Looking into new rifle

[Night Hunter]

Figured, I'd make my first post a good one. I am looking into putting together a new long-range rifle for hunting and some paper punching. Here are my thoughts...

1. Purchase a Savage action.
2. Purchase a Pac Nor Barrel in .300 win mag
3. Purchase a Bell and Carlson or comparable stock
4. Have a buddy put it all together for me.

My questions is can I do this with little smithing cost for under $1000.00? If I can, would you guys recommend something else. This gun will be primarily used for deer hunting but will occasionally take a trip out west. What do you guys think?

 

[texan79]

Ive heard a few people complain about pac nor barrels not living up to their hype, but Ive never owned or shot one, so take that with a grain of salt.

As far as the minimal smith cost, I'm not really following that question. If your wanting a custom rifle, I would think it a blueprint of the action, chambering and cutting to lenght by a competant smith would be a must.

For my money, a custom better shoot as good as it looks, otherwise the factory gun wins. Good work isnt cheap, and cheap work isnt good.

 

[LouBoyd]

Savage makes good actions. Several to choose from.
Pac-nor makes good barrels. Many options to choose from
B&C makes good stocks. Many options to choose from
Is you buddy a decent gunsmith? Does he work for decent rates?

Who is going to choose the weight, barrel contour, barrel length, twist, throat, crown, length of pull, stock design, scope mount, trigger, etc?

By the time the rifle is complete I'd expect it to be close to $1000, maybe a little less or a lot more depending on what you want.

If you let someone else make those choices the rifle will probably be just right ... for them.

Before you acquire the rifle of your dreams it's best to do some carefully thought out dreaming.

 

[trueblue]

Why not just buy a Rem Sendero for the same money you will have in your build. They are great shooters for the price.

 

[Night Hunter]

I want to keep it around 8 lbs.

 

[roninflag]

Why not just buy a Rem Sendero for the same money you will have in your build. They are great shooters for the price.

i like mine.

 

[rscott5028]

You shouldn't have to pay a lot for someone to assmble a Savage. In fact, you should pretty much be able to do it yourself.

As LouBoyd put it, there are a lot of decisions to make that can have a big impact on the outcome.

None of the good barrel makers ever have the exact barrel I need on hand. They're always the wrong length, or twist, or profile which is why there's usually a 6 month backlog and the ones that are in stock are ones that nobody wants for those same reasons (not always, but frequently).

For $1k or less, I'm with the other guys. You should look at Rem Sendero and/or Savage Long Range Hunter amongst other factory performers.

-- richard

 

[Night Hunter]

Thanks guys. My Buddy is a good smith and a great shooter. He is trying to lead me but not make my decisions for me for the reasons above. I would get a factory rifle if I could find one that fits my wants, but I have not found it yet. The senderos are great but I didn't care for the 9.5 lbs. bare rifle. I would rather the whole package run around that weight. The Sako Tecomate is the closest thing to what I am looking for.

 

[rscott5028]

It sounds like your buddy is a good resource to guide you.

There are many threads here that discuss the pros and cons of lightweight rifles for Long Range Hunting.

I prefer rifles like the Sendero and Savage LRH weighing around 9lbs w/o scope. I think it's a more stable shooting platform for long shots.

It always helps to shoot a variety of rifles in order to decide what really works. They all look good in the catalogs and it's easy to pick this stock and that barrel and some other part. But, it all needs to come together into a shooting system.

Sako/Tikka are good rifles.

Don't forget to save money for good optics, range finder, bipod, etc...

-- richard

 

[RockZ]

You can get your barrel here:
Shilen Rifle Barrels
I used the bell and carlson medalist stock for my build.
I like it alot.

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

A Tikka T-3 Light in 300 win mag will easily get you to 800 yards. I have three in 300 wsm, 300 winchester and 338 winchester. They weigh 6 3/8 pounds and I just proved this year the 338 winchester one is an excellent light carry rifle that will easily drop game at 800 yards. I took all kinds of stuff from here to Alaska with it. If a guy shoots under a half mile primarily and wanted one rifle to hunt everything in north america this is the best one I have found. And I have around 150 specialty rifles to choose from in about anything a guy could come up with. For your purpose the 300 wsm would be awesome for mostly deer with light recoil. It wouldn't be ashamed to hunt anything out west neither if you told it you were headed west.

Edit; I now have four tikka t-3 338 winchesters. Just found a going out of business sale and grabbed three more in 338. These are really nice carry rifles for backpacking or hunting all day hiking. My wife and son said they didn't have one so now they do. Everybody that shoots mine loves it.

 

[Night Hunter]

Thanks for the input fellas. I have made my decision. I will be getting a savage target action and putting on a Douglas barrel. I hope to get an A2 pull-off from my friend, but I may end up with something else as far as the stock goes. Here goes the fun part... giving up the $$$