Custom Rifle Build...On the Cheap?

[Olympus]

I saw a gun at a gun show today that I just had to have...at least until I saw the price. The guy was a WELL used Ruger M77 in 250 Savage. The dealer wanted $950 for the gun and the wood was well worn and the metal was well worn as well. But that got me thinking about whether I could build a moderately priced custom rifle in a sporter configuration in 250 Savage. Anyone have any ideas on the most cost-efficient way of doing this? I'm looking for just a regular sporter style rifle in 250 Savage. It does not have to be precision barreled, etc.

In looking, I can buy a new Remington 700 action only, which includes bolt and trigger, for $275. That would mean I would need a barrel, some kind of bottom metal, and a stock which I could get reasonably easy from Boyd's. I would need to go with a stainless barrel or else I would have to factor in cost of finishing the barreled action, which seems like it would add to the cost. Would this be the most feasible way to accomplish this feat?

 

[browningguy]

Or a Savage, you save quite a lot screwing in a new barrel at home. You can get a complete Savage with a wood stock for say $450, then just screw in a new barrel.

 

[horsemen61]

Custom gun and cheap don't belong in the same sentence!

Having said that I'd get a savage I believe at one time they made a 250 savage rifle might be worth checking into

 

[Flatbush Harry]

Oly, I have a wonderful precision Rem 700 in .308 Win that I built on a Rem 700 Varmint barreled action (blued matte finish, 26" varmint barrel-$450), skim glass-bedded in a Bell & Carlson Medalist A5 stock with full-length bedding block (the stock is fully adjustable for cheek height and length of pull - $425 - and the barrel is free-floated using a dremel tool - 10 minutes sweat equity), with a Timney trigger replacement ($114 at the time) of the X-Mark Pro factory trigger. I mounted a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 FFL MOA/MOA scope ($949) using Leupold STD bases and rings ($58 IIRC). It is a wonderful shooter that consistent delivers 1/4"-3/4" 100 yard groups. I will take it with me when I next go to the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, NM along with a couple of other precision rifles to see how it does between 600-1000 yards.



This is a target I shot in 2012...5-shot group at 100 yds. The notes on it show my preferred load.

Another example from this rifle (I failed to date it, but Norma 203B is a propellant very close (in my experience) to Reloder 15. The below is only a 3-shot group:



In short, I'd take the Rem 700 approach in a NY Minute. I have two Ruger rifles, a 77RSI in .308 and a No. 1 in 6.5x55SE. Both are solid 0.75-1.00 MOA shooters and totally reliable. I find that Rugers are wonderful rifles that are slightly less accurate than Rem 700s and Win M70s, but at least as strong and at least as reliable. For hunting, I'd feel well-served by any of the three brands, having used all of them for deer and my Winnies for elk.

YMMV, but my experience is as above.

Cheers and good shooting,

Harry

 

[Olympus]

If I went the Remington 700 action route, the only gunsmithing I would need is having the barrel threaded to the action and headspaced, depending on how finished the barrel comes. Like I said, I'm not looking for a precision shooting gun. I'm looking for a regular sporter to use for hunting. I would be happy with a 1 to 1.5MOA gun.

I'm thinking I can buy a Remington action and Boyd's stock for cheaper than I can buy a complete Savage rifle with wood stock. Maybe not though. I'll do some more research on that subject. I'd probably still want to go with a Boyd's stock in some kind of laminate though. The Savage wood stocks I've seen a pretty much a muddy brown stick with no grain figure.

 

[Orcon]

Cheap Savage 10/Stevens 200 with a bolt face diameter of 0.470". Then look on gunpartscorp.com for a stock and barrel. $200 for the vice, wrenches and headspace gauges on brownells.com. Of course you could always go with a custom barrel for a few more bones but to assemble a factory action in the configuration you want for cheap, this is the way to go.

All said and done, it will cost you roughly 900 bucks to do this.

Donor action: ~$400
Factory quality barrel: ~$180
Hard wood stock: ~$85
Rebarreling tools: ~$200

Total: ~$865 not including shipping


A bit of google:
Short actions with a bolt face .Dia of .470 +/- in common factory chamberings
225 Winchester
22/250 Remingtion
6mm Norma BR
243 Win
250 Savage
260 Rem,
6.5/284 Norma
7/08 Rem
284 win
300 Savage
308 Win
338 Federal
35 Rem, and
358 Winchester.

 

[BrocLuno]

Arisaka Type 38 and Type 44 had 0.476 bolt faces. Claw extractor. 1"x 14TPI barrel threads and a decent internal magazine with latched floor plate. You can buy a beater off GB for $200 and start there. Buy your barrel or send your action to have it barreled. Richards micro-fit stock. Timney still makes triggers for these. Weaver #24 bases fit the Arisaka contour both front and back. Use any rings you want and any scope.

You will have to cut and weld the bolt handle, but it's not a really big job.

 

[LoonWulf]

Actually barreled arisaka actions are available for 80-150 depending....i have one in pieces sitting on my desk till i decide what to do with it.

I also basically just finished a .250AI build on a savage 11 that was a .243. gun cost me 600 bout 9 years ago, got that back in use im sure lol.

New barrel ran me 180, stock 130, tools 50, new recoil lug just because 30.

