Bucket list rifle setup: 2 and a half months in and it's finally shootable

[BallisticsGuy]

I wanted to finally get my bucket list rifle now that I'm debt free and kids are moved out. This was going to be a huge expenditure but I had a mission in mind: It had to be something that would allow me to get rid of most of my other rifles which meant switch barrel with fantastic return to zero capability and able to take anything from a .223 case to a .338LM case with box mag feeding and night vision clip-on capability and it had to be silly accurate and barrel changes had to be able to be done in the field. I settled on the Desert Tech M2 from a list that included Cadex, Accuracy International, Barrett and a few others. In the end the .223rem requirement eliminated all but the Desert Tech.

I still have a couple barrels outstanding getting cut by Short Action Customs (great people to work with, absolutely helpful, no nonsense, straight shooters) and my .338LM barrel from Desert Tech. I ordered the chassis and the .338LM barrel and tons of accessories in the beginning of December along with the Steiner M7Xi 4-28x56 and Larue LT111 mount.

The scope got to me and the chassis got to my FFL at the end of December and I promptly started the paperwork on the chassis. I finally got it out of Kommiefornia wait jail in early January but didn't even have a bolt for it yet. While I waited for barrels, bolts, mags (a total of 8 short mags and 6 long mags) and such to arrive I started thinking about what other goodies I should have in the hard case I'm setting up as a deployment kit so I picked up an AN/PVS-30 night vision clip-on and a M2124LR night vision clip-on and a PVS-27 night vision clip-on (want to see which one I'll like best in my AO), a couple brakes from APA and Area 419, a UTG over-bore bipod and Arca->Picatinny adapter. I've received the PVS-30 & M2124 and the PVS-27 should arrive any day now. Modern .mil grade clip-on NV is quite expensive but it's also amazing kit. I suspect I'll like the PVS-27 best but the M2124LR is so light weight compared to the 27 or the 30. It's just not got the recoil tolerance of the others and the enormous lens on the 27 is going to dominate in ambient light. We'll see how that shakes out.

About a week ago I received a custom 26-inch 6XC barrel that had a low round count and tons of ammo with it on a Bartlein blank and a few days later an unfired factory Desert Tech 26-inch .300WM barrel. Just as I received the .300WM barrel I get an email from SAC that my 22.5-inch .223Rem barrel/bolt/mag setup is shipping and they're still working on my 26-inch .308Win barrel (on a 400MODBB blank) and 26-inch .338WM barrel. The 338WM and 300WM are both pretty much just for hunting and the others are mostly for competing.

Then I put in a ton of work measuring and checking twice so I could design custom case foam from mycasebuilder.com to fit 5 barrels, 15 magazines, 5 bolts, the rifle chassis with scope, tools, bipod, 60rds of ammo and a PVS-30 or PVS-27 into a case only 45 inches long. Sure it'll weigh 100lbs with all that stuff in it but I'll only have to wheel the one rifle case out to the car (and 5 ammo cans) on shoot days.

It's good to bucket list. What did you do for your bucket list gun? If you haven't done it yet, what do you want to do for your bucket list gun?

 

[Mark37082]

Wow! I thought I had issues…. I can't imagine trying to haul that much stuff around. I'm assuming you roll your own so the reloading components alone would clean out my bank account. Good luck with your bucket list. Mine is much shorter.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Wow! I thought I had issues…. I can't imagine trying to haul that much stuff around. I'm assuming you roll your own so the reloading components alone would clean out my bank account. Good luck with your bucket list. Mine is much shorter.

Oh come on. You know when you go to the range you bring 15 guns and 2000 rounds of ammo and stay all day. I'm set up to do the same but with fewer rifle cases. You're 100% right though. Major issues. Major.

 

[Bob Wright]

Well thought out plan! Multi chamberings, optics. Do you hunt or compete?

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Well thought out plan! Multi chamberings, optics. Do you hunt or compete?

Both. I also instruct occasionally and this rifle will therefore be called into service when a student's rifle/optic goes down or is simply unsuitable for the course as happens from time to time.

 

[Deleted member 48126]

Is this the same post asking for advice on a bucket list gun on accurate shooter?

I like this set up a lot. Good job.

 

[sierracharlie338]

Dang brotha that's cartel level spending! I LIKE IT! Looks like a killer set up that will cover anything you need. I have a Barret and love it but I also had no need for a 223 on that platform. Keep us updated on how it works for you.

