A long range build question

[ForestSharpshooter]

Okay so I am semi-new to the world of long range marksmanship. I was at the local outdoor store today looking at prices at a long range setup. I want to use said setup for long range target shooting (1000+ yards) as well as hunting. As nice as the guy was I do not know if he was feeding me a line or not.

He turned me on to a website called gunwerks. He said nothing but good things about this place.

This is the rifle he said should be my number one, two and three choice.
Gunwerks - LR-1000 Shooting System

Now the gun setup he told me to get was the 7mm mag set up. With the custom load development. And a Nightforce scope.

I understand the in order to get an amazing long distance rifle and scope you have to pay the big bucks.

And to be honest I do not even know if this is the right site to talk about this at but it seems like it with a name like longrangehunting.com.

But anyways. (sorry to ramble)

For a price of 7k+ I thought I could find an equally good setup for less cost. Am i wrong... probably...

Now I was in the market for a sharpshooting setup about 5 months ago. I found rave reviews on the new Savage .308 police setup. Without the break in the barrel.

http://www.savagearms.com/firearms/model/10FCPK

Now i have never been to good with scopes so I was going to get a nightforce optics.

8-32x56 & 12-42x56

I guess i completely got off track.

I was just wondering what you guys thought of said gunwerks. And what setup you would say. I know everyone is different. I just want the most bang for my buck. (pun intended)

Thank you very much.

Happy shooting

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

I understand the in order to get an amazing long distance rifle and scope you have to pay the big bucks.
For a price of 7k+ I thought I could find an equally good setup for less cost. Am i wrong... probably...

Ok the first one is NOT TRUE AT ALL, and man you were right on the money with the second one.

Most guys including myself will tell you buy a rem 700 sendero in a LA chambering for around 1k. Look for rounds like 338 rum, 300rum, 300 win mag, 7mm rem mag etc. Then get your self a top of the line scope, Nightforce or Leupold are worth looking at there are others sure, expect to pay around 1500 to 2000 for this get good rings and bases. Learn to reaload, then start changing the rifle around to suit you after you in the door and have a few hundred rounds down range.

Or you can buy a used rifle from a guy here who already did all the work for alot less than that. Here is one example of what you can do to get a 1k deer gun for under 2k.

FN PBR in 300wsm (barreled action) 500$
Used McMillan hunter stock 300$
Accuracy package from Kevin Cram at Montoure county rifles plus muzzle brake
Horus Vision Hawk scope 650$
Now there is shipping involved

Im at about 1800$ on a rifle that has the power, weight and looks I want and will reach out to 1k on game.

 

[WyoElk2Hunt]

Gunwerks makes good stuff but you pay for it and the load development they work up for you. You can get a long range setup for a lot less. You will need to get into reloading to get the best results from your rifle if you don't already do so. It all depends on what you want and how much work you want to do yourself. Several others on this site Like Lem (LongRangeRifles), MCR and others build very good rifles for less money. Spend some time and read more threads and you will find what you are looking for.

 

[ForestSharpshooter]

Thank you for your reply ICANHITHIMMAN.

I have to say that your rifle looks amazing. It is like the one I in-vision myself owning.

Learn to reload is a piece of advice that every person I talk to has given me. I think it is about time to learn to reload.

I will look into the rem 700, as well as the calibers you stated.

I do have one question that probably could be answered via Google.

You said something about in a LA chambering. What does that mean?

And thank you for your reply as well WyoElk2Hunt.

I will search the forms for more help. And hopefully get some unknown questions answered.

Thank you again.

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

A long action. Unless your going to pic one of the WSM rounds. LA long action, SA short action. There is a metric sh!t ton of info on this site, the best rifle smiths and shooters in the world. Not alot of BS here either great place to learn and make friends.

If you define what your going to use the rifle to hunt we can help you narrow your choice of rounds down. Also its good to know a range you want to eventualy feel comfortable at. Also finish editing your profile so other guys know where your at, one of us could be your neighbor and help get you started on reloading.

Jon

 

[ForestSharpshooter]

I will hunt mostly deer, maybe an elk here or there. A metric ton of hitting small targets at great lengths at the range. The range I want to feel comfortable at is at least 1000+ (always been a dream to shoot that far and actually hit something)

 

[theflyonthewall]

.................already answered by others.

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

Elk at 1k got to say I have never done that myself. But guys will tell you a 338 or 300 magnum there are alot to pick from. But since you dont reload yet you might want to pick a round you can buy over the counter.

Where do you live?

