occasional ELR/long range hunter build

R

rugbydave

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Location
Pemberton, BC
I'd been wanting to have this build done for a few years now, at least I've had the brass that long. I wanted to build something that would be very capable at relatively long range (I have targets out to 1600 yards) but that wasn't just a heavy dedicated ELR rig and would be light enough to pack for long range hunting. So I sent a Rem 700 action that already had a Benchmark 26" med Palma barrel chambered in .308 (around 5k rounds through it but still shooting fine) to the fine craftsmen at Insite Arms as the basis of a new build.

Specs:

-Rem 700 SA receiver, notched feed ramp (for max allowable oal in a binderless MDT AICS pattern mag) with fitted PTG fluted magnum bolt all cerakoted odg
-Hardy 26" carbon MTU contour barrel chambered in 7 SAUM (as well as previous .308 barrel chopped down to 20") fitted with an Al Insite Heathen muzzle brake
-TriggerTech single-stage flat trigger shoe Special trigger
-MDT XRS chassis (with awesome sponge camo by yours truly)
-MDT 20 moa scope base and Premier 30mm rings
-Bushnell LRTS 4.5-18 scope with Burris Fastfire 3 piggy-backed on top
-I alternate what bipod I use with it, If I expect to actually be doing much shooting prone/modified prone, I use one of my Ckyepods but if I'm hunting close to home (which is all mountains) I normally just use a Harris since it's lighter and I'll be shooting off a tripod anyways, the bipod is basically a "kickstand", haha

I find talking about how much a rifle weighs to often be kind of "opaque" because there is no standard as to what you weigh. Mag in or out? bipod or not? Sling? So I've got a few weights listed here:

Scoped rifle with Harris bipod, full mag (7 rounds) and sling (Shadowtech SS Loophole): 14.5lbs
Scoped rifle with Harris bipod, empty mag, sling: 14.0lbs
Scoped rifle with Harris bipod, empty mag: 13.5lbs
Scoped rifle with empty mag: 12.5lbs

It's not lightweight by some people's standard but I'm used to hunting with gas guns that weigh about the same or slightly more (thanks Trudope) and carrying heavier precision rifles around all day. It's easy to shoot offhand but prone it's accurate as far as I've shot it (1600 yards) and very confidence inspiring for longer range shots while hunting (if deer would show themselves more than 30 yards away from me, haha) The workmanship on the rifle, like everything from Insite, is just top notch and oozes quality.

The MDT XRS is a great crossover chassis, the ease of just dropping a barrelled action in it like a regular chassis, great adjustable egos and the added benefit of polymer panels so it isn't freezing cold when hunting. I liked the XRS right off the bat and like it more the more I use it.

I'm currently pushing Hornady 180 ELDMs over H1000 at 2800fps so it's no slouch. The ELDMs shoot great but I just got a bunch of Berger 180gr hybrids. I just decided there have been too many reports of the the ELDMs exploding mid air (I witnessed some 147s doing this this summer) to keep running them in something that burns 60+ grains of powder and gets shot at animals. Seems you can never go wrong with Bergers though.

The only thing I'd like to change on this rifle going forward is the scope. Don't get me wrong, the LRTS 4.5-18 is quite a nice scope and is a great value and reasonable weight (28oz) for it's quality level and mag range but it's 30mm tube lacks elevation (for me it tops out around 1450 yards with this load). Ideally I'd replace it with a Leupold Mk5 3.6-18 (a couple ozs lighter and a lot more elevation) or a Nightforce NX8 2.5-20 (same weight and a lot more elevation).

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Very nice build. I'm currently working on my 7 saum build. Mine will be on a long action nucleus. I reached out to insite about their saum reamers but I needed more freebore so ended up buying a manson reamer.

You are loading those 180s to mag length? How deep does the bullet end up in the case?
 
laker415 said:
Very nice build. I'm currently working on my 7 saum build. Mine will be on a long action nucleus. I reached out to insite about their saum reamers but I needed more freebore so ended up buying a manson reamer.

You are loading those 180s to mag length? How deep does the bullet end up in the case?
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I'm loading to mag length (2.950). The bullet goes in pretty far:

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A long action or better yet a medium action (like the Defiance XM) is really the way to go for the Saum but I had a short action on hand so that's why I went that way. You'll definitely be able to coax out some more speed from 180 class bullets with that extra available case capacity.
 
Thanks for the picture. I mocked up some 183 matchkings in my brass and the base of the bullet is above the shoulder which is what im hoping for.

Nice to see you're getting good results on the short action. My concern at this point is what powder to run and how mich of it can i get.
 
laker415 said:
Thanks for the picture. I mocked up some 183 matchkings in my brass and the base of the bullet is above the shoulder which is what im hoping for.