 

[coldboremiracle]

Cant go wrong with that rifle, its solid as they come.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

My foam came in. Got around to getting some test fitting done. Learned a couple little details about the templates at mycasebuilder, the Covert chassis template (my rifle is an M2 model so I had to do some interpolation and figuring to adapt it to an M2) was done without buttpad or extensions so I have to pull the butt pad and extensions off. No biggie.

I also found out that it won't fit in the DT hard case. I had to make some assumptions/guesses about what the actual case that DT uses was and I guessed slightly wrong. No worries, I ordered the correct case based on the template I used. Once I found that out it told me what I needed to figure out what the actual base case is that DT private labels. I started working a new foam set for the DT case and immediately found out that it'll never fit the amount of stuff that I'll drag with me to the boonies but the DT case is the right size for the dramatically smaller number of items that I'll take with me when I travel so I'll have 2 hard cases, 1 for travel by car that weighs about 100lbs fully loaded and 1 for travel by plane that weighs about 70lbs fully loaded out.

I need to do a little clearance cutting here and there and bore a bit of a recess for the parallax knob on the scope but but everything otherwise fits really well. The high density foam layers are well bonded together and the red top coat is fantastic quality and visually appealing. I couldn't be happier with mycasebuilder's craftsmanship. My own measuring was almost perfect but I can see where I was a tenth of an inch off here and there and learned a few lessons. My new hard case will be here in a day or two and I'll hopefully be done messing with my 2nd foam layout for the OEM DT case in a few days.

Where things seem to be bowing out, I'm causing that by putting things that weren't meant to go certain places into those places they're not meant to go. Just experimenting with alternate locations.

One place I'm a little bummed out about: I got my PVS-30 before I got my PVS-27 or my PVS-24LR. The 24LR and the 30 fit in the NV spot just fine but there's no way to get a 27 in there with this layout.

Now if the rest of my barrels, bolts and magazines would just arrive. I got a custom .223 barrel/bolt/mag setup from Short Action Customs before DT could manage to get me my factory .338LM barrel or bolt and DT still has yet to ship 3 of my mags. Chalk it up to supply chain nutterbutterness. I don't blame them taking a while. I do wish they'd stop using FedEx for shipping though. FedEx has lost the plot and is now routinely outperformed by the bloody US Postal Service.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

And now it's finally been shot. Spent Saturday breaking in 223rem/6xc/300wm barrels and making ~1/2MOA groups. The .223 barrel printed groups from .2moa 3-shot sets to a .7moa 20 shot group. The 300wm was shooting in the .1's& .2's with Terminal Ascent ammo... just stacking them up. The 6XC printed from .5moa to .7moa which I'm sure I can tighten up by just not shooting so fast.

Here's the .223 target. I got a rough zero on some dirt clods and then took 4 zeroing shots on the target to get a workable POA/POI relationship. Then it was time for shots of record: 1 on the bottom red dot to validate my zero, then a 5-shot group in the center, then I went around the target from bottom in a clockwise fashion with 1 shot each and then put another 5 shots in the middle. I went through that routine 3 times which ended up with 20 shots in the center and 3 on the top and side dots and 4 on the bottom dot. Stupid accurate rifle. One thing I shouldn't have done is use my POA as my POI.

The .223 and 300wm barrels share a zero down to the click. The .223 shoots a mil higher with half as much windage (based on mechanically centered windage and fully bottomed out elevation turrets) as the other 2.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Testing my night vision options on the rifle this weekend. Whatever I like least I'll just sell on and thankfully I already have takers for all the spares.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Added a Steiner C35 Nitehunter to the pile. Brilliant thermal clip-on, 640, 12u. Heavy as heck, just at 2 pounds. Takes 18650 batteries which is super annoying and they only last a couple hours so its a juice pig. Still, at $4k it's about 10 grand less than a respectable competitor and I can deal with carrying around extra batteries. The picatinny rail attachment is beefy as heck and according to Steiner it'll hold up to heavy recoil since it was meant for hunting rifles originally which are light. I'm using it on 14-22lbs rifles I think it'll hold up well even to .338LM.

Got out to do some testing. Everything worked as intended for the most part but I think I'm going to retube my PVS-27 to white phosphor.