Yes. My brother has the Tactical, my dad has two of the Varmints. They make them in left hand too, you have to call and ask Brownells to get you one tho. His take about a week or two to get the south paws. Ask them if it's $___.__ (at the lower price what ever it is, (the dealer price) and they'll let you have it for that too, just over $120 I think. They're a solid platform for sure.
The stocks are ambidextrous. I am terminally left handed and had one for my Savage 25-06 (rh bolt). It worked great. You may want to turn the cheek piece around. It mounts with a single screw and is easily reversed. Good luck ... Mike
I have two Choate Varmint stocks. One short action on a 22-250 and one long action on the 7mm RUM.
Some observations:
1. They are heavier than expected and might not be suited for a carry gun. This didn't matter for the 7mm RUM though because I epoxied an additional 4 lb of lead shot in the barrel channel and pistol grip.
2. They are very stong, the composite material and full length aluminum bedding block provide a very sturdy structure for mounting an action.
3. The slide and rail that is used to provide a quick detach for a bipod does not mount very securely, being held in place by the force of one screw wedging the slide against the rail. I have stripped the plastic knob off the screw already. Would be better served to drill and tap another screw or two to hold the slide in place in the rail.
4. The threads on the adjustable foot on the back of the stock are not that tight. Took the foot off altogether.
5. The pistol grip is pretty big around and is positioned such that it a works well for people with longer fingers/larger hands.
6. I found that the recoil lug was not contacting the aluminum bedding block sufficently so I bedded the recoil lug and action using steel based Devcon.
7. Choate stocks have something like serrations on the bottom of the fore-end and the bottom of the back of the stock. I found indentions in the sand bag on the front rest where the serrations were on the fore end of the stock. Needless to say that when the gun recoiled the stock did not slide smoothly back.
To fix this I screwed a strip of 1 1/2" wide x ~6" long aluminum to the bottom of the fore-end and to the bottom of the back of the stock to provide a smooth surface so that the stock would slide on the front rest and rear bag better.
I was going to post some pictures of my mods but I found my web server is out of commission right now. I will e-mail pictures of the mods if anyone is interested.
Doug
They are great if used with a bipod as long as the slide stays firmly attached in the rail.
