Custom Remington Titanium *Pics**Now Range Update Too*

Brambles

Brambles

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Well its done, my Custom Remington Titanium 280 Ackley Improved is in my hands, mounted the scope and ready to start fireforming brass when the first opportunity presents itself.

As a few of you might remember I had an unfortunate reloading mishap involving a .284 bullet down a .277 bore. So I decided that this was the perfect oportunity to make a lightweight custom hunting rig, you see a lot of them built on SPS and standard BDL/ADL actions but not too many using the Remington Titanium action, probably because its a rather expensive platform to start with.

The only thing left over from the original rifle is the action and trigger, I had a new bolt fit to the gun, the old bolt was fixed and a sako extractor installed and sits on my shelf awaiting a new project, the original barrel may or may not be pooched. So for safety sake I guess it will be a tomato stake or lamp stand(ooooohhhh, great idea)

A gunsmith who peeks in on this site every once and a while did the work, he keeps a pretty low profile so I won't mention any names, he can chime in if he feels like it.

The only difference between this and a full benchrest rifle based on a m700 is the diameter of the barrel and perhaps the trigger, I like to think that I didn't cut any corners or spare expense on the parts or work done, I've never been one to do stuff on the cheap, by the way my wife thinks I'm Freakin Nutz. I don't think she understands, but she keeps quiet ( to some degree anyways) and keeps doin her thing.

-Remington Ti action Full benchrest accurising, everything squared and trued, bolt lugs lapped, bunch of other gunsmith stuff
-Remington LSS hinged floorplate
-Bansner Sheep hunter stock, finished by yours truly using a custom mix color of Armacoat.
-Lothar Walther featherweight countour stainless 1 in 9 twist barrel finished at 23.125" and chambered in 280 Ack Imp
-Match ss .250" recoil lug
-Action bedded and Barrel freefloating, barrel supported under the straight shank.
-Talley Rings lapped
-Aluminum bolt shroud, Tubbs Titanium firing pin and match spring
-Trigger worked but I haven't tested it out yet since I don't want to dry fire it. Should be about 3.5 lbs if memory serves me
-Topped it off with a Leupold ultralite 3-9x33 VX-II LR Scope.

Balance point is right at the front action screw, looks like its going to come in right around 6 lbs 3 ounces scoped, not bad for a long action rifle with a 23" barrel and hinge floor plate

Thats it for work to it for this year, next year I'm going to get the bolt skeletonized a bit more, evaluate the trigger, and do a MPI ultralite kevlar stock for it. My ultimate goal is to get as close to 5.5 lbs scoped as I can get while still maintaining a good shouldering rifle. I think it will be fairly easy to do.

Now to fireform and start load development for our fly-in hunting trip this year.

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Looks Dam Nice ! :cool:

Brambles said:
My ultimate goal is to get as close to 5.5 lbs scoped as I can get while still maintaining a good shouldering rifle. I think it will be fairly easy to do.
Click to expand...
that may not be as "fairly easy to do" with a Long Action Ti with bottom metal as you may think.....;)
Of course never say never...Have Fun with it ! :rockOn:
 
BCWILL said:
Looks Dam Nice ! :cool:


that may not be as "fairly easy to do" with a Long Action Ti with bottom metal as you may think.....;)
Of course never say never...Have Fun with it ! :rockOn:
Click to expand...

Haven't decided on when I switch stocks if I'm going to stick with the hinge floorplate or go back to blind mag. I wonder how much more it really weighs. Same spring and mag liner just the bottom metal and its all aluminum, there is less stock because of the inletting so its gotta be close to canceling eachother out!
 
Brambles said:
Same spring and mag liner just the bottom metal and its all aluminum, there is less stock because of the inletting so its gotta be close to canceling eachother out!
Click to expand...
Probably true but the stock on my Ti under the follower spring in the mag well is about 1/2 mm thick........I actually cringe when I stuff it full of rounds for fear the spring is gonna push through the stock ! :runaway:

I do prefer a floorplate vs the blind mag though so eitherway I'd sacrifice a few ounces to have one ;)
 
A week or two ago my new rifle showed up, I posted a little blurb on another thread, but unfortunately my dies didn't arrive with the rifle so all I could do was fireform some brass, I used the C.O.W method (Cream of Wheat) For my case I used 20 grains of Unique pistol powder and the rest of the case filled with Cream of Wheat, this made perfect brass and I didn't need to burn up a ton of bullets and powder.

For load development I used a slightly modified version of the "Incremental Load Development Method" I believe Gatehouse uses this method as well and reading some of his previous posts certainly helped.

I gathered a ton of info with this method, chrono'd each shot and graphed the results of the bullet impact locations, you can actually see the harmonics of the barrel when you do this, quite cool. Here's the short and sweet version

Decided to use the 140 gr TSX
Tried IMR 4831, H4831 and Reloader 22

I got respectable velocities from the IMR 4831 3178fps and no pressure signs, only had up to a certain grain loaded so I didn't test past that point

H4831 was a real let down, for some reason it wouldn't rev over about 3040 fps, no pressure signs but it seem like the powder charge was burning consistantly and velocity was irratic

The Reloader 22 was AWESOME, first time I have use that powder, the velocity was faster than I thought possible. Max velocity was 3248 fps, the primers were starting to flatten a bit but not bad, definitely useable.
This seemed to be a very forgiving powder for my rifle and I would use any load that I tested.

It was a LONG day, involving two trips to the range and 3 sessions at the reloading bench. Towards the end my shooting form and concentration was failing and ended up pulling a few shots but I could still see the potential.

I picked 2 powder charges with the aid of the graph and the original target,I only had 12 bullets left so I loaded up 3 @61.5 .050, 3 @61.5 .030 and 3 @63.3 .050, 3 @63.3 .030. I didn't have enough left for foulers so I just shot with a fouled barrel. It had been about 10 rounds since I removed the powder fouling and I haven't stripped the copper yet, so over 40 rounds were fired without beening cleaned of copper. All grouped decent, definitly good enough for my hunting standards, a little on the large side for a mega dollar rifle but that will improve with time and SLEEP

At the end of the day I settled on 61.5 grains of RL22, OAL 3.281 and the bullets set .050 off the lands. Velocitly was 3110 fps.

Here are some target for those who what to see that kind of stuff. OH yeah, I reuse my targets till there's nothing left so don't laugh:)

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There was a bit of wind at the range today but I just shot normal, 3 quick shots just like hunting.

I cleaned my barrel this morning very little copper in the barrel, VERY easy to clean. I was shocked because I figured the TSX were still going to copper foul, but maybe not as bad as the "X" bullet. Well a combination of a lapped barrel and the grooves made for an almost copper free bore. I used Wipe Out.
I found out that my rifle needs 2 fouling shots after cleaning

Here's my 100 yard target, 2 foulers and a .75" group

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300 yard target using the 300 yard mil dot on the LR scope I'd say its pretty good reference for bullet drop, don't you You can see the wind, plus it was damn hard to see the dot in the scope against the black Shoot N See target, but 3 quick shots later and this is what I got. All and all I'm happy with the results of a quick load development, now I just have to learn to hold the damn gun steadier, a little tough when it weights a smidge over 6lbs scoped. This group measured 2.125" @ 300 yard

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