I've decided I will be building my first custom rifle this year with the help of a machinist buddy of mine as needed
So, is this to gain experience in the machining ops required to actually "build" a rifle?
In the last decade or so, tolerances in receivers have been tightened to the extent that very accurate rifles can be assembled from production parts. For me, this is an assembly of parts- just like an AR-15. Maybe a handful of tooling (barrel vise, action wrench, etc)
but no actual machining work.
If it's assembly, precision M700 clones that take prefits (either shouldered, or nutted) all mentioned above fit the bill.
Buying a Borden, BAT, etc will certainly do the job. What you're getting here is everyone's individual preference, usually based on what they own- not what will serve YOUR purpose.
If you don't like spending $$ for basically no reason (this is a hunting rifle, not a BR competition rifle) and your machinist friend can handle it (barrel work is nothing more than basic machining, but to VERY tight tolerances), you can get the same results at the target for much less $$. Get a Mack action, a quality blank from Bartlein, Krieger, Hart, etc. and you're four figures ahead.
You're welcome.
JMO. YMMV.
