Coues Sniper

Doug, you have no idea how perfect of timing that was. You are the man!

Remembered another one. Kenton Industries is company that will also do custom turrets for your scope (laser engrave yardage on turret): http://www.kentonindustries.com/

This is an extremely interesting thread, with some great advice by all. Diesel, stop the lurking man, you have some valuable information to share IMO.

That pic has been around a while. Pretty impressive.

Cool buck, he has some interesting points and character. Good looking mount too, congrats.

All i can say is i bet's it at least close. Regardless, he's an awesome, awesome deer. Congrats again. And what about the offer to carry your pack? I'll even carry a nice comfy chair for you to glass with... Kevin, will you pack my ammo for me? I dunno Casey, I've heard about your shooting... that's a lot of ammo

Never mind I was reading an old thread. I'm going to try them i think.

Good idea on checking the website, here i was about to skim thru the DVD to find the name Sounds like a heck of a set-up. By the way CnS, have you loaded up any Bergers for your 300 yet? I'm thinking of giving them a try in my 300 RUM this year. (I know Casey, I know, the world is flat. )

Amen to that... click - thwap - just kidding. sorta.

dang, too late

Awesome.

Sounds awesome TAM, be sure to post some pics of the gun and groups when you get her. And if you wouldn't mind what does Todd charge for a top of the line rifle like that? You can PM me if you'd like.

Thanks AZ. Not to my knowledge, no. But they really should if they don't. Can't be that difficult for them to do. I did see a company on a DVD set "How to Shoot Beyond Belief" (which is a great DVD by the way - 10 hours!) that if I remember right would do custom turrets for any scope other than Leupold. I'll see if i can find the name.

Jim, I'm no expert - I just did a ton of research for my rifle. I wanted to make the most informed descions i could. I've never owned a gun with a jewell trigger on it. I have shot a couple, and man are they sweet. You just squeeze and it never seems to move, even when the rifle fires. Once you have it set to the weight you like (which you should have a gunsmith do) you shouldn't have to mess with it. I've just heard of horror stories of them sticking, and if it happens in the field - you're screwed. I've never worked on one but have been told it's best to have a gunsmith do any work needed on it. That was enough to scare me. The Timney's are supposed to be pretty much bullet proof and are still really crisp so that's what i went with.

Matt, I finally got a few minutes from work so here's my 2 cents on long range rifles. First, you’re probably going to want one of the big 30’s for a caliber. Which one is really a matter of opinion. 300 Win, 300 RUM, 300 Weatherby, 30 Hart, 30-378 Weatherby, etc, are all essentially going to do the same thing; lob a 180 or so grain bullet WAY out there. Some will extend the effective range of your bullet more than others, but you might not be able to shoot far enough for it to matter anyways. So do some research, especially if you are going to reload, but don’t stress yourself out over it. As far as which rifle, I’d really recommend going with some sort of a custom rig built off the always reliable Remington 700 action. My Christensen is built off of a 700 action in titanium because I was trying to make the gun as light as possible. Which also made the carbon barrel a big plus. The custom job will ensure that your receiver has been trued and faced, and that you have a high quality barrel. You should also be able to have your choice of trigger, which is very underrated in my opinion for accuracy. Having a crisp trigger that fires at the weight you are comfortable with without any creep is huge. It’s amazing how much of a difference that makes. I went with a Timney trigger on mine. A lot of people like the Jewell triggers, and for good reason – they are the best there is. But they are almost too good. They have a huge amount of parts on them and I have heard of problems with them freezing up in extremely dusty or cold conditions, and they are tricky to work on. I’m sure some people on here have them and never had a problem, I just went on the safe side. The Timney isn’t as good as the Jewell, but it’s still a dang good trigger as is the Shilen. You would also have your pick of stock if you went custom. Most stocks are meant for a smaller than average person so that they more or less fit almost anyone. When you hold the gun and are ready to fire the last pad on your trigger finger should be all that is touching the trigger with your arm and hand comfortable but straight. Many times when I pick up a gun and act like I’m going to fire it, half of my trigger finger is past the trigger. I had my length of pull extended almost an inch, and the grip inletted about a half inch and it fits me great. (I’m right at 6’-0”) A custom guy could help you fit your stock to you before you ordered it. Scopes are also extremely important. You don’t want to spend a ton of money on a gun that shoots ½” groups and put a low quality scope on it. I like Leupold, but there are a ton of good scopes out there: Swarovski, Zeiss, Nightforce, etc. Get the best one you can afford. Like I said before I went with the Leupold VXL 4.5-14x56mm and love it. It is the one with the cut out of the bottom of it so that I can mount it as low as a 40mm which allows a good comfortable check weld, but is a bright as a 52mm and the field of view of a 56mm. I like the 4.5 power on the low end and feel the 14 power is plenty for a top end, but you may want a higher power scope. I wouldn't go any higher than 6x for your low end however. When you have your scope, you are going to have to have some sort of bullet drop compensation built into your scope. There are 2 main ways of doing this to my knowledge: turrets and dots. Turrets of course are dialed to the yardage and windage desired and you hold dead on with your crosshair when you fire. Dots or ballistic marks are dots or lines put onto your reticle and represent different yardages. There are companies such as Premier Reticle that will put dots to any yardage you specify using your particular ballistics. I have a rifle with this on it and it works pretty slick. The only problem is that the scope has to be on maximum power (or whatever power you chose) to work. This can be a problem