My First Custom Rifle

[Tim Behle]

I finally got my first custom rifle back from the Gunsmiths last night. And while it is not a true "long range rifle" I did design it to stretch out the limits of the caliber.

I had it built on a Remington 700 Short action, with a .17 caliber, 27" 9 twist Lilja Heavy Varmint taper fluted barrel.

The stock is a McMillen, with a custom Desert tan camo finish.

Burris Signature Zee rings hold the Leupold Vari-X II 3-9 scope in place.

I picked up a can of H414 off of the bench last night and looked it up in the book. It called for 25-27 grains so I loaded up 10
rounds with 26 grains to begin breaking in the barrel and sighting in the scope. Everyone has heard I'm sure, how badly these
things react to wind. I took the first five shots getting the scope set, then these next five as a group. The wind was blowing
20-25 MPH this morning, nearly 90 degrees to the range. As you can see, most of my spread is
horizontal.

My hopes are to eventually shoot the 30 grain bullets and the longer barrel with faster than normal twist will help me to extend
my coyote range, with this rifle, out to 500 yards.

Many thanks go to John Geiges, of Geiges Custom Rifles in Yonges Island, SC for the great work of art he created for me.

Tim

 

[Nate Haler]

Tim, that's a nice looking rig, but it deserves a better scope. To get best performance, you want a scope with a parallax adjustment (on the objective or side focus, the latter being more expensive).

The Leupold VX2 is a sectioned tube, fully coated, with friction adjustments, and that 3-9 has fixed parallax (probably for 150y).

May I suggest that you can get about $200 for that scope (presuming exc. condition in the original box, etc.). Apply that to a better scope, with a one-piece tube, fully MULTIcoated lenses, and positive click adjustments. The Leupold VX3 line offers those features, and some models have the A/O or sidefocus.

You should also take a look at Nikon, Weaver Grand Slam or Varmint Series, and Sightron. Excellent values to be had among that group.

A VX2 is okay for your basic deer rifle (say to 200y where you can probably just hold over or under as caliber requires based on the distance). But a rifle as neat as you've just had built deserves a real varmint scope.

Of course, it's always easy to spend somebody else's money.

 

[ewallace]

Nice rifle and excellent choose in caliber for hunting yots. I have a 17 Remington and love it for shots out to 400 meters on varmints

Crow Mag

 

[Tim Behle]

Nate,

You're right, The scope sucks, and I hate it. But it's paid for

And it's either use it or one of the $30 pieces of junk sitting on a shelf that won't hold zero if you hit a bump in the road.

It was the first, and last, Vari-X II I'll ever buy. It's a pain in the butt to get it to zero, but once it is in place, it holds it. I've used it to kill a couple of hundred coyotes, and I've never been able to blame a miss on it.