(Edit: serial numbers removed)
This is kind of a twofer.
I recently bought a Browning X-Bolt in .308 Winchester. It is a shot show special with a stainless fluted barrel and a "carbon fiber" stock (not real just a pattern). It was a real close tossup between the new Winchester 70 Extreme Weather and I went with the X-Bolt. Thanks to usmarine0352_2005 for answering some of my questions regarding the two rifles (he basically loves them both so much it was a coin flip).
The X-Bolt is made in Japan's Miroku factory, the same factory that made my T-bolt. The fit and finish are excellent on the X-Bolt.
The action is glass bedded and the barrel is free floated from the factory. It has a 1 in 12 twist. The bolt is more rough out of the box than a Remington 700, but it is already smoothing up with some light use. The bolt does have more wiggle than the 700 so I bet it wont ever feel as smooth, but it is SO nice being able to wrap your hand around the bolt handle and not worry about it touching the scope (60 degree bolt lift). It has a sako styled extractor pictured at the bottom of this post and there is a piece of plastic on the bottom of the bolt about the size of a pinto bean. As far as I can tell this protrudes into the area of the magazine well where the cartridge in the magazine feed lips resides. I think it is used to keep the bullet from jumping forward under recoil. It looks to be appropriately positioned so that it rests against the shoulder of the cartridge below the bolt. This was probably my only gripe, plastic where I didn't want it basically. On the bright side, it has no wiggle, and although I can't figure out how it is attached, it doesn't feel like it is going anywhere.
The trigger is very crisp out of the box but a bit heavy. It feels better than the 700's X-Mark Pro. I lightened it as low as it will adjust and while being less crisp, it is right about where I want it. I have not felt an adjusted 700 trigger, so I cannot compare them at their lowest.
The rotary magazine is incredibly simple. Think of Rugers rotary mag, except it only has one "blade" that rotates on an axis. It only needs to turn about 90 degrees to accommodate the 4 bullet capacity. The plastic it is made of feels incredibly tough.
The trigger guard is either a very high quality plastic, or a very low quality metal. I am leaning towards metal because when the rifle is touched after sitting in a cold room, the trigger guard has that continual cold feeling, whereas normal plastic parts are cold for a moment, then feel like they warm to the touch (they don't conduct heat very well so the warmth stays in your finger instead of getting sucked into the cold metal). The only reason I say "low quality" metal is because I've never felt a metal that could fool you into thinking it was plastic. Whatever it is, its light and it feels strong, so I can't really complain.
The stock is dipped in a carbon fiber pattern and then it looks like the "grips" are just additional plastic sprayed on (they look like a splatter texture and you can very faintly see the carbon fiber pattern below the surface). They don't feel like a softer material like the grip inserts in the BDL synthetic stocks on a 700. It doesn't matter though because the whole rifle is tacky like a Hogue stock, but with less squish. I have read they just spray the whole stock with some sort of clear rubberized material to give it this effect. The pistol grip area has a palm swell to it and it is not ambidextrous. The swell is on the right hand side ONLY, the left side of the grip is actually slightly recessed. It feels good if you are right handed. I tried it out left handed, and besides the fact that I am not used to it, my hand didn't like the reversed contour at all.
The barrel is a standard sporter contour with flutes. The receiver/barrel both have a matte bead blasted finish. The bolt handle and trigger guard are slightly brighter in color, closer to a matte nickel finish.
My project for this rifle was to keep it as light as possible, while at the same time keeping it as accurate as possible. This is why I chose Murphy Precision, so that I could use a one piece titanium base.
I opted for the 20 MOA base. Why the heck not, I don't know if I'll ever go out far enough to take advantage of it, but its nice to have in case.
The base came in via USPS flat rate box, nicely packed and sealed with an invoice and a hand written note designating which screws go where. A small torx wrench is included. I forget what size torx they use, but it is the same size that Burris Zee ring caps use.
The engraving was a nice touch:
You will notice that on the sides of the rail you can see the screw holes going through the recess of the picatinny groove. This is because the X-bolt uses 4 screws per base (assuming you use 2 piece bases), situated closer to the edges of the receiver, rather than down the center.
The base weighs 2.6 ounces and with hardware, the total comes to ~ 2.8
Here is the bottom of the base to show the machine marks. I knew Murphy Precision used CNC, but I will admit I was expecting smoother contours (you can see what look like topographic map lines as the height (z-axis) changes. The x-y axes look fine). Note that the reliefs are cut out on both sides. I suppose so he makes only one base, suited for both left and right handed ejection ports. From the front the fit is pretty good. From the back, not as good. Nothing to fret over, Murphy Precision does not hide the fact that they think you should bed your bases, which I may do in the future, if I feel like the rifle does not perform as is. Other than that the base appears and feels to be very well made.
And a quick before and after and after after. The bead blasted titanium is a very close match to the matte stainless receiver.
At the moment, the only available rings I had were Signature Zee (#0 inserts). They look like they are holding the scope up a bit high but the cheek weld is just perfect for offhand. The rings were a VERY tight fit. It would not surprise me to see scrapes on the base when I remove them later to replace with a set of lighter rings. If you are not familiar with zee style rings, you have to slide the ring onto the base before tightening, as opposed to the traditional ring with the second piece that clamps on.
I have not shot it yet!!! I have a large amount of reloading supplies coming in on Wednesday, so I am aiming (pun intended) for a range test this weekend, and a subsequent update to this post with a range report later next week.
