An interesting twist on this conversation occurred to me this morning:
I have a couple of bolt guns and a couple of gas guns, all purpose built for PRS competition. Getting my bolt guns up to a target 20-25 pounds to stabilize my optics on target while shooting from unstable obstacles and positions is relatively easy. However, despite the common perspective that it’s “so easy for AR’s to get too heavy,” I’ve sort of struggled to get these up over 20 lbs. It’s just too easy to get big diameter bolt gun barrels, whereas you kind of hit a top end limit for what’s available on a shelf for AR barrels. Which of course, is a double whammy (or triple? Or even quadruple?) - the AR is taller and intrinsically less stable on field supports than a bolt gun, (inherently less accurate), (inherently more expensive), and then ends up lighter, such it’s no wonder why gas guns are so much less popular than stick shifters for PRS.
Another consideration just occurred to me in typing the above - there simply aren’t many AR-15 analogy bolt guns available, and comparing AR-15’s to short action bolt guns doesn’t make sense - we SHOULD be talking AR-10’s, which tend to have the expected higher weight ratio relative to a bolt gun. Typically, we’re comparing a short action bolt gun to a mini-action AR-15. A 223rem bolt gun isn’t a 223rem action, it’s a 2.8” compatible, magnum bolt face compatible, 65,000psi tolerant short action which has been made to feed the mini cartridge. Unfortunately, we the true mini bolt guns we do see like the CZ 527 action or the Howa mini are heavy little piggies, partly because their parent actions are also heavy BIGGER piggies relative to say the Rem 700 action - the CZ mini weighs an ounce more than a 700 short action!!! The Savage 25 might be a good example of an “almost mini” action which significantly reduces the overall weight (not difficult to reduce weight from the Savage 10/12 action either though). So it’s also not really fair to compare an F-150 pickup to a Chevy 3500, then say the Chevy is overweight. You’re simply not comparing apples to apples. Equally, comparing a mini action AR-15 which only fits a 2.3” cartridge and struggles to swallow a standard .473” bolt face, let alone a magnum bolt face, and really isn’t designed to tolerate above 55,000psi (enter fudd responses about DTI/Olympic WSSM’s and the defunct DPMS Gen II LFAR’s), against a true short action which swallows 2.8-2.9” cartridges, even with magnum bolt faces, and tolerating magnum pressure standards as well, up around 65,000psi. Inevitably, this makes the bolt gun heavier than it could be if it were designed to the same less burdensome standards as the AR-15. Comparing an AR-10 to a bolt gun brings the weight comparison in line with intuitive expectation.