thought I'd follow up on the rig's progress.
Went to Deadly Precision Gunsmith and picked up the rig less than two weeks later. The trip coincided with a follow-up app't at a SLC hospital. Good report on that topic. However . . .
Grit did at least the following:
- Fitted the 270 AM barrel that I got form Derek M, from LRH.com
- Timed the brake what came with the barrel (Holland QD I believe)
I learned that its not good to spend too much time visiting with a rifle smith.
- Fix or replace the original Rem 721 trigger. The original trigger didn't cut the mustard (it had been crisp single stage, two or three stage depending on cloud cover or something since 1956. It was replaced with a Rifle Basics which he "happened to have laying around"
- Hmm there's a hole in the recoil lug. Do you want the lug pinned to the action? Sounds good to me! That was done also.
- How about your scope mount screws? Would you like the next size up? Who wouldn't? That was done.
Nifty extra effort resulted in correct head space AND the top flute being Top Dead Center. If that were even the slightest bit off it'd drive me bonkers every time I got behind the rig.
Had another fun visit but I was hurtin' pretty bad and couldn't take pain pills as I wanted to drive and I was the only one who wanted to go there.
Had to ask Grit to bring the other rifle I brought for trigger adjustment into the shop from the car. Learned the hard way that the DR's 10 pound lift limit is at least 8 pounds too much.
Got home and was going to get all over the remaining upgrade to the rig. That didn't get done until last night.
The shorter, lighter barrel (28" vs 30" and .75 vs .9xx muzzle diameter) changed the characteristics of the rig. The original stock while perfectly bedded screamed for modification. I resisted and decided to modify a freebie Rem VTR?? short action stock from a nice fella in MT.
After the stock work was done she definitely needed a cheek rest. After much thought, contemplation, rooting around and web searching I came up with enough chap leather, velcro, gorilla glue and bull hide for spacers and the tools to come up with a darn decent cheek rests that would seem to meet all requirement.
It'll be a couple of weeks before I'll be willing to attempt firing it. I busted the ol' kidney loose once and ain't about to even sneak up on that one again. The 375 AM and 338 RUM need shooting also.
Maybe I'll simply drag my stuff to the next MT shoot and talk volunteers into doing the shooting.
Here she is:
