OK, so you're young, rich, hopefully single, wanting to take the plunge into LR shooting and completely prepared to trade off money versus time-to-delivery. I can easily relate and sympathize (though I have to look back a few years to see myself in the same place).
BTW, fair warning, you're not going to 'cry once'. Even if you buy really good expensive gear that you are happy with and keep for life, you're going to buy more gear in the future and (financially) cry many more times. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that...
All three of your picks indicate to me that you're interested in a high-ish end, off-the-shelf short to mid range sniper rifle or whatever p.c. term you might prefer. They'll do a great job shooting from 20m to 600m, and if you have them you might as well also shoot them at matches out to 1000 yards too however there are a few changes you might make if you wanted to position yourself a bit better for the 1000 yard end of things.
Unless you have good reason to do otherwise, I'd suggest you build your rifle with an eye to it being legal and competitive in both "Precision Rifle" matches as well as F/TR matches.
After you've spent the summer doing as much shooting as you can with the ORA, I would suggest you plan on shooting one or more
national championship match in Ottawa in late August or early September. A wonderful thing about fullbore rifle shooting is that you do not need to 'qualify' to shoot national matches - if you are interested and motivated, you just go, and you do it. There's the 3-day F-Class National Championship held 15-17 August and there is the National Service Conditions matches 29 Aug - 7 Sept, part of which is a two or three day sniper rifle component.
I would recommend against your "Choice 1" as currently written. It seems to be missing a good barrel and therefore by implication is using a Remington factory barrel. For the kind of money you are looking at spending, you should absolutely demand and expect a proper match barrel. There are many good makers (Krieger, Broughton etc), they're all about the same price ($500-ish for a blank), as soon as you are looking to spend $2000+ on a purpose-built target rifle you absolutely must have a match barrel.
Your "Choice 2" seems fine. You might consider choosing a 26", 28" or 30" barrel if you are willing to trade off length and toteability for (somewhat) better 600m+ performance. And maybe, choosing a 1-11" twist barrel instead of a 1-10" (depends what bullets you might like to shoot).
Your "Choice 3" is pricey though it is a wonderful and a good rifle. The delivery time might rule it out.
You might want to consider getting a custom rifle built. You don't have time to waste, but it's not necessarily out of the question yet.
Do you currently load ammo? Are you willing and interested in loading ammo, or would you prefer instead to just pay up and buy ammo? For shooting out to 600, commercial match ammo is fine (though pricey). For shooting at 1000y it is quite challenging to get good enough commercial ammo (it does exist, but most commercial match ammo is not competitive at 1000y).
Lot of info here I'll try and address it in order, thanks for such a detailed reply.
I am definitely young, well off... yeah, rich no.. single? No, though I can see what you're driving at there. Definitely hitting dead on with the time/money/return comment, I really want to know for sure when I make a mistake, no excuses with these rifles. Definitely hear what your saying about this not being my last firearm, but I hate replacing things that aren't good enough in the first place.
Good points again about being able to compete in both disciplines, after this point coming up repeatedly, some suggestions on what to change to be competitive for both? Even though, again I'm not sure about F Class.
Didn't know about the DCRA :S but that is a very interesting looking match, I'd love to see where I'm able to rank nationally after a summer of shooting haha.
Choice 1 again coming up as a poor decision, inclined to strike it off the list here shortly. Good points again for choice 2, I can see how the extra length would help with F-Class, but the portability is definatley a trade-off, i have a small car, and want to travel back and forth between home and practice sessions on a bike to really make a day out of it, so im not sure on the extra length. Choice 3 is gorgeous, and honestly if it was something i could get in a couple weeks, i'd of proly already made my decision, im having a hard time knowing I could miss out on a summer of shooting just waiting for it to get in.
As far as reloading goes, I want to make this into a hobby so the added benefit of precision from reloading is ideal, and something amusing to do on down days. I dont have a setup yet, but its coming after I make this decision. Might shoot some commercial ammo for a bit while I'm practicing up but it's definitely something I'm getting into as well.
