338 Ultra Mag on it's Way To Montana

[GNERGY]

This is a rifle that I just finished for a friend of mine Paul, in Montana.
He sent me a trued Rem 700 Action.
I machined it for a Wyatts mag box.
He sent me a Krieger 338 barrel that was 1.450 Dia. x 32 inches long( which was all that was available at the time ) I turned it down to 1.250 and chambered it to 338 Ultra Mag. I also installed a 4 port Magnum Muscle brake.
I bedded it in a Bobby Hart LR Tactical stock which had the aluminum bedding block. I didn't bed the aluminum block, just 8 inches in front of the recoil lug ( because when I turned down the barrel I ended up with 11 inches straight 1.250 Dia.) to support the barrel weight. I also installed stronger inserts to support larger sling swivel studs for the rifles extra weight or from shooting from a bipod. It got an EGW 20 Moa rail and I put my Sightron 8x 32x S111 on it to work up a load before I sent it off to Paul. He had been clearing a lot of trees on his property and messed up his shoulder so would be out of comission for about a month.

I loaded up some 200gr Nosler Ballistic tips because I had a lot of them and they really performed well. After 3 rounds I felt a crack in the pistol grip area of the stock, ( I was like No EFFIN way ) I went home and called Stockys and told the lady that I had a Bobby Hart Long Range Tactical stock and it just cracked, first words out of her mouth were does it have an aluminum bedding block? She told me to contact the manufacturer. I did and after sending them some pics they had the stock picked up and finally called me back ( one of their engineers ) After a lengthly conversation and me telling him what I thought of his stocks with an aluminum block glued in there, he agreed to send me another stock WITHOUT the aluminum block. I was happy, but I was going to have to open up the barrel channel and install more swivel adapters and pillars and bed the action and barrel again. After that was finished it was off to the range again to finish barrel break in and some load development. ( The factory trigger on his action was horrible) A better trigger will help shrink these groups even more. I finally settled on 93grs. H 4831 which gave 3390 FPS average, It grouped 1.6 inches at 300 meeters and 3 inches at 500 yrds. So Paul should be happy and have no problem hitting anything out to 6 or 700 yds.
Here is a pic of pauls and my 338 Ultra Mags

If anybody likes the bipods I have made a couple for myself and some F/TR class shooters. They can also be used for just load development. They can be as light as 1lb 2ozs and still be stronger and more rigid then the popular Gen 3 model out there. Let me know and I can give you more details on them. I make them one at a time.
Thanks for reading my long post
Tarey

 

[Joel Russo]

So you called Stocky's after the stock broke, and they told you to call the manufacturer. Who was that?
When you spoke to the "engineer" from the manufacturer about the aluminum bedding block or commonly called the "V" block, what was his explanation as to why the stock broke?
I'm curious as to what their explanation or theory of breakage is as it relates to the block being installed....

Nice bipods by the way.

 

[GNERGY]

Joel,
Keystone Sporting arms in Milton Pa. they make them exclusively for Stockys.
He said that I dropped it or used it in a led sled or some other BULL $$$$ reason. He said out of 400 or so stocks with the block they had 43 of them sent back, but most of them were the purchasers F ups like bad bedding or barrels too big to fit the channel and tightening up the screws and cracking it in the action area.
After I talked with him for about 10 minutes and he finally figured out that I knew what I was talking about, because all I did was open up the barrel channel and install some T shaped inserts for larger sling swivel studs and devcon bed the front of the barrel. I told him cut the stock in half and he will see what I did. I told him I own 3 of the Bobby Hart LRT stocks ( without the aluminum block ) and they are a good deal for a factory stock. I told him this one with the block isn't like the HS Precision stocks with the aluminum bedded in the length of the stock, it's just glued in for people that can't or don't want to bed their stock. I told him I would rather Devcon bed them myself. ( I told Paul to buy the Hart LRT stock but he bought the one with the block himself, not knowing that it wasn't better then the one without. ) So the engineer argeed to send me one with out the block, and I told him I would be satisfied with that. So all is good and I would still recommend their stocks ( but NOT the one with the aluminum block ) as a good stock for the money. You don't have to worry about denting them up hunting or shooting and ruining a good custom stock.
Tarey