New precision shooter

Roughshod

Roughshod

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###smith, Alberta
My wife has expressed great interest in trying out precision shooting. After a few unsuccessful tries at contacting the local chapter of the ORA in hopes of coming out to a shoot to see if there are any clear "popular" rifle choices amongst shooters I thought I'd try these boards in hopes of some guidance. If possible she would like something in a. 223 configuration. She enjoys shooting this caliber and especially enjoys shooting my Savage Axis, (I bought the rifle as a knock around, dog gun to use on some local farms), we were at a Savage shoot this past summer and she got the chance to shoot a few different calibers, .308, .270, .243 and strongly disliked the recoil of the .308. That could have been that particular rifle though. We stopped by Epps one afternoon hoping to catch a bit of a lull in the gun room for some show and share and came away with the suggestion of a Remington 700 Tactical as a good platform to start with. Is this where she should begin or are there other choices we haven't encountered yet? As for the shooter, she's about 5'8", 100-something pounds. She's a strong girl and was in the militia back in the day, those who are married will understand the 100-something is almost, "do these pants make my butt look big? territory!!! We'd like to keep the cost down under a $1000 before glass if possible.

Many thanks!

Rough
 
You can't go wrong with remington 700sps tac in.223!! I have one and love it. A lot of people will knock the stock but its not that bad. My wife is in the same area as yours, 100 something pounds and she loves to shoot it. I think with the Nikon m223 scope and gun I spend maybe 1300 for both. It's a beautiful gun!
 
If she is going to shoot precision ORA matches they are from 200 to 800 yards. The 223 would be fun for the short distances but much past 500 and you would be challenged with the factory gun. I would suggest the 243 with a muzzle brake. The 243 is already a gentle rifle but with a the brake will make it shoot like a 22lr with big boy results, pair that up with a bushnell 3200 10x scope and you will have lots of fun. The 243 with the heavier bullets will cut the wind at the longer yardages and more important all 10 shots at 800 will land on target that is a big plus when starting out. the 400 yard mover you are on your own everyone (just starting out) drops a shot or 2 while on the movers. Some notable calibres are 284, 6.5/47 lapua 260, 6mm crusader others shooters run 243 win, 308 win 6.5/55 swede. There is a intro day next year, in april or may watch the ORA website for details. If you wish to go let me know and i will bring extra ammo for your wife to try... mine is a 308 with a very effective brake and my gun is heavy.

Trevor
 
With a budget of 1000$ before glass, I would take a look to the Remington 5R in .223. I have one in .308 and I can keep up with some custom rifle. Doing .75MOA and tighter 5-10 shot groups all day long with off the shelf ammo. The rifle is still in factory configuration... It's maybe not the best looking rifle, but I think it's a nice base... Nice barrel, nice action, good stock and a fine adjustable trigger.... Not the best trigger, but it works fine.
 
You can't go wrong with remington 700sps tac in.223!! I have one and love it. A lot of people will knock the stock but its not that bad. My wife is in the same area as yours, 100 something pounds and she loves to shoot it. I think with the Nikon m223 scope and gun I spend maybe 1100 for both. It's a beautiful gun!
 
Id suggest a Savage 10 PC in .223. That was my first LR gun and it was great. I regret selling it. It has the Accustock and Accuttrigger so you dont have to bed the stock and you dont need to upgrade the trigger. This saves alot of extra $$ after the initial rifle purchase. Its also a very slim feeling gun, probably decent for a smaller female shooter to handle.
If shes comfortable with your savage axis, why not stick with what she already knows and go with a savage 10 PC... keep it similar but better. They also retail for about $6-700 or so... so youll have lots of $$ left over for glass and ammo.
 
Tikka t3 varmint is another great option to consider. In reality any factory gun will do the trick, get her behind some different rifles and see which one is most comfortable for her, maybe even dry fire a few to see if she likes say an accutrigger over a normal single stage.
 
let her pick what she wants. You can't go wrong with anything in a Remington, Tikka, or Savage. Just make sure it has a heavy barrel. Sticking with 223 is good particularly if she plans on trying some F-Class shooting. It will keep her in the FTR class, and it has a long barrel life. Seems to me ORA may actually have a factory class too. (If I were going to buy a do-nothing-to-it factory "precision" rifle, the closest things to it in my book are the Tikka Varmint/Tactical rifles and the Savage 12 series)

When you have her good an hooked, get her into a 6BR and she will never look back. Keep in mind she will need a proper scope too. Stay away from chinese crap.
 
Was the .308 she shot (and disliked) a factory rifle, or a custom target rifle? How much did it weigh?

A 13+lb target rifle is a lot more "shootable" than a <10lb factory rifle, though even a nice heavy .308 has enough recoil that even if it isn't actually hurting you, it is an obstacle to precise shooting that can take years to overcome (it took me years to (mostly) overcome it).

