Which budget bolt 223?

[Boattale]

The cheap psa ar-15's aren't even close to being in the same class accuracy wise as the majority of the budget bolt action 223's.

Interesting to see how many people think a ar mag hanging out of a bolt action rifle is a good thing. I could case less about how it looks, getting in the way/performance with carry & position shooting is more important to me than having 10/20/30 shots to cycle thru a bolt action.

A couple of years back I was looking at the cheap bolt action 223 market. Was interested in doing an experiment using the cheapest components I could make/find and run them thru a cheap bolt action 223. Ended up with a cheap heavy bbl'd savage axis for $318 out the door. Had a $50 mail in rebate and I sold the cheap scope that came with it for another $50. Ended up with $218 bolt action rifle. Never did anything to it, heck even left the accru-trigger as it was out of the box. No adjusting anything, doing anything to the stock, nada. The only thing I did was tested the torque's on the action screws as I zeroed the 24x scope I put on it that I've used for silhouettes.
Anyway to make a short story long I got free lead from the berm to use as bullet cores, 22lr cases to use as bullet jackets and used free range pickup brass to shoot those home swaged bullets out of. I did sort the brass into 2 piles commercial & nato. The bullets I made out of free lead/free 22lr cases
View attachment 852175

I ran around 40 rounds down the tube zeroing the scope in and playing with the action screw torques. Cleaned the bbl and then shot this target/5-shot groups @ 100yds.
View attachment 852176

25.5gr to 26.5gr of bl-c2 has always produced moa or better accuracy for me in several firearms chambered in 223. The savage axis was no different. That 25.5gr load put 3 in 1 hole and 2 out 5/8" to 5/8" outside to outside. Those are real world results from savage axis using mixed nato range brass that were full length sized and trimmed only (no fire forming/neck turning/primer pocket uniforming/ect). The bullets are nothing more than home swaged.

That 25.5gr load/accuracy pictured above is repeatable along with finding excellent loads using h335.

That's what a box stock $218 savage axis does for me using free brass/free bullets, $20 per 1000 s&b primers and ball powder.

Fascinating. How did you make the bullets?

 

[forrest r]

Fascinating. How did you make the bullets?

Not really all that hard, a little time consuming. I've swaged my own bullets for decades mainly pistol and 30cal's for the rifles. Got away from it and sold off a bunch of swaging equipment. Never bothered with the cheap 22cal bullets, easy enough to buy them 6,000+ at a time.

Kept seeing the cheap 223 bolt action rifles coming up for sale & it got me thinking about free bullets in a cheap rifle. So I bought a set of swaging dies and a 8-cavity core mold and started playing. The long & short of it:

De-rim the 22lr cases
anneal & clean the cases
cast the cores & run them up in a core uniforming die
clean the swaging lube off of the uniformed cores (uniformed cores ='s same size weight done with a bleeder die)
seat the cores in the 22lr case
point form the seated cores/22lr cases
clean the swaging lube off of the bullets

Sounds like a lot of work but it's nothing to make 4000/5000 bullets during the winter months. Swaging bullets this way produces bullets that ill easily do MOA.

I also do a short version for blasting bullets in the ar's.
de-rim the 22lr cases
cast cores
drop cores in re-rimed case and point form
clean swaging lube off of bullets.

Making bullets this way produces bullets that do +/- 1 1/2" 10-shot groups @ 100yds. More than enough for blammo ammo in the ar's.

 

[BigBL87]

Well, guy interested in my Marlin seems to be a scammer, so my .223 purchase is back on the back burner for now.

 

[BigBL87]

Any thoughts on the Savage 10 Precision Carbine?

https://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog...+Enforcement+Series+10+Precision+Carbine+.223

My .308 is a Savage 10 FCP so I'm very familiar with the setup. The Accutrigger and moreso the Accustock are very appealing to me, as I'd probably end up buying a stock for anything else I'd buy, but with the Accustock having a full bedding block I think I'd be fine with the OEM stock. My Marlin 795 may be back on the move, so might happen sooner than I thought.

 

[LoonWulf]

I have a friend that shoots a 10 PC in .308, and does very well with it. The only note I'd make me that those do use the older non-adjustable style stock which have quite bit of drop. for me to be comfortable (i had a 11 in .243) I needed the lowest rings i could get.
I've played with the newer Savage adjustable stocks, and really like them, which is mostly why I keep bringing them up lol.

on the older stock a cheap comb riser would fix my only complaint.