Advice on "customizing" a rifle

A

Apa

New member
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Location
Alberta
I would like to build myself a "custom" rifle but new to that part of the gun world! I picked up a savage 7mm rem mag which I hope to use as a place to start! Good rifle to start with?? Plan on putting a new trigger in it but after that my limited knowledge leaves me lost! What two things would u up grade next? On a budget to so plan to slowly upgrade in time!
Thanks
 
It really depends upon wat you want to do with your new rifle. If you are planning to target shoot only then I wouldn't have suggested 7mmRM as it is a bit hard to learn on and expensive to reload for. You may however have other needs in which case the calibre choice may be excellent. A new trigger ( like a Jewel for example ) is often a good place to start. Generally most people consider replacing the factory stock but much depends on what it came with ( mmm, you really should have told us more about your new toy !) as some factory stocks are really quite ok. Barells are usually high on the list and many people consider that to be essential. I prefer to see how the factory tube shoots but that's just me.
 
I plan to use the gun for hunting n target shooting! It has a synthetic stock which feels cheap.... The bolt is smooth n feels solid! Havnt had a lot of time to wrk out a load but seems good so far!
 
stock, trigger, scope..............shoot it til the barrel is pooched.......then rebarrel........repeat shooting til pooched......rebarrel......and on and on

7mm mag is a bit much for target shooting, but hey...its not my shoulder.............
 
Bed it properly.

Open the forend ALOT. It can work very nicely if there is plenty of space around the barrel.

Muzzle brake. Makes recoil a whole lot less.

A few trigger options these days so depends on how light a pull you want. If you got the Accutrigger, adjust to the lowest setting and it does a very nice job.

Good recoil pad if you didn't get the squishy factory pad.

Base, rings, optics, scopes, load up with 162gr amax over Re25 in Rem cases, lit by a Fed 215M or CCI 250 primer. Have fun.

Jerry
 
The single biggest step towards precision is a good barrel. Everything else on the gun is secondary. Bedding will help if the stock and action don't mate well as is, and a trigger adjustment will help the inteface between you and the gun, but I don't care how much money you put into scopes, triggers stocks and reloading, if you don't have a decent barrel the gun will never give you better results.

fow what it is worth, the 7mm RM is a poor choice for learning precision shooting. It kicks like a mule in a lighter gun and it does not have very good barrel life at all. I would say stick with what you have for now but consider stepping down into a more moderate cartridge. When you want to have an all-in-one rifle, something has to give. Hunting rifles and target rifles are almost completely opposite in terms of what they require to deliver results.
 
I will inject some honesty here, Apa and it might not sit well with my moral and intellectual superiors among the foolish firearm forum folk - but here goes...

Fact is that factory guns these days are pretty damn fine right out of the box. Depending on your experience level you might just be better off putting your money into more ammo and reloading components and shooting the rifle you have. If you want to compete with the cool kids and go hunting for medals and bragging rights - you can't afford to 'cheap out'! The hard core competitors will go to Mars to mine the ore for the metal in their gun barrels. The will have the ore smelted over volanic fires by Tibetan monks and then have a voodoo medicine man bless their rifles as they dance around shaking rattles clad in loin cloths. The difference between a mild beating and a severe shellacking for them - is a couple thousandths of an inch! Money? What's that? And why should they care?

I love these guys and thought I might want to play in their sandbox but my blood runs cold at the price of admission. I submit that precision and thriftiness are mutually exclusive. If you have to ask 'how much does it cost' you probably can't play. The other thing is that the real deal shooters (and not the poseurs and stubfarts like Yours Truly) - don't benefit as much from all the farkles and mods as you might think. You could take away their fancy rifles and they would still shoot light years ahead of us regular guys with good quality cheaper rifles.

Just my opinion, certainly not worth what you paid for it...
 
I know there are many people out there who can shoot circles around me with any gun and hopefully some day I'm half as good! I'm not new to shooting as I put roughly 500 rounds a year through my 22-250 x-bolt! Just wanted to get a feel for "customizing" a gun! Have a good "small" gun so want to play with something bigger! Any recommendations on good stocks?
Thanks for the advice so far!
 