Nice to see you're getting good results on the short action. My concern at this point is what powder to run and how mich of it can i get.
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I'm running 61.5gr of H1000 in Bertram brass with a Fed 210M. I got very faint signs of pressure at 62.0 (very slight swipe and ejector shadow). I was hoping for closer to 2900fps but such is life. I also haven't finished fire forming all my virgin brass (have 300 pieces) so I'll see how things look with both the 180 ELDM and with the 180 Hybrids I just got with once fired brass.
 
rugbydave said:
I'm running 61.5gr of H1000 in Bertram brass with a Fed 210M. I got very faint signs of pressure at 62.0 (very slight swipe and ejector shadow). I was hoping for closer to 2900fps but such is life. I also haven't finished fire forming all my virgin brass (have 300 pieces) so I'll see how things look with both the 180 ELDM and with the 180 Hybrids I just got with once fired brass.
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Pretty good numbers. I'm hoping for close to 3000 with the 183. I have .200 of freebore and will be running a 28 or 30" barrel. That's a solid amount of saum brass. I have 100 and will need to find more
 
rugbydave said:
I'm running 61.5gr of H1000 in Bertram brass with a Fed 210M. I got very faint signs of pressure at 62.0 (very slight swipe and ejector shadow). I was hoping for closer to 2900fps but such is life. I also haven't finished fire forming all my virgin brass (have 300 pieces) so I'll see how things look with both the 180 ELDM and with the 180 Hybrids I just got with once fired brass.
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Your load (61.5 / 2800 fps) should only be in the 56k psi ballpark. Load density though is 105%
 
How many rounds down the tube? My 7 mag shooting retumbo sped up close to 100FPS somewhere between 80-150 rounds. Sped up and pressure signs started sooner too. Initial testing I was up to 69gr retumbo no pressure and 3000 FPS, after 150 rounds I was hitting pressure at 67 gr with close to 3000 FPS, I’m shooting 168 barns lrx.
 
Camoman1 said:
How many rounds down the tube? My 7 mag shooting retumbo sped up close to 100FPS somewhere between 80-150 rounds. Sped up and pressure signs started sooner too. Initial testing I was up to 69gr retumbo no pressure and 3000 FPS, after 150 rounds I was hitting pressure at 67 gr with close to 3000 FPS, I’m shooting 168 barns lrx.
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200 rounds down the pipe and never really saw any barrel speed up. I was kind of surprised, was expecting 50-100fps of speed up. I'm curious to see what happens with once fired brass. Will find out once hunting season ends here.
 
That sir is a fine looking setup! Have you considered trying the 162 ELD. its a little bit shorter and a little less BC but should be able to chuck them downrange faster. For me with limited COAL in a 7mm factory magazine it seemed to be a good compromise. Cheers Love the XRS stock i got on black friday as well and that 7 saum is a beast of a short action cartridge
 
cody182005 said:
That sir is a fine looking setup! Have you considered trying the 162 ELD. its a little bit shorter and a little less BC but should be able to chuck them downrange faster. For me with limited COAL in a 7mm factory magazine it seemed to be a good compromise. Cheers Love the XRS stock i got on black friday as well and that 7 saum is a beast of a short action cartridge
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Thanks! I have thought about the 162 ELD or maybe the Berger 168 Hunter to use for hunting next year and keep the 180s for extended range. I also really like the XRS, the more I use it, the more I like it. I'm looking forward to playing around with this cartridge a bit more as things slow down here.
 
deertaker said:
That is a great looking rifle!! just wondering, i was chambered in 308 before? Did you have to do anything to the bolt face to be able to use the 7SAUM?
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Thanks! I didn't do anything to the bolt face of the bolt as I kept the .308 barrel and had it cut down to 20". I just had Insite install a PTG fluted bolt with a magnum bolt face.
 
laker415 said:
How's the recoil? Are you able to spot your own hits/misses? I would expect my SAUM to end up over 20lbs. That's the goal anyways. Is that the standard Heathen on it?
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There's definitely some push to it. I haven't shot it at much inside 500 yards but could spot hits misses at that distance and out. The brake is a Heathen 3-port in aluminium (to cut down on weight). With a good brake and at 20+ lbs I really wouldn't worry much about spotting hits/misses, that's like 6+ lbs heavier than this rig. My .300 Norma Mag is about 21lbs and is a pussycat to shoot and it uses almost 30gr more powder and pushes a bullet 40gr heavier.
 
Thought I would revisit this thread as I've swapped on a new scope (NF NX8 2.5-20 Mil-Xt), swapped the 1 stage TT for a 2-stage (I swapped all my rifles from 1 to 2-stage) and been shooting it a bunch with the 20" .308 barrel. Funny enough I only lost 100fps (2625 vs 2725fps) for the same load (175RDF, 43.3gr Varget, CCI BR2 in LC brass) compared to when the barrel was 26" long. Still shoots just as tight as it did even at over 5k rounds. I've honestly really been enjoying shooting this rifle in it's current configuration. It's pleasantly light but quite capable. I'll eventually replace the .308 barrel with a similar length 6.5 creed for a bit of a performance boost and recoil decrease.

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It's about to get dropped in a new chassis and go on a serious diet though, my HNT26 just showed up today :rockOn:
 
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