.

5. A lot of guys want to do some bolt work as well as truing. I did an M16 extractor and modified the ejector pin setup. That's gonna be another $100

6. then there are incidentals like a brake and checkering if you want to go all out.

All the above is nice and more could be added. But here another take:

* a Savage out of the box is very square, and really needs nothing done to it

* you can buy a prefit custom barrel of whatever quality you want for less than $400. Pacnor sells them in many wildcat chambers if that's what you want for around $350 last time I looked. But you may not even want a custom barrel!

* the Savage accutrigger is the best factory trigger made

* Stocking will come out at about the same. I would get rid of the factory synthetic stock unless it was the HS stock. And even then rebed it with new pillars.

* no bolt work is needed

Some Savages come with brakes and some don't. That's the end user's call here

In otherwords your looking at $800 verses $1350 minimum. I have no idea how strait the Tikkas are, but they must be very good. Just not a lot of stuff to change on them out of the box.
gary