 

[bearpaw]

the salesman sounds like the typical uneducated long range guru that thinks 6-700 yards and a bdc dial is the end all be all of long range hunting. Cost wise, I just had an edge built off of a 300rum action that I already had. Labor and parts without glass came to about 2K. thats everything but the action, including rebuilding the action and truing it. rail, barrel, rings, stock, trigger, bedding, the whole ball of wax pretty much. Load development was mine to deal with, had the glass already, added level, cosine, pod lock, cheek piece, powder, 250 bullets, 200 rnds new brass, dies, everything else i needed to load a new cal., balisitc programs, kestrel, virtually everything, and I'm thinkin I'm at about 3-3500K, definately not over 3500. If you shop around the net for your own parts you can find some pretty good deals on quality stuff. Do yourself a favor and go to Shawn Carlocks Defensive Edge site and order his long range instructional vid, watch some clips on youtube from defensive edge and you'll start getting a pretty good idea of how its done right. Good luck!

 

[Top Cat]

You can approximate ICANHITHIMMAN's rig with a new factory Winchester 70 Coyote Light right out of the box.

Put a nice optic on it... I'd suggest a scope in the 3-15x range, and you could probably be out the door for $1500 or thereabouts.

You can always spend more, but that is a competent 1000yd rifle setup. FN/Win is putting out a quality product, but the shooter needs to be capable at 1000yd as well.

Spending 5x more on a rifle doesn't create a 1000yd rifleman.

TC

 

[rscott5028]

Like others have stated...

Gunwerks is excellent quality. But, they are best suited for someone that's in a big hurry to go on an expensive hunt and won't have time to dial in their rifle. Basically, it's as turn-key as it gets.

Remington Sendero, Winchester Coyote/Laredo, Savage LRH, etc are all good choices to get started with. You'll get sufficient accuracy to develop your long range skills and you can apply funds to good optics, electronics, reloading, etc.

For a first long range rig, I'd recommend a 7mm Rem Mag and a good muzzle brake. From there on up, your costs for shooting escalate and you'll need/want plenty of practice.

The sport is addictive and you'll be itching for custom built 338's, 300's, 260's, etc before long.

If you buy a good scope now and mount it on a 20 MOA picatinny rail, you can swap it easily between rifles down the road.

Good luck!
Richard

 

[ForestSharpshooter]

Elk at 1k got to say I have never done that myself. But guys will tell you a 338 or 300 magnum there are alot to pick from. But since you dont reload yet you might want to pick a round you can buy over the counter.

Where do you live?

I live in Eastern Washington state. And sorry about taking so long to respond. Been very busy the last couple of weeks.

 

[CRNA]

Don't forget the other costs that go into this hobby. There's more than just the rifle, so you have to figure that into your budget. For instance, you will definitely want to hand load your own ammo at some point in time. Depending on what press, dies, scales, and all of the other gadgets and tools that go into making consistent ammo, you can have a small fortune in that alone. One thing that you are definitely going to need is a good rangefinder. Without knowing the precise range of a target, you might as well just by a belt-fed machine gun and shoot until you hit the target because that is what you would be doing one shot at a time without knowing the range. You will also need some type of ballistics calculator to get your "dope" on your scope at that range. This can be achieved for about $20 for a good ballistics app for an ipod or iphone for example. There's also chronographs, which will tell you how fast your bullet is flying (another factor to input into your ballistics calculator that is critical for knowing the bullet drops). Then stuff that some say you may or may not be able to live with like shooting mats, bipods, etc.
Having said that, I personally think that you can pay a lot less for an accurate 1K yd gun than the prices you mention and save that money to put toward the other tools of the trade that you will need.
Another .02 worth of advice is buy the best equipment you can afford the first time. I have been cheap with some things and found that they simply don't work as well as a quality item that cost more. For example, I bought a Bushnell Elite 1500 rangefinder last year. Got it for about $400, and thought that was a fair price, but the thing just wouldn't perform as well as I liked. So now it sits in my safe while the Swarovski Laserguide does everything I need it to do, but it cost a grand. I could have saved myself $400 in the long run by buying a quality product first.
I have a 7RM Savage that shoots to a grand pretty well. I have been doing upgrades on it as I go. Definitely don't get cheap with the scope or you will be sorry. As far as the 8 or 12X Nightforce, I personally think those magnifications are better suited for benchrest/target rifles. I think you will find most Nightforce guys on here use the 5.5-22X with either the 50 or 56 objective lens. I have the 56 with a set of NF rings and a NF base that works very well for me.
You want to buy something that you don't mind shooting a lot because it is much harder to hit a target at 1000yds than you may realize at this point. For me, this would mean a rifle that doesn't dislocate your shoulder when you pull the trigger and is reasonably inexpensive to reload for.
Didn't mean to write so much, but hope you could benefit a little from my .02.