If you were building a custom hunting rig what action would you use?

You said "old school looking" right? Rem 700 or a Win 70 as a close second. Get a '60ish action & get it blue-printed. GTG

I'd stick it in either a Savage 99 or Winchester 95 but as my friends say, "I have a type." Take a guess what that type is.

It depends what you want to do and what you want to spend - AND how important you want the rifle to be to you, in terms of sentimentality, long term.

I will never spend money blueprinting another Remington 700 action. Probably won’t ever spend money blueprinting any more Winchester’s or Mausers either. The price differential vs. a custom action of higher overall quality of manufacturing just isn’t there. A Rem, Win, Ruger, or Mauser has to be completely rebuilt - for about a thousand bucks, or more - to come close to the starting point of custom actions.

I’m happy to rebarrel factory actions which do NOT walk when hot, when I need a low budget hunting rifle which I don’t really expect to fall in love with. I don’t expect custom action performance, but I expect sub-moa groups.

I prefer to start with at LEAST a PT&G 700 action for hunting rifles, but I think today with the Bighorn Origin on the market, I would probably put my bottom tier there. I really prefer to have a Seekins Havak, Stiller Predator, Defiance Deviant, or Surgeon 591 for this, just depends how the budget looks at the time.

For my “I’m gonna shoot this a lot,” or competition rifles, then the application dictates the features of the action. Bat, Kelby’s, Stiller, Savage LRP, Etc....

For a blued and Walnut deer and elk hunting rifle, I would PERSONALLY buy a Surgeon 591, chamber it in 6.5 PRC, stick a 26” Lilja barrel out front have it all mirror polished and deep blued, then have Macon duplicate a McMillan A3 in exhibition grade walnut with an ebony forend cap, with Badger bottom metal and Jewel HVR underneath, and a Nightforce ATACR in Seekins rings up top. I’d be VERY tempted to pay to have the bluing salts hyper concentrated and the action blued separately so it would start out deep black, then turn plum purple over time, leaning the barrel black/blued... guess that’s the old Ruger fan in me coming through... when I build a rifle I want to be a part of my life, not just an acquaintance, I don’t mind spending a little to have it exactly how I want.

Ruger M77 mark 2. Looks old school but built modern.

IronHand

Howa

https://www.brownells.com/rifle-par...oor-22-sporter-barreled-action-prod94596.aspx

Looking at Howa right now for a benchrest application. probably put an MDT stock on it.

The 700 is just a dressed up 721, they are basically the same action and I wouldn't use either. My 1st pick would be a Winchester 70 Classic action from the 1990's.

Before I did that, I'd buy a Cooper or Dakota.

Varminterror said:

For a blued and Walnut deer and elk hunting rifle, I would PERSONALLY buy a Surgeon 591, chamber it in 6.5 PRC, stick a 26” Lilja barrel out front have it all mirror polished and deep blued, then have Macon duplicate a McMillan A3 in exhibition grade walnut with an ebony forend cap, with Badger bottom metal and Jewel HVR underneath, and a Nightforce ATACR in Seekins rings up top.

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I wouldn't spend more than about $1500 on the whole setup for a hunting rifle. Yours sounds like about double or triple that. 1moa works just fine for me and there are barreled actions out there for $500 that will do that.

Of course some people always spend more than they actually need to accomplish the task at hand and I don't have a problem with that. It's your money.

I agree with @Varminterror that blueprinting a factory action just isn't cost-effective, and you might as well go with a custom action. There are a lot of excellent R700 custom actions available*. Last time I checked, Pierce was the best deal going in good R700 actions. I had a Borden Alpine built up some time ago. Jim Borden was good to deal with; he's a perfectionist, and I'm quite happy with this rig. If I were to build another custom rifle, it might very well be a deer/elk rifle built around a Borden intermediate-length Ridgeline, and chambered in 7x57.

Though I'm a fan of CRF & 3-position safeties on hunting rifles, custom Mauser/M70 actions get quite pricey. A Granite Mountain or Satterlee action would set one back a few bills, indeed. In this case, I'd just get a new M70 or spring for a Dakota.


*No more PT&G for me, thanks. The PT&G actions looked like a good deal until I had to deal with PT&G - being told they'd be in stock, followed by interminable waits and promises of delivery. I finally had to cancel the order and insist on a full refund (which they were very hesitant to do).

I would say I'm going to do a mauser or a model 70 and then I would get price quotes for machine work and I would do a remington 700 with a remage barrel instead.

If you just want to buy a rifle take a look at a Dakota. To build a rifle with a good action I would select a pre 64 Model 70 Winchester action. Buy a used rifle and have a quality barrel installed.

Have no idea why but have loved sporterized '17 Enfield and 98 Mausers. So I guess
it would be one of those 2 as I know they are plenty strong.

CoalTrain49 said:

I wouldn't spend more than about $1500 on the whole setup for a hunting rifle. Yours sounds like about double or triple that.

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The walnut blanks - not the stocks, just the blanks - we used for the pair of custom Ruger Hawkeye hunting rifles we built for my wife and I were about $1500, each.

Good wood ain’t cheap. Great wood even less so.

Yep! Last quote I got was $1800 just to produce the stock out of plain straight grained English walnut. No checkering or fancy stuff. If all I was spending was $1500, I'd just buy a new Winchester Super Grade and be done with it.

If I wanted a nice wood & blued hunting rifle for deer and possibly elk I'd forget about building something, forget about the 6.5 CM and go straight to a Kimber Classic Select Grade in .280 AI which retails for $1,427 but which can be found for less, maybe even $200 less. I would not buy sight unseen due to the differences in the wood. The Kimber action is every bit as good as anything from Winchester, has a 3-position safety and a locking bolt like any real hunting rifle should have. That rifle would make for a great hunting rifle, not a sit in a tree stand or shoot from a road kind of rifle, but mount a sensible scope in Talley aluminum rings and you'll have a sub 7.5 lb elk slayer.

I'm with the group that says custom action, which I'm not sure yet.

If I were starting from a factory action it would be a Bergara b-14, or a Browning A-bolt, but only if I'm doing the work.

If I'm paying for someone else to build it, I want best quality primary components, or (to me) it isn't worth the cost in labor.

Problem with a factory action is that, when you’re done, you have neither a factory rifle nor a custom one.

Some factory rifles are very to superbly accurate. I’d have a hard time spending the kind of money it would take for a custom, but it’s not my money.

Ruger Number 1 action

If you wanted to “make” one I have used 8620 for a 50 BMG receiver and it’s plenty strong for it much less anything less powerful.

For hunting, you are not asking for benchrest accuracy but acceptable accuracy maybe a Howa barreled action in whatever stock you want to stick it in would be “making” to some.

Then again I might be a little off as my hunting guns (game guns too for that matter) are tools to me so might not be as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as they are at getting the job done.

My “for looking at” guns don’t get used as hard as I have needed for some hunts.

Big Horn, but it'll be expensive, follow that with m70. If that's too much, might as well start stripping an ol savage down.

I d do a mauser style action ruger is a good start in like 7×57

I’ve kicked off a custom hunting build with my FN action (M70), a Proof carbon 22” barrel and a McMillan Game Warden stock. Going to stick with a .308 chamber