OP : One of the recurring problems we have is definitional - one shooters definition of precision is very 'ho-hum' according to another. This leads to widely, well-meaning, differing advice. Honestly when I read your first post I thought "oh no, a 7mmRM for precision shooting" because I was thinking of 2 sighters and 15 for score 3 times in one day and was imagining how miserable I'd feel behind a 7mmRM at the end of that day. Also for some guys shooting in the high .2's is a terrible day out whereas I'm always super happy with 1/2 MOA and other guys consider 1 1/2 MOA to be acceptable - all depends on what your definition of precision is you see. Once you uderstand this you will understand why you quite often get what appears to be conflicting advice.
 
check out boyds for a stock, if its less then 100us they can ship it to your door..........
I will have to take your side that your not going to get far with the factory synthetic stock, for a hunting rifle yes......but for a precision rifle.....I vote no.....but again thats my opinion and may not be the same as others........
 
paperslayer said:
The single biggest step towards precision is a good barrel. Everything else on the gun is secondary. Bedding will help if the stock and action don't mate well as is, and a trigger adjustment will help the inteface between you and the gun, but I don't care how much money you put into scopes, triggers stocks and reloading, if you don't have a decent barrel the gun will never give you better results.

fow what it is worth, the 7mm RM is a poor choice for learning precision shooting. It kicks like a mule in a lighter gun and it does not have very good barrel life at all. I would say stick with what you have for now but consider stepping down into a more moderate cartridge. When you want to have an all-in-one rifle, something has to give. Hunting rifles and target rifles are almost completely opposite in terms of what they require to deliver results.
Click to expand...

I would agree with paperslayer here. I think of a precision rifle as having two areas of competence:

1. Things that make the gun shoot better. i.e. must have fundamentals

-Barrel: chambering, rifling, contour and crown.
-Action: bolt face, headspacing, barrel threading


2. Things that help me shoot the rifle better. i.e good to haves human interface devices.
- Stock
- Scope
- Trigger
- Doodads (angle indicators, rangefinders, bipods)

Going all out on #2 items, while neglecting #1 will make you very good at shooting a poor rifle. The reverse is also true, where you could have a true precision rig that you can't shoot well because of the human interface. My generic advice is to get the best #1 you can afford, then decide on what to get of #2 that will maximize your use of #1.

Starting with a Savage rig, your best bet would be a barrel and blueprinting of the action first, Lilja or Kreiger done by a good gunsmith. Then you can look at a jewell trigger and a very good scope (NF). Then the rest as you see fit. Your best bet is to go to .223 or .308 on a new custom action with custom barrel as you will have top notch fundamentals in a caliber that is inexpensive and proven and easier to learn to shoot very well. Then you can improve your human interface items as desired.
 
curseyou said:
I would agree with paperslayer here. I think of a precision rifle as having two areas of competence:

1. Things that make the gun shoot better. i.e. must have fundamentals

-Barrel: chambering, rifling, contour and crown.
-Action: bolt face, headspacing, barrel threading


2. Things that help me shoot the rifle better. i.e good to haves human interface devices.
- Stock
- Scope
- Trigger
- Doodads (angle indicators, rangefinders, bipods)

Going all out on #2 items, while neglecting #1 will make you very good at shooting a poor rifle. The reverse is also true, where you could have a true precision rig that you can't shoot well because of the human interface. My generic advice is to get the best #1 you can afford, then decide on what to get of #2 that will maximize your use of #1.

Starting with a REMINGTON rig, your best bet would be a barrel and blueprinting of the action first, Lilja or Kreiger done by a good gunsmith. Then you can look at a jewell trigger and a very good scope (NF). Then the rest as you see fit. Your best bet is to go to .223 or .308 on a new custom action with custom barrel as you will have top notch fundamentals in a caliber that is inexpensive and proven and easier to learn to shoot very well. Then you can improve your human interface items as desired.
Click to expand...

Unsure if you have played with a Savage at all so I though I would just interject that your grocery list of steps is better suited to a Rem.

A Savage would have quite a different list of steps. See my website for lots of info on this.

Jerry
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom