Need some help and ideas for my custom build

you must have a lot of toonies laying around...good thing to because you will need all of them to keep your ammo can full If your using factory stuff. Forgive me if I'm wrong but based on your post it sounds like your new to the precision game. If thats the case it's gonna take more than a flashy piece of kit to hit anything at a thousand yards. Contact one of your provincial reps for more info, and make an educated decision so you really can spend your money once. (that'll never happen its an addictive and expensive hobby/line of work)
 
rnbra-shooter said:
A toonie at 500 yards is an incredibly challenging target. Google up "egg shoot", in which an egg is shot at 500 yards, by people using all-out BR gear. They hit it from time to time, but it is one damn hard target.
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Reminds me of our spring "Gopher shoot" a couple of years back, we used golf balls instead of eggs at 500m hung from our target carriers. (Easier clean up than eggs)

I ended up winning the egg shoot hitting one of the golf balls on the first shot, then proceeded to hit 2 more in a row after we gave the ok to open fire on them.

Horse shoes up my arse that day?
YOU BETCHA......LOL

Could I do it again? Probably not in my lifetime.


To the OP.......do some more reading and research before jumping in feet first.

A 223 or 308 will give you all the power you need to punch holes in paper out to 1000yds.

More horsepower DOES NOT equate to higher accuracy, a competent shooter with a competent rifle has more to do with it than anything else.

Setting the bar high is good, but setting it to unattainable heights will just leave you frustrated in the end.
 
@mad_machinist, hopefully this thread will help you figure out what gear you ought to get, and you are able to get and and do some plinking or competition at long range. It is an awful lot of fun, and if you don't watch it it can turn into a lifelong pursuit.

mad_machinist said:
... Speed and foot pounds are important to me because less time spend in the air more accurate one can be
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That reasonably sounds like it ought to be true, but it's not quite. Two things affect how accurately you can deliver a bullet at long range:

- how accurately the cartridge+rifle+shooter can shoot
- how much the bullet gets blown around by the wind.

For the first point, you can get incredibly accurate .223s, 6BRs, .308s, .338Ls, .50BMGs, etc. The heavier recoiling rifles can be more sensitive to shooter technique errors, so it is often said that a shooter of a given skill level is able to shooter a smaller lighter recoiling rifle better than he is able to shoot a big one. (There are some other factors that favour the bigger guns, for example it is easier to produce accurate ammo with physically larger dimensions and powder charges)

The second part, how much the bullet gets blown around by the wind, can twist your mind in knots for quite a while. A reasonable person would naturally figure that a faster bullet (which reaches the target sooner) would get blown around less by the wind than a slower bullet. This just "makes sense". And yet it can often be wrong, and it takes a while to explain the reason, and even longer (much longer!) to really understand and _accept_ the reason. A good place to start, if you're interested, is to look into the details of why it is that .22 match ammo is loaded to a lower speed that .22 high velocity plinking ammo. They both use the _same_ 40 grain roundnose bullet, but the _slower_ .22 match ammo is blown around less by the wind than the high velocity ammo.

... Foot pounds because I want to make a serious dent on target not lightly touch it with a finger poke...
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Sounds like fun ;-). Even a "lowly" .308 delivers a pretty impressive amount of energy at 1000 yards - a good 155 target bullet will arrive at 1200-ish fps; by rifle terms this is wimpy, but if you put it into the context of handgun rounds, 155 grains at 1200fps doesn't look terribly wimpy any more.
 
mad_machinist said:
Interesting post Rnbra_shooter...
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Good advice that should be listened to. I have done a LOT of reading here, there are some very knowledgeable shooters on this board, he is one of them. I don't put in the range time as much as I would like to due to family and work commitments, but a lot of what I have read here has been confirmed at the firing line.
 
mad_machinist said:
Maynard I was being sarcastic with comment go big or go home... Mostly interested in a solid direction to go with equipment...
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Exactly why I suggested in a earlier post to contact your local Provincial Rifle Association. While some of these guys in your PRA are club shooters and may shoot up to the provincial level, some also compete at national and inter-national competitions.
 
I am not interested in buying "store" guns as their tolerances are not as tight or picky as I... They do large production and need to turn a profit to stay in business... I am looking tighten up tolerances to perfection so zero tolorances and be apart of the making of the rifle... Like this is my rifle and there are none like it... Ya Bob with years of shooting can out shoot me any day of the week with a "store" rifle but he had no say in the design, mods or tolerances...

I machine oilfield parts and they leave the shop and I never see them again or see them function and result of my work... At least with a custom gun I see the end product working and that is awesome!
 
@mad_machinist I think I am starting to understand what you want - a "work of art" rifle that is as near to "perfect" as you can make it. In the end, perhaps the best way to get this is to design and build a rifle action of your own. Owning one or more top-notch custom guns, and a few years of studying / observing other really good rifles, will probably help you figure out what you really want to accomplish in this sort of project. Once you know what you want, the design and construction is straightforward.

Some of the top actions used in fullbore shooting today, which you as a machinist will really "get" and appreciate, are: CG Millenium, Barnard, INCH, RPA. There are quite a number of US-made actions too, many of which originated from BR designs.

If you were to set out to build a modern topnotch competitive "F/TR" rifle, you would have one of the most accurate .308s in the world, and it would do a really good job of educating you as to the current "top level" way that things are done, which would be a very good departure point for you to consider designing and building something even better.
 
mad_machinist said:
I am not interested in buying "store" guns as their tolerances are not as tight or picky as I... They do large production and need to turn a profit to stay in business... I am looking tighten up tolerances to perfection so zero tolorances and be apart of the making of the rifle... Like this is my rifle and there are none like it... Ya Bob with years of shooting can out shoot me any day of the week with a "store" rifle but he had no say in the design, mods or tolerances...

I machine oilfield parts and they leave the shop and I never see them again or see them function and result of my work... At least with a custom gun I see the end product working and that is awesome!
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Most of the actions use to build precision rifles are not off the shelf items. Custom actions will run from $1200-$1800 or more. I own a machine shop and can't make an action (one off) as nice for what you would pay for one of these custom actions.(I can't afford my own shop rates:p)

Custom actions have very tight tolorences were they need to be. I have heard that Barnard actions suck. The bolt fits so nicely into the action it is almost like a sucking sound when the bolt is cycled. If I was building a new rifle I would go with a Barnard.

RPA action are another top shelf action. I wouldn't turn my nose up at one of these for a custom build either.

That being said, actions like a Musgrave that you can almost throw the bolt into from across the room, are still found at the top of the prize list. If I remember correctly rnbra-shooter used a Musgrave to win the Gov Gen match at the DCRA a couple years ago.
 
maynard said:
Most of the actions use to build precision rifles are not off the shelf items. Custom actions will run from $1200-$1800 or more. I own a machine shop and can't make an action (one off) as nice for what you would pay for one of these custom actions.(I can't afford my own shop rates:p)

Custom actions have very tight tolorences were they need to be. I have heard that Barnard actions suck. The bolt fits so nicely into the action it is almost like a sucking sound when the bolt is cycled. If I was building a new rifle I would go with a Barnard.

RPA action are another top shelf action. I wouldn't turn my nose up at one of these for a custom build either.
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Good points to make. Hopefully the OP realizes that these topnotch target actions are gorgeous pieces of work, that even (especially!) a fussy machinist would love.

Another neat thing about these actions, is that in addition to being made to very fine manufacturing tolerances, they often have brilliant design features incorporated in them so that various potential errors cancel out or self correct.


That being said, actions like a Musgrave that you can almost throw the bolt into from across the room, are still found at the top of the prize list. If I remember correctly rnbra-shooter used a Musgrave to win the Gov Gen match at the DCRA a couple years ago.
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You'd need to aim _carefully_ from across the room, watch that it doesn't tumble too much, but yup, the bolt is sloppy enough that you probably could do that.

I used my Musgrave in 2009 when I won the GG Prize (as delighted as I was, I was even more surprised!).

@mad_machinist, a Musgrave is a target action built in South Africa in the 1970s. At that time it was one of the better target actions; nowadays it is a "clunker" in comparison, though they can still work quite well. They are a purpose-built single shot action but they are derived from a Mauser - they have the Mauser claw extractor, and the bolt lugs are the same. It is single shot, no magazine cutout, the bottom of the action is flat, it has an integral recoil lug, it has quite a small loading port cutout, the walls are quite thick and overall it is quite massive (which can be a minus if you are working to a lowish weight limit). In many of the non-functionally-critical areas, tolerances are quite loose; it has a "sloppy" feel in some aspects, the sort that you would properly see and expect (and require) on a military action.

The funny thing is, it shoots very very well; I shot it in F-Class in 1997-2002, and it was a competitive .308 F-Class (at least at that time; F-Class seems to have made great strides in equipment in the past ten years). I always record my group sizes in my databook, and it was pretty typical to gets results such as "0.4H x 0.9W" at 600 yards, which is my notation to indicate that the 10 to 12 shots that I fired in a match, went into a group four tenths of a minute high by nine tenths of a minute wide. That was good enough to win the occasional F-Class match then, including my first-ever DCRA gold medallion in 1999 (you get a gold medallion for winning an agg, and they are so hard to win that when you do win one it is pretty darn meaningful) which I still remember and which to this day hangs on the wall in my gunroom - http://strangejava.wort.ca/shooting-misc/I-love-me-presidents1999.JPG
 
For what you want I would buy a Tac Ops rifle from the states and import it through an importer. He offers a 1/4" guarantee at 100 yards from factory gold medal ammo. And from what I have seen they carry really good accuracy out further. he designs the rifle around that ammo. Lots of shooters can't match the groups with there hand loads. I think I have seen a couple in Canada before. Get your wallet out though.

Only problem is he is so busy with law enforcement orders its close to a year if not over to get a rifle. Heres some reading if you want.(don't have to be a member)

The whole thread has targets and video, close the www
http://w w w.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3249371#Post3249371

http://w w w.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3274775&Searchpage=1&Main=287561&Words=tacops&Search=true#Post3274775

You will find lots of negative stuff about Tac Ops on the internet. He pissed a lot of smiths off with his 1/4" factory ammo guarantee. Also a lot of shooters who had high money customs that only came with 1/2". But don't get too hung up on guarantee's as the rifle is only a tool, someone still has to get behind it. The only reason I recommended it was your factory ammo restriction. If you hand loaded there are plenty of Canadian smiths that could build you a hell of a rifle.
 
If you have someachine skill, why not get a rem700 LA or SA and tune it yourself, it not at all complicated,there is nothing wrong with rem700, a properly tune rem700 can out shoot high end custom proffer the shell rifle.


mad_machinist said:
Ok I am not fan of recoil so .30 cal or .50 cal rifles I am not interested in. I am looking for advice regarding the following requirements...

I have decided I want to use the 7mm magnum round

I would like hit a Toonie at 500 meters with min rounds Iused.
I would like hit a Toonie at 1000 meters with min rounds used I am patient if it takes a box or two I am ok with this

I want lots of speed and foot pounds

Want to use factory ammo... Apartment manager would probably pissed if reload in apartment....

What barrel do I get? Twist? Grooves? Length? Action? Stock? And scope?

I am a machinist and like precision maybe to much...
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