Quite a bit of work went into the stock but other than that it was a quick easy build.

If i were to do it from scratch on the cheapish, id buy a rem 700 bdl in a short action caliber and have a custom barrel fitted.
Or just the action if u want to add your own stock.

If i was going to spend more id do it on a rem model 7 action as the .250s short OAL works perfectly from the model 7s shorty box

 

[greyling22]

Take a look at the concept of the "remage" it's a 700 action where they take a modified savage style barrel and use a barrel nut to screw it on. Northland shooters supply is probably the most common source for such an animal, but they don't offer a 250 savage. I think pacnor offers that style barrel and nut as well. As does bison gun works.

 

[stringnut]

E R Shaw can build you a brand new rifle starting at about 1000. I think mine was just under 1100 for a 250 Savage with a Boyds laminated stock. It shoots pretty well too. About 1.25 inches at 100 yards. Here is the neat part. I shot a 50 round group over the course of a week. Started with a clean barrel and shot at least 5 every day. Sometimes pretty quickly. It was just a bit over 1.25. So clean or dirty, hot or cold, it shoots the same poi. May be out of your price range however.

 

[Flatbush Harry]

So I decided to rebarrel one of my rifles today. I have an AI/AT in .260 Rem and decided I needed an AI/AT in .308 Win. I picked up a 24" AINA Tooley Bartlein barrel with a 1:10 twist, Cerakoted in light tan that matched the stock, for $500. Mile High Shooting Accessories removed the .260 barrel and installed the .308 barrel...in 1min with no labor cost. The install required nothing other than the loosening of the anchoring Allen screw, unscrewing the .260 barrel, which was hand tight, and screwing in the .308 barrel, hand tight, then tightening the Allen screw.
I'll shoot it in on Thursday with some FGMM 175 gr SMKs and Black Hills 175gr SMKs to benchmark it and then try my usual match handloads: 175gr SMKs over 41.5gr RL15 and 175gr SMKs over 42.2gr IMR 4064 in Lapua brass with CCI BR primers. These are reasonably light, but very accurate loads in my other rifles. I expect I'll get 8,000-10,000 round life from this barrel or $0.05/shot erosion (I can live with that).

While I love my .308 Rem 700, I've fallen in love again with my AI and spurned my Rem, which is now sulking as my back-up rifle. The 1:10 twist barrel on the AI will let me shoot 185gr and 190gr bullets which will stay supersonic out past 1,000 yards easily.

Now this is not a cheap rifle nor a custom, but it is an off the shelf helluva shooter. The below target shows what it did with factory SW Ammunition loads with 139gr Lapua Scenars:



I'm hoping for results as good as the .260 Rem. I recommend this rifle, AINA Tooley barrels (my .260 Rem barrel is one), and MHSA...all are just excellent.

Cheers, and good shooting,

Harry

PS-I have a mildot scope on this rifle so 1 click left will move the POI about 0.36" to the other side of the bullseye...this is close enough for government work. We'll see how much adjustment is needed for the .308 Win loads.

FH

 

[CraigC]

I don't know why you'd want to pay $950 for an old half worn out one. This one was $750 brand new about three years ago.

 

[Olympus]

I didn't want to pay $950, that's why I didn't buy it. But I did want the rifle, just at a much cheaper price.

 

[CraigC]

I must have misunderstood. I thought you were going to use the $950 rifle as the base gun.

Anyway, the .250 above shoots 3/4MOA with the 100gr Barnes.

 

[Olympus]

No, I wanted the rifle just like it was, but wouldn't spend that kind of money on it. So I wanted to see I could part together a "custom-ish" rifle in 250 Savage for less money.

 

[LoonWulf]

Biggest cost will probably be the barrel.
Finding a donor rifle for the action could get you a stock and a barrel to sell if you were so inclined.

With your 275 rem action i think you could probably get out tye door for around 550-600 depending on stock qnd barrel.

 

[DRYHUMOR]

Whichever way you go, I think you'll still be around $800-$900 into it, prob more.

Got to count shipping and gas money. FFL transfer cost, if buying other than local.

Also, you'll need a reamer, if the smith doesn't have one; or the barrel supplier/chamberer. And headspace gauge. You can some of that back by selling the reamer and gauge after you use.

Grab A Gun and Wholesale Hunter have some of the cheapest prices on actions. Walmart has cheap M700s. In most cases the rifles are cheaper than just an action.

Nows the time of year to get the good deals on hunting rifles.... no one wants to carry the tax load until hunting season comes back around.

 

[stringnut]

I don't know why you'd want to pay $950 for an old half worn out one. This one was $750 brand new about three years ago.

My brother and I each had one. The headspace was so excessive that the cases would nearly separate on the first firing. Mine was not quite so bad. His would just close on a no go gauge with 3 layers of masking tape mine on 2. This worked out to about .013 to .015 too deep for his and .008 to .010 for mine. Sent them back to Ruger. They kept them and wouldn't return them! Never admitted there was a problem. Just said they weren't repairable. They did compensate us for them eventually. Almost had to get a lawyer for that. Glad yours worked out better. They sure are a pretty rifle . I would have paid to have the barrel set back and chambered correctly.