FOUND: My Ideal Mountain Rifle

[Litehiker]

As geezerhood creeps up on me I realize I can no longer ski 100 miles in two days as I did in 1982 in the Canadian Ski Marathon or do a bike training day of 100 miles in 5 hours. Today that takes 5 1/2 hours - on a flat road.

But hey, I still am in pretty decent shape - for a geezer. Still backpacking at high altitudes and skiing at over 8,000 ft.

So I wanted the following in my lightweight mountain rifle:
1. titanium action
2. 3 lug bolt
3. carbon fiber wrapped barrel
4. carbon fiber stock

The only titanium long action (for .300 Win. mag.) with 3 lugs that I know of is a Fierce Arms action. AND it is a controlled feed action, even rarer in 3 lug actions. In fact it is the only controlled feed 3 lug action I've ever found.

But trying to fit that fatter barrel into a nice McMillen Edge carbon fiber stock would ruin the forearm stiffness if I opened up.

So I've decided I'm just going to get a Fierce Arms Ti Edge rifle, carbon fiber stock and CF wrapped barrel. Heck, it has everything I want and if anything goes wrong there is only one company responsible.

With a "custom" rifle, once it's assembled of parts from various manufacturers if, for example, it doesn't feed properly the gunsmith can point a finger at the action maker who will point a finger at the stock maker, etc., etc.

So that's how I'm going to get everything I want in a rifle that will weigh a bit less than 6 pounds. And all the major parts are made by the same company, a company that offers a 1/2 MOA accuracy guarantee. As a hand loader I can load to that degree of accuracy as long as the rifle can do it. Plus the new factory Hornady ELD-X ammo shoots that well in many rifles according to people on the 6.5 Creedmoor site.

Eric B.

 

[bigngreen]

Good luck, it's not one company your working with in reality, if you need anything real you will have to deal with the Canadian side of things, took me better than three months to get the specs for the action tenon, the American side has no clue as to how they work just that they can sell them. It's sometimes a control round feed sometimes not, bolt cycle needs a lot of polishing to make the bolt lift smooth not jerky. If you get a staggerfeed box the bottom of the lugs needs really worked over as they catch steep shoulder cases and stalls the bolt or significantly gouges the case, the box will need fine tuned or the cases will not pop up to feed after being pushed down the the lugs though I think they have changed to a center feed on some.

 

[Litehiker]

Hey Big, thanks for the heads up on Fierce Firearms.

Looks like you have had first hand experience with them.
I'll need to ask them some uncomfortable questions - via e-mail, so they will have to answer by e-mail and I'll have it in writing.

Those feeding problems do not sit well with me, especially that the Fierce action's "controlled feed" is a sometime thing. It either is or it isn't. "Sometimes" means it isn't because the whole idea behind controlled feed is reliability of chambering a round EVERY time.

Eric B.

 

[bigngreen]

You'll get answers from salesmen, if your running g a center feed mag it would be more reliable as a CRF but the design is just a normal bolt with the bottom cut out so the case goes up under a normal extractor, it's not a claw extractor. Good thing is when the round pops from the mag up if it fumbles you won't notice it and it'll run and the extractor will just snap on the case like normal. I have quite a few hours into them to get them over all where I was happy with them but once I start working in one it takes a bit before I'm oleased.

 

[Litehiker]

I'm beginning to think a 3 lug push feed bolts are not so bad. At least they are not fussy about magazine height like 2 lug bolts are.

Eric B.