Building a large caliber bolt gun

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JCSC

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i am curious on some advice on a bolt gun build or out of box LR gun.

My first thought was a 26” heavy Howa barreled action and a upgraded Boyd’s type stock, with the appropriate upgrades if required. . Still unsure on the caliber. I have heard that 308 will still do anything you want and for cheaper. I do however like the 65CM.

I was initially thinking $1200 give or take without glass.

Just idea shopping at the moment.
 
Need info to help. What is the intended purpose and how far do you want to shoot? 308 cheaper than what? It is a good cartridge and will do fine for hunting and target. Wide variety of ammo and price range. The 6.5 Creedmoor is a nice cartridge. Mild in recoil my wife's and a buddies are quite accurate. The wife's 308 was a good shooter also. See sold that to get the Creedmoor. Take your pick. Niether is a large caliber.

Tika, Winchester, Ruger, Remington, and Weatherby all make rifles in the aforementioned calibers in your price range.
 
With a $1200 budget, I would skip the Howa + Boyd’s combination. You’re in a budget class which gives you access to some really great factory rifles - take advantage of it.

For long range, avoid the 308win. The 6.5 creed will give you significant performance advantages, and there’s plenty of affordable ammo on the market.
 
Might be able to find a CZ 550 in .458 Win Mag or Lott.

That is if you truly are looking for a large caliber rifle. In my world, .375 doesn’t even quite qualify as large....
 
For a long range rifle though, at $1200, I’d be looking Ruger Precision, Rem 700 Long Range (with some work), Savage 10 BA Stealth, maybe a Bergara B14 HMR or Tikka CTR.
 
Take a quick look at the Browning X-Bolt target in 6.5 Creedmoor and the Remington 700 SPS in .308 Winchester. Two different options like those should help you choose what you want to look for in a range rifle. My guess is they both can shoot good groups.
Then, all the relatively new chassis rifles come to mind. The Ruger previously mentioned gets good reviews, the Mossberg looks incredibly cool (no idea if it can shoot), Savage offers 2-3 options, I think. Savage is rarely a mistake in terms of performance. You have to try a chassis rifle at least once, it's just different shooting. I liked it, but not enough to buy one. They tend to be costly and unusable for my type of hunting.
Neither is a large caliber, as already mentioned. An option for large which I find intriguing is the .416 Rigby. It might be a tad out of your price range in its most usual offerings. If large is the only important part, lots of 45-70 Government are available. My choice would be the Baïkal Artemida in that caliber. Unfortunately, they became difficult to find lately for political reasons. The Henry single shot is more easily available. One could buy two and tape them together. :)
 
For specifically long range shooting, I'd lean 6.5 Creed just for the better long range ballistics. Just based off of reputation and features (not a long range guy myself, just no ranges to do it for me :(), here are a few ideas I'd look at...

Savage M10 6.5 Creedmoor Rifle, Ashbury Precision

Savage 10 BA Stealth

Ruger Hawkeye Long Range Target 6.5 Precision Rifle

Ruger Precision Rifle

If you do go with a Howa, I'd lean towards a Bell & Carlson stock over the Boyd's, if you're really want to do long range the aluminum bedding block should help since the Boyd's has no built in bedding. You could go more expensive, obviously, but seeing as you were looking at Boyd's Infigured you were wanting to stay on the lower end.
 
Only bolt gun I completely built was a 50 BMG because the price on others were ridiculous from a machine work perspective. Bought a chambered blank and go-no-go gauges and went from there.

I have, however, assembled a number of rifles from completed components though and that is a lot easier.
 
I guess large caliber is a term I used too loosely. 6.5 CReed is quite large compared to 556. Let’s call it mid sized. I’m not sure I want to go up to the mag class ammo 300, 338 etc.

I know nothing about the 260.

I really like the look of the Bergara and Ruger precision, I just figured a factory rifle would require all kinds of upgrades anyway, hence my thoughts on a Barrelled action.
 
Does anyone have any personal experience with the Ruger Hawkeye?

One of the most rugged, dependable rifles ever made. If I were hunting something that could just as easily kill me, or if hunting in harsh weather conditions in remote locations one of the Rugers would be near the top of my list. If it absolutely, positively, has to function the Ruger 77 action is about as good as it gets. They are more than accurate enough for most hunting at ethical ranges, but they are far from the best option if precision shooting is the goal.

I have heard that 308 will still do anything you want and for cheaper. I do however like the 65CM.

Between these 6.5 CM every time. The 308 will may be able to match 6.5 CM out to 500-600 yards, but won't better it. And beyond 500-600 yards the 308 simply can't keep up, while the 6.5 is still in the game out to nearly a mile. The 6.5 does it with less recoil too.