This is kind of a twofer.
I recently bought a Browning X-Bolt in .308 Winchester. It is a shot show special with a stainless fluted barrel and a "carbon fiber" stock (not real just a pattern). It was a real close tossup between the new Winchester 70 Extreme Weather and I went with the X-Bolt. Thanks to usmarine0352_2005 for answering some of my questions regarding the two rifles (he basically loves them both so much it was a coin flip).
The X-Bolt is made in Japan's Miroku factory, the same factory that made my T-bolt. The fit and finish are excellent on the X-Bolt.
The action is glass bedded and the barrel is free floated from the factory. It has a 1 in 12 twist. The bolt is more rough out of the box than a Remington 700, but it is already smoothing up with some light use. The bolt does have more wiggle than the 700 so I bet it wont ever feel as smooth, but it is SO nice being able to wrap your hand around the bolt handle and not worry about it touching the scope (60 degree bolt lift). It has a sako styled extractor pictured at the bottom of this post and there is a piece of plastic on the bottom of the bolt about the size of a pinto bean. As far as I can tell this protrudes into the area of the magazine well where the cartridge in the magazine feed lips resides. I think it is used to keep the bullet from jumping forward under recoil. It looks to be appropriately positioned so that it rests against the shoulder of the cartridge below the bolt. This was probably my only gripe, plastic where I didn't want it basically. On the bright side, it has no wiggle, and although I can't figure out how it is attached, it doesn't feel like it is going anywhere.
The trigger is very crisp out of the box but a bit heavy. It feels better than the 700's X-Mark Pro. I lightened it as low as it will adjust and while being less crisp, it is right about where I want it. I have not felt an adjusted 700 trigger, so I cannot compare them at their lowest.
The rotary magazine is incredibly simple. Think of Rugers rotary mag, except it only has one "blade" that rotates on an axis. It only needs to turn about 90 degrees to accommodate the 4 bullet capacity. The plastic it is made of feels incredibly tough.
The trigger guard is either a very high quality plastic, or a very low quality metal. I am leaning towards metal because when the rifle is touched after sitting in a cold room, the trigger guard has that continual cold feeling, whereas normal plastic parts are cold for a moment, then feel like they warm to the touch (they don't conduct heat very well so the warmth stays in your finger instead of getting sucked into the cold metal). The only reason I say "low quality" metal is because I've never felt a metal that could fool you into thinking it was plastic. Whatever it is, its light and it feels strong, so I can't really complain.
The stock is dipped in a carbon fiber pattern and then it looks like the "grips" are just additional plastic sprayed on (they look like a splatter texture and you can very faintly see the carbon fiber pattern below the surface). They don't feel like a softer material like the grip inserts in the BDL synthetic stocks on a 700. It doesn't matter though because the whole rifle is tacky like a Hogue stock, but with less squish. I have read they just spray the whole stock with some sort of clear rubberized material to give it this effect. The pistol grip area has a palm swell to it and it is not ambidextrous. The swell is on the right hand side ONLY, the left side of the grip is actually slightly recessed. It feels good if you are right handed. I tried it out left handed, and besides the fact that I am not used to it, my hand didn't like the reversed contour at all.
The barrel is a standard sporter contour with flutes. The receiver/barrel both have a matte bead blasted finish. The bolt handle and trigger guard are slightly brighter in color, closer to a matte nickel finish.
My project for this rifle was to keep it as light as possible, while at the same time keeping it as accurate as possible. This is why I chose Murphy Precision, so that I could use a one piece titanium base.
I opted for the 20 MOA base. Why the heck not, I don't know if I'll ever go out far enough to take advantage of it, but its nice to have in case.
The base came in via USPS flat rate box, nicely packed and sealed with an invoice and a hand written note designating which screws go where. A small torx wrench is included. I forget what size torx they use, but it is the same size that Burris Zee ring caps use.
The engraving was a nice touch:
You will notice that on the sides of the rail you can see the screw holes going through the recess of the picatinny groove. This is because the X-bolt uses 4 screws per base (assuming you use 2 piece bases), situated closer to the edges of the receiver, rather than down the center.
The base weighs 2.6 ounces and with hardware, the total comes to ~ 2.8
Here is the bottom of the base to show the machine marks. I knew Murphy Precision used CNC, but I will admit I was expecting smoother contours (you can see what look like topographic map lines as the height (z-axis) changes. The x-y axes look fine). Note that the reliefs are cut out on both sides. I suppose so he makes only one base, suited for both left and right handed ejection ports. From the front the fit is pretty good. From the back, not as good. Nothing to fret over, Murphy Precision does not hide the fact that they think you should bed your bases, which I may do in the future, if I feel like the rifle does not perform as is. Other than that the base appears and feels to be very well made.
And a quick before and after and after after. The bead blasted titanium is a very close match to the matte stainless receiver.
At the moment, the only available rings I had were Signature Zee (#0 inserts). They look like they are holding the scope up a bit high but the cheek weld is just perfect for offhand. The rings were a VERY tight fit. It would not surprise me to see scrapes on the base when I remove them later to replace with a set of lighter rings. If you are not familiar with zee style rings, you have to slide the ring onto the base before tightening, as opposed to the traditional ring with the second piece that clamps on.
I have not shot it yet!!! I have a large amount of reloading supplies coming in on Wednesday, so I am aiming (pun intended) for a range test this weekend, and a subsequent update to this post with a range report later next week.
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