For the kind of money you are willing to spend I would look at doing a custom build for sure, not some off the shelf rig that everyone has, contact Peter at Hirsch Precision he will help you out and get you a real nice rig. As said above though you might want to consider a longer barrel and better optics.
The pierce action build was one quoted out by North Shore Barrels, who seem to have a good reputation and has been great to deal with so far, and are relatively local an added bonus. So if i'm going custom it'll be with him, but thanks for the suggestion.
Well, I'm just wondering what blacktemplar thinks. He's logged in without a word to some very important advise and questions.
I've seen this exact scenario before a few times.
Young man with money buys top of the line tactical rifle.
Did his research via the internet and shows up with rifle to the range for the first time.
Proceeds to get frustrated as to why the equipment isn't working to spec.
Observes everyone else hit the bullseye with their rifles while he struggles.
Packs up and never seen again.
The last part is the hardest thing for me to watch. Please blacktemplar, don't get too far ahead of yourself.
Spend your money wisely on something well planned.
You will always get lots of advise on getting tactical rifles here at CGN and nothing wrong with that if that's all you want.
Many buy those rifles just to have them to look cool and we never get any range reports from them.
You did mention you will compete in the ORA, so don't limit yourself unless all you want is just the "Precision Matches" section only like maynard said.
That's a lot of dough just for the small part of the ORA.
Well sorry for the delay, but I work early so I was a bit late to respond. I too am weary of the situation you speak of, but I also understand that there are two variables here equipment and the equipment operator. Of which one varies a lot more than the other. But unless you can distinguish between the two errors, it hard to know which to improve. If I invest in quality equipment it allows me to focus on solely one variable, I don't expect to perform well out of the box, I just expect to know that its me.
As far as range reports go, if this proves to be an engaging, rewarding forum to be a part of then I see no reason why you wouldn't get those reports. As far as just the precision matches, yes it is a lot of money, but its not the cheapest sport to get into either, and as I mentioned before it is my intention to just compete in precision matches, mainly because of the distance it takes to travel to compete, if I lived next door, then yeah why not compete in F-class, but i'm not sure about it right now.
Some of the advice you are getting in this thread is coming from some of the best, most competitive shooters in the country, and none are particularly excited about your choices. This might suggest that you need to start over.
Well I started this to get valuable feedback, hopefully from the best, most competitive shooters as you mention. I gave them a starting block to work from, I don't think I need to start over but rather let this take me where it may.
No love for Engineers or what?
Ditto.... And why the bushnell? Your obv not shy To spend the coin on gear
It honestly seems like a good choice to me? I'm not convinced the step up from this gets me that much more.
Hi all - it's pretty easy to misunderstand people on the Intertubes.
How about cutting everybody, especially the OP, a little slack and be a bit generous with the benefit of the doubt?
Its certainly easy to get caught up in absolutes on the internet, don't worry I'm taking things with a grain of salt, a little bit a slack and relaxing is always good. This is after supposed to be fun right?
OP - another idea may be to buy something like a Sako TRG with 20" barrel and a Savage F Class rifle. Cost will be competitive with what your options price out to be and the Sako TRG will be an outstanding ( and cool-looking ) tactical rifle while the Savage F Class will be an excellent rifle with which to compete at matches. .308 is a relatively easy load to develop and is a fun round to shoot. While I don't normally recommend using one scope for two applications you may in this case consider a NF NXS 8-32 which will be tactical enough for the Sako and adequate for the early years of F class competition.
Sakos are definitely more available than AI's and would rule out the delivery issues which is nice, but I was really looking for something portable and the foldability of the AIs will allow me to bike comfortably to shoot which is a bonus. Besides that although Sakos are nice for sure, I just like the look of AI's better personally and yes there is a cool component in this decision admittedly. As far as getting two rifles, eventually maybe but not after the bat, TRGs aren't exactly cheap either. Is the extra ~600-800 dollars really worth it for the NXS?