I watched my nieces husband shoot a 4" group at 600 yards last week with this $13/box ammo. That is a lot of accuracy for the money

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1020605499?pid=865833

Using this $350 rifle

https://ruger.com/products/americanRiflePredator/specSheets/6973.html

With a $1200 budget I'd buy this rifle

https://www.tikka.fi/en-us/rifles/tikka-t3x/t3x-compact-tactical-rifle

If you're looking to scope it on a budget I'd look at one of these

https://www.swfa.com/swfa-ss-10x42-tactical-30mm-riflescope-6.html?___SID=U

They make that scope in 6X, 10X, 12X, 16X and 20X priced at $300. They make a 3-15X variable @ $700. My nieces husband has the 20X. But my brother and I were both able to shoot at least one 600 yard group that day with the 6X scopes.
 
I have 2 Tikka rifles, a .308 Master Sporter (AKA, the poor man's TRG) and a 22-250 BA. With good ammo, either will do a quarter size at 200 meters.
 
I think big calibers begin at about .375" or so.

Traditionally, “large bore” is 45cal and larger, with the .375’s, .400’s, and .416’s constituting the midbores or “medium bores,” and everything below 375 being smallbore. Contemporary definitions typically draw the line such 338’s to 375’s are midbores, and 40cal and up are large bore, but personally, the old line made far more sense, as lumping a 35 Remington in with a .375 H&H doesn’t really make sense, nor does lumping a 404 Jeffery with a 505 Gibbs. The old demarcation lines made much more logical divisions of both caliber and power standard. Traditionally, there really aren’t any “low powered” 375-416 bottleneck cartridges, while there are a number of low powered 35’s and 338’s. Equally, there aren’t many 45-50cal cartridges which don’t fit their power class, but drawing the brackets at 338-375 and 40-50 lumps together some very disparate cartridges. So I prefer the old definition.

Either way, when we’re talking 6.5 creed or 308win, we’re talking smallbore.
 
Traditionally, “large bore” is 45cal and larger, with the .375’s, .400’s, and .416’s constituting the midbores or “medium bores,” and everything below 375 being smallbore. Contemporary definitions typically draw the line such 338’s to 375’s are midbores, and 40cal and up are large bore, but personally, the old line made far more sense, as lumping a 35 Remington in with a .375 H&H doesn’t really make sense, nor does lumping a 404 Jeffery with a 505 Gibbs. The old demarcation lines made much more logical divisions of both caliber and power standard. Traditionally, there really aren’t any “low powered” 375-416 bottleneck cartridges, while there are a number of low powered 35’s and 338’s. Equally, there aren’t many 45-50cal cartridges which don’t fit their power class, but drawing the brackets at 338-375 and 40-50 lumps together some very disparate cartridges. So I prefer the old definition.

Either way, when we’re talking 6.5 creed or 308win, we’re talking smallbore.

Correct.

However to those who think that the .223 is a "high powered" rifle the .30 caliber offering must seem like "large bore". I say man up buttercup. Your grandfather carried a rifle into combat that used the M2 .30-06 cartridge. THAT was the norm.

There's a reason us older guys call the .223 a poodle shooter. I can remember when it wasn't legal for hunting in most states.
 
I just did the same thing. Have a Rem. 700 SPS Tac in .223 I purchased for around $400 years ago, put it into a KRG Bravo stock, Timney 510 trigger, scope base and rings and was off to the races. Well under $1000. Use it entirely for shooting paper and steel, mostly out to 300 yds. for which .223 is totally adequate. Have been shooting it for a few years and this year came across a deal I couldn't refuse. I found a 6.5CM Rem. 700 ADL from Cabela's for $450 on sale, throw in a $75 Remington rebate and some Cabela's points and it was around $200. Upgrades were just like my .223 except for a Trigger Tech trigger instead of the Timney and was all done for around $800. You could do the same. I have 50 rounds through it and the best 4 shot group is 3/8". Happy so far!

As others have suggested, I don't think you could go wrong with a Tikka Varmint or CTR in 6.5CM (super smooth actions), a Howa barreled action in a stock of your choosing, a Rem. 700 barreled action from Eurooptic in the stock of your choosing, a Ruger Precision Rifle with no upgrades aside from optics, etc. All solid choices and avail. in 6.5CM or .308 Win. 6.5CM is nice as it is now avail. pretty much everywhere (which used to be a big selling point with .308), easy to reload (which I'm doing), less recoil than .308 and better ballistics at distance. Let us know what you decide!
 
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