ORA Precision Rifle matches don't go further than 800 yards. Getting a rifle to shoot well enough to be competitive at 800 yards is a *whole* lot easier than getting it to shoot competitively at 1000 yards.

Whatever she or you choose to use, it should be "competitive" at the distances involved. By "competitive" I mean that the rifle and ammo are good enough to win the match. Even if you or she aren't yet at that level of shooting experience, you will shoot better and improve your shooting quicker, if you are using gear that is good enough to win the match.

If you don't handload, it is difficult to suggest a .223 for distances beyond 300 yards, because there isn't very much suitable factory match ammo available.

If you do handload, the .223 would be a completely reasonably choice for competitive shooting (such as ORA Precision) out to 800 yards. If you are an expert-level handloader, it can also be competitive at 1000 yards too.

You will need a .223 rifle with a twist rate faster than 1-9" (i.e. a 1-8" or 1-7" are fine), so that you can shoot one of the various 80-82 grain .223 match bullets. There are a lot of ".223 tactical" bolt action rifles with 1-9" twist that are therefore ruled out.

I would recommend against cartridges such as .22-250 or .243 Winchester - these are higher performance cartridges, and the added blast and increased barrel wear are probably tradeoffs not worth making here. A 6BR firing 105-class bullets *might* be worth considering, but competition-wise it is less flexible than a .223 or .308. For ORA Precision I don't imagine this matters, but if you end up wanting to shoot an F-Class match there are two classes, one for .223/.308 and the other for "Open", which everything else goes into. Your .243 or 6BR would then be competing at a fair bit of a disadvantage against really really high performance cartridges.

You should definitely go to an ORA Intro Day, and also consider attending one or even all of the wintertime courses that they are offering and which will start soon.
 
paperslayer said:
let her pick what she wants. You can't go wrong with anything in a Remington, Tikka, or Savage. Just make sure it has a heavy barrel. Sticking with 223 is good particularly if she plans on trying some F-Class shooting. It will keep her in the FTR class, and it has a long barrel life. Seems to me ORA may actually have a factory class too. (If I were going to buy a do-nothing-to-it factory "precision" rifle, the closest things to it in my book are the Tikka Varmint/Tactical rifles and the Savage 12 series)

When you have her good an hooked, get her into a 6BR and she will never look back. Keep in mind she will need a proper scope too. Stay away from chinese crap.
Click to expand...
X2 on the 6mmbr, Buy a savage and stick a custom tube on it.
 
rnbra-shooter's comments are well thought out and are good advice, in particular with regard to handloading for the .223 and the barrel twist needed.
If you stick too firmly to an overly small budget, you may well spend a lot more in the long run. Do it right one time. I would look into it a lot before
laying the $ on the table.
 
ORA Precision shoots? Cannot get in touch? Shoot me a PM. We got yer back. I shoot the Precision Rifle matches and we can get you started for the coming season (April 2013). In the meantime, get a load developed and think about shooting some of the heavier boolits with that SPS Tac .223. I just cannot recall what the twist was.... 1 turn in 9" I believe. Someone correct me if I am mistaken...

Cheers,
Barney
 
Wow! Thanks for all of the great info everyone! I do in fact reload but I am nowhere close to being an expert at it. I have been very surprised at the accuracy of some hunting loads that I've worked up but haven't experimented too much. I am more than willing to make up some target rounds for Mrs. Rough should she get into the long range end of things. We really would like to start her off on the right foot with a decent rifle out of the gate for her rather than trying to modify a sporting rifle for her to be competitive with. I don't recall which .308 Savage she tried on day of the shoot but it definitely was a hunting model. It had nothing on the. 300 Win. Mag. we shot that day but she clearly said the. 308 kicked like a double pull on my .12ga Coach gun and completely lost interest in that very quickly.
 
Hungry said:
ORA Precision shoots? Cannot get in touch? Shoot me a PM. We got yer back. I shoot the Precision Rifle matches and we can get you started for the coming season (April 2013). In the meantime, get a load developed and think about shooting some of the heavier boolits with that SPS Tac .223. I just cannot recall what the twist was.... 1 turn in 9" I believe. Someone correct me if I am mistaken...

Cheers,
Barney
Click to expand...

Yeah the sps tac is 1in9". MBRA shooter had some very good advice about going with a 223 with 1in8 or 1in7 twist, but are there any factory rifles with this? Maybe a savage with a pre-fit barrel would be the way to go?
 
Mrs. Roughshod here. I just wanted to thank everyone for their ideas and input. I have signed up for the winter course and I am beginning to have a more open-mind to the .308

I am definitely going to do lots of research before I make my BIG purchase.

I will keep everyone posted on what I am thinking of getting before pulling the trigger.
 
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