new member

[8verill]

Good evening all,

I am a new member to this site/forum. I have always enjoyed shooting, but have never done any long range.
I first was introduced to shooting as a Canadian Army Cadet at the age of 14. I learned on the FN C1 and earned some distinction in my corps (crossed rifle badge). I could hit pretty much anything out to 150 yards with open sights. I stopped shooting for several years and have come back to it in the last 3-4 years or so (43 now). I love shooting and want to learn the art of long range. I have a remington 7400, which is crap and totally unsuited to this kind of shooting. I will be selling it (as soon as I have the ejection problem fixed) and plan to purchase a bolt action rifle. I would be grateful for any words of wisdom on how best to get started. I have an enormous amount to learn I know, but i think that that's half the fun.

Thanks,

Sean (Surrey, British Columbia)

 

[WyoElk2Hunt]

Welcome to site and keep us posted on your new ideas of the rifle you want to shoot.

 

[rtabor]

Welcome. I would give you my two cents on where to start, but as I am still a little wet behind the ears in long range, I'll leave it to the pros.

Russell Tabor

craftsman-construction.com

I love animals....they're delicious.

 

[trebark]

Sean - welcome to the forum. The members of this forum will be glad to help you with whatever they can. In order to help you now, we need a bit more information. For instance, what do you intend to hunt or shoot? Targets? varmints? deer? How far do you intend to shoot? and of course, what kind of budget you might have.

While you contemplate those questions, go over to the Gun Photo section and start reading. There you will find not only information about rifles and their owners' intended uses, but you get the advantage of some pics too. I find that is always helpful.

To get you started, check out mine and my nephew's rifles...

First, my nephew's rifle. A great example of an 'accurized' factory Rem700. Essentially, take a factory rifle, replace the stock, have it bedded, then have a gunsmith work-over the metal parts. The results speak for themselves.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f53/nephews-transformed-rifle-53634/

Next is my 'carry' gun. It is a fairly inexpensive 'custom'. I say it is fairly inexpensive because the stock is off-the-shelf, it still has the factory trigger and in its early life it had a basic level Leupold scope. The custom part of the upgrade is that it does have a custom barrel...

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f53/my-280-updated-32771/

Then comes my two 'prone' guns. These are totally custom longrange rigs that between them are capable of killing deer waaaaaay over there and taking on targets/varmints as far as you can see.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f53/my-260-mcr-59628/

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f53/my-300rum-mcr-70809/#post494570

Again, welcome to the forum and let us know when you have some answers to the questions above and we'll be glad to help.

 

[8verill]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Lots to think about. With respect to hunting, i'm really more of a bird guy, so the long range interest is about targets for me. Ultimately I would like to compete. How far do i want to shoot? As far as I can. 1000 meters? more? We'll see what I'm capable of.
The photos you sent are great. Looks I can get started for not too much money. I'm thinking of $1000-1500.
I'm sure I'll have a million questions as I go along. Again, thanks for the reply.

Regards,

Sean

 

[trebark]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Lots to think about. With respect to hunting, i'm really more of a bird guy, so the long range interest is about targets for me. Ultimately I would like to compete. How far do i want to shoot? As far as I can. 1000 meters? more? We'll see what I'm capable of.
The photos you sent are great. Looks I can get started for not too much money. I'm thinking of $1000-1500.
I'm sure I'll have a million questions as I go along. Again, thanks for the reply.

Regards,

Sean

You can build a pretty nice rifle for ~$1500. As an FYI, my nephew's rifle cost ~$975. You could go custom barrel and better optics and stay within your $1500 budget.

If you intend to compete with the rifle, you will be learning a lot about barrel life. Competition rifles tend to be shot a lot and as a result, get hot, stay hot and the barrel gets eaten up. There are definitely calibers that are more barrel friendly than others. For instance, a 260 will generally last longer than a 6.5x284