Ive owned this rifle for quite some time. It started life as a .223 ADL, and in 2008 i had ERshaw rebarrel it to 6x47. I kept the original barrel profile and length at the time, and added an boyds walnut stock, and an xmark pro trigger. Its been like that since then, an Ive shot quite a few animals with this rifle, including the largest pig ive gotten to date.
Lately i havent shot it as much as i used to, for the length and weight of the rifle I could just as easily be shooting any of my bigger guns.
So since i had this Bergara stock, and howa dbm kit that were going to be used on a build that fell through laying around, i decided to give the rifle a bit of a face lift.
I shortened the barrel to 20" from its original 24", and Ceramacoated the barreled action, cocking piece, and bolt handle in FDE. The bolt
body is just repolished and cold blued.
I bought the stock from a forum member who replaced it with another. He needed the pad and sling swivels so it didnt come with them. I did a poor job of fitting the pad from my abolt to the gun, but thats ok as I'll be changing it before too long. I also opened the action inletting a bit and epoxy bedded it.
The howa dbm kit i bought was originally for a .260, so ordered a .223 magazine.
It also didnt drop right into the bergara stock, the front of the magazine inlet was a little tight. Since the botom "metal" is plastic you could just bend it to get it in, but doing that made the magazine bind. Removing enough material so everything went together smoothly only took a few passes with a dremel tho.
The scope is an old Simmons Whitetail Expedition thats ridden around on this gun for a number of years. Id originally intended to remove it and sell the scope, but there were so many dents, dings and scratches on it that i didnt feel right about it. I ended up cleaning it up as well as I could and tried to color match it to the cerama-coat fde i used for the action, but since i didnt want to bake the scope i was stuck with trying to find a spray paint that was pretty close. Its not quite green enough to actually match and a little light, but its not too bad.
The miss match also prompted me to paint the howa trigger guard to match the scope. In the end i think it came out pretty good.
Rifles about a pound lighter, and feels more lively than it did before. The dbm swap means i cam keep it the magazine loaded and out of the rifle while driving around, but quickly get it into action should i see something i want to chase. The ceramacoat will hopefully provide some weather resistance.
All in all, if my barrel shortening job didnt ruin the accuracy, i think im happy with how this came out.
Lately i havent shot it as much as i used to, for the length and weight of the rifle I could just as easily be shooting any of my bigger guns.
So since i had this Bergara stock, and howa dbm kit that were going to be used on a build that fell through laying around, i decided to give the rifle a bit of a face lift.
I shortened the barrel to 20" from its original 24", and Ceramacoated the barreled action, cocking piece, and bolt handle in FDE. The bolt
body is just repolished and cold blued.
I bought the stock from a forum member who replaced it with another. He needed the pad and sling swivels so it didnt come with them. I did a poor job of fitting the pad from my abolt to the gun, but thats ok as I'll be changing it before too long. I also opened the action inletting a bit and epoxy bedded it.
The howa dbm kit i bought was originally for a .260, so ordered a .223 magazine.
It also didnt drop right into the bergara stock, the front of the magazine inlet was a little tight. Since the botom "metal" is plastic you could just bend it to get it in, but doing that made the magazine bind. Removing enough material so everything went together smoothly only took a few passes with a dremel tho.
The scope is an old Simmons Whitetail Expedition thats ridden around on this gun for a number of years. Id originally intended to remove it and sell the scope, but there were so many dents, dings and scratches on it that i didnt feel right about it. I ended up cleaning it up as well as I could and tried to color match it to the cerama-coat fde i used for the action, but since i didnt want to bake the scope i was stuck with trying to find a spray paint that was pretty close. Its not quite green enough to actually match and a little light, but its not too bad.
The miss match also prompted me to paint the howa trigger guard to match the scope. In the end i think it came out pretty good.
Rifles about a pound lighter, and feels more lively than it did before. The dbm swap means i cam keep it the magazine loaded and out of the rifle while driving around, but quickly get it into action should i see something i want to chase. The ceramacoat will hopefully provide some weather resistance.
All in all, if my barrel shortening job didnt ruin the accuracy, i think im happy with how this came out.
