Building a new rifle, 338 Lapua

[Dave King]

I sufferered a major financial setback this last week. I stopped at G-A Precision in Kansas City, MO for a look around and now have a new rifle in progress.

I watched George Gardener shoot his 338 Lapua last year and thought I'd like to try another one. Well, the KC trip locked that in.

I'll use a CZ 550 Safari action with a cartridge length capacity of 3.90 inches, enough to hold the standard 416 Rigby cartridges and a long loaded 338 Lapua. The barrel will be a 34" Mike Rock 1 x 10 cut rifled barrel with a heavy taper. The magazine will hold 3 or perhaps 4 rounds depending on the stock I use, I'm leaning toward the "Baker" stock from McMillan. There are no tactical type rings for this setup but George had a modified set of CZ rings that are pretty beefy and I'll have him use the same setup on the two he builds, one for me and one for my shooting partner.

I may need to put my 338 RUM on the back shelf of my safe.

 

[Nicholas]

congrats on the new project!

Are you blocking the barrel? What are the specs on the action, bolt diameter, action diameter, barrel shank, etc.? Is the magwell length really 3.9"????

[ 03-13-2002: Message edited by: sr90 ]

 

[Dave King]

That action comes in a 416 Rigby version so there is no bolt modification required. I don't know the specifics but believe he'll use a 1.25 barrel blank. This is a controlled round feed action which will be nice for a change. I won't use a barrel block but will straight taper the barrel after about 4 or 5 inches and glass under the barrel for about 4 inches in front of the action.

George measured the magazine length for me yesterday and reported the 3.9 inches, he currently shoots one and says he loads the 338 Lapua and the 300 Sierra long and they fit fine. He was shooting his at BadLands Tactical last year and getting 2900fps from a 28 inch barrel using the 300 Sierra. He also reported that he has begun using VV560 and has had loads over 3000fps from the same gun.

He reported that he's tried Warren Jensen's 270 grain 338 caliber bullets and they shoot very well from the Mike Rock barrel. I may need to give the J40 270 grain bullet a try, it's BC is reported as .871 I believe.

 

[Nicholas]

"controled round feed action"??? Brain fart, what is the difference between this and a standard bolt action?


Man, I wish I could start building my rig right now!! My current project is getting a good reloading setup, which is becoming pretty costly. It will be a while before I can have my ultralongrange rig built.

 

[Dave King]

Controlled round feed:

The front of the bolt "captures" the round as it strips it from the magazine. This means that the round is not free to move around, fall out, or be left sitting in the action well when the bolt of moved to the rear before the round is fully chambered.

A "push feed" system like the Rem 700 only strips the round off the magazine and pushes it into the chamber. The round is never "captured" and held by the bolt.

In theory, a person could chamber a round with the rifle on it's side or upside down while using a controlled round feed system but not while using a push feed system.

 

[Ian M]

Dave,
I shot that .338 Lapua of George's a bunch, on a couple of different occasions (we went through 500 rounds in a couple of days on one shoot). Look at the McHale stock from McMillan. That is what he is using quite a lot. It is one of my favorite McMillan designs. Big action, big stock.

I made three consecutive head shots out at 1000 with that CZ.

You have all the fun! You better make that trip up here, we could lay a nasty on the steel buffalo with that Lapua...

 

[Dave King]

Ian

It's the white and grey McMillan stocked CZ I believe that he was using. Is that the McHale stock or the Baker? I thought it was the Baker but I'll check with him again, whichever it is, it's the one I want.

Buddy of mine just got a plasma cutter! We're going into the steel target business for a little while. I'm going to make a few groundhogs and a deer or two, we'll use AR400 3/8th inch and limit shots to very long distances or smaller calibers. I think a buffalo is out of the question for us, I'll need to kill your's instead.

 

[Ian M]

Dave,
Wayne and I are about to get some more targets made, have a plan to hold them upright with some great big magnets we found at a junk-sale. Bullet will blow them off the stand and magnets should make the targets easy to reset. Not sure how much weight they will support or wind? Like to have targets that fall over - like a kill. I have a nice bunch of 1/2" plates now but need extra air in the tires to haul the **** things.

We shot some great ground-based targets last year that sat in a frame that angled the plates 30-40 degrees forward, all the bullets bounced into the dirt. This enabled the thickness of the steel to be much less - they were 20"x40" and maybe 1/4", not the 1/2" we use. Needed painting to refresh after a few shots. They were sure easy to move around. Shooting was 700 - 1000 so the energy was down on the mighty .308's, although we also shot 6.5-284 and .300 Win. without damage. Don't think they would stand up to a 300 gr. Matchking like you are going to start hurling with the new CZ.

 

[James D.]

Out of curiousity has anyone seen the effects of one of the Lost River J40 bullets when shooting at metal targets? Any comments on Accuracy?

$1.05 a bullet