Silly_Ghillie
Well-Known Member
I know what I am about to say is anecdotal, and I have a horrible habit of listening to myself type on forums so forgive me. This goes back to the "build, or not to build" question.
I haven't been in the long range game too terribly long, not seriously anyway until about ten years ago. Mind you, I do much more target shooting than anything else, in the warm months I am out probably once to twice a week slinging lead into the expanse hitting mostly sagebrush. but don't let it subtract from my statement when I say building your own rifle is a million times better in the long run if you plan on using it frequently.
My first long range precision rifle was a savage 110 in .300 WM, nothing too fancy. Slapped me a SWFA fixed 16x and I was ready to hit the 1000 yard mark. There was a short honeymoon period of course, but then I started noticing all the things I didn't like about the rifle. The barrel was too short and narrow, the under belly of the receiver was already spotting with rust after a year, the included scope base of the rifle was garbage, the stock was cheaply bedded, etc. etc. The barrel had burnt out in around 900 shots of relatively mild hand loads. (bad metallurgy I'm guessing) It went from shooting sub 1/2 MOA to some 2ish MOA. It was just put together poorly. I loved the rifle, it shot as good as any with proper hand loading and good technique, but it was still pumped out of a factory somewhere with crude machines and underpaid employees slapping it together.
So I cleaned and cerakoted the receiver, got a Pac-nor barrel the way I wanted, bought a precision chassis, a better piece of glass, new base and rings, new trigger, had everything trued, and when all was said and done, I had spent upward of $6500 on the rifle, and to rebuild it my way. Had I just bought the components separate and built it myself the first time, the price would have been much lower. I learned this after experiencing this problem three more times. Now I have two semi-custom savages and a Winchester 70 build in the works.
Of course though, there is a ton of people putting together a fine product, Surgeon for example. Also those weird folks that need something rather proprietary for the job at hand have a good excuse to stick to commercial.
Sorry about my long winded example, but those are my two pennies on the subject.
I haven't been in the long range game too terribly long, not seriously anyway until about ten years ago. Mind you, I do much more target shooting than anything else, in the warm months I am out probably once to twice a week slinging lead into the expanse hitting mostly sagebrush. but don't let it subtract from my statement when I say building your own rifle is a million times better in the long run if you plan on using it frequently.
My first long range precision rifle was a savage 110 in .300 WM, nothing too fancy. Slapped me a SWFA fixed 16x and I was ready to hit the 1000 yard mark. There was a short honeymoon period of course, but then I started noticing all the things I didn't like about the rifle. The barrel was too short and narrow, the under belly of the receiver was already spotting with rust after a year, the included scope base of the rifle was garbage, the stock was cheaply bedded, etc. etc. The barrel had burnt out in around 900 shots of relatively mild hand loads. (bad metallurgy I'm guessing) It went from shooting sub 1/2 MOA to some 2ish MOA. It was just put together poorly. I loved the rifle, it shot as good as any with proper hand loading and good technique, but it was still pumped out of a factory somewhere with crude machines and underpaid employees slapping it together.
So I cleaned and cerakoted the receiver, got a Pac-nor barrel the way I wanted, bought a precision chassis, a better piece of glass, new base and rings, new trigger, had everything trued, and when all was said and done, I had spent upward of $6500 on the rifle, and to rebuild it my way. Had I just bought the components separate and built it myself the first time, the price would have been much lower. I learned this after experiencing this problem three more times. Now I have two semi-custom savages and a Winchester 70 build in the works.
Of course though, there is a ton of people putting together a fine product, Surgeon for example. Also those weird folks that need something rather proprietary for the job at hand have a good excuse to stick to commercial.
Sorry about my long winded example, but those are my two pennies on the subject.
