which barrel contour?

[Bigeclipse]

I replied to your other thread regarding Boyds color. Hope that helped.

If you have not handled the Boyds stock yet, let me tell you I am very happy with the feel of my Prairie Hunter for a light carry rifle. Lightest option out there? No. But it's not heavy. And most of the ultra light weight stocks do not inlet for Savage. I know, I've looked.

Regarding the barrel contour, in a hunting rifle that is not a real long range rig the question is almost meaningless. I have a factory Savage .243 sporter barrel, it is whip thin and shot around 1 MOA with handloads. For moderate ranges....beyond what you describe....that is fine. Now put a custom barrel on instead, and you're golden.

I'm putting together a 243AI on a Savage action, Shilen barrel. In prefits they only offer standard Savage contours - Sporter, Heavy Sporter, Varmint. After a lot of thought, I went with Heavy Sporter (S4). I'll be doing some prairie dog hunting with it this fall but rotating it with another rifle. For antelope/deer hunting, I don't need to fire long strings. So a heavy sporter seems acceptable. I'm not shooting matches throwing 10 or more rounds downrange without cooling.

The 243AI will sit in a McMillan A3 Sporter I have on order for it ($$). But this is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime build for me. After receiving my Boyds I can say I don't think you will be disappointed in the feel. But hopefully you know how to install pillars and bed a rifle. Hint -- buy the "factory savage" pillars from Stocky's. You need very thin pillars, and the Stocky's are pre-cut to clear the sear. I was ignorant and though the adjustable Brownells would be easier to deal with...there is not enough room in a Savage for such wide pillars to work easily, requiring extensive modification via dremel, and the front pillar area was too short to even make use of the adjustment range and I just used the barrel end of the pillar.

thanks for the comments! I think what we will do is go for just a 20in barrel from apache gun works. He uses ER SHAW barrel blanks and while they aren't of high quality, many people report good to great accuracy out of them especially if he is the one doing the cutting and crowning. He only charges ~200 dollars for them. I am leaning for just a regular sporter contour since it will not be used for long range hunting, but he can also do a heavy sporter/savage magnum contour if I would like. For her situation I think the heavy sporter will be just extra weight added which then I will likely have to inlet the stock somewhat which im a bit fearful of sanding out and re-finishing a finished wood stock (I have only inletted synthetic stocks to date). I figured if we get the cut and crowned ER SHAW in sporter the chances of it shooting sub MOA are good. She can use this for as long as she likes. Then if she really starts getting into longer ranges later on, we can build her a new long range dedicated rig OR rebarrel this rig with a heavier contour nice barrel from one of the more upper quality barrel makers.