Yes, but you can be shooting quicker, and then saving up for the good stuff to upgrade with later... That's what I do. It's not always ideal, but it gets you out to the range, and, if you're not 100% you want to long-term invest in a particular cartridge and you just want to stick your toe in the water for now, you're not out a crap-ton of money in a $1,000 barrel blank, and $500 worth of custom dies, a reamer, and gauges.
This is my feeling on upgrading in a leap frog fashion. When I jump in and buy something (rifle, parts, etc...) I wind up shooting it for awhile and thinking how I'd like it better "if only this were different'. With that in mind I sell some of this or change that and the project morphs into something slightly or sometimes all together different.
An example for me is that I loved shooting my Browning A-Bolt 270 WSM. Fast, flat, and handy; it's everything a guy could want for chasing deer from the thick out into the open hayfields. I though "why don't I just make this my long range toy, dual purpose rifle". So I ordered 30mm rings and a B&C stock. Got the rings and found out it will not eject empties without hitting the scope. I immediately called B&C and changed my order to a Tikka stock, listed the Browning for sale and hunted down a Tikka. Found one, put it together and thought "man, that's awesome. Looks cool, very handy and trigger is beautiful". Load up, head to the range and damnit the empties won't clear the scope (this was my favorite scope and I'd be damned if I was going to change it). So guess what? Now I've got to change the scope, mount it higher (which I hate doing), or change the rifle (again).
I'm sure I can work this out with different rings or a scope with smaller knobs, but it got me thinking. Should I have just saved up a little longer and got a CA Ridgeline?
Probably would've had the same issue, but I hate the "what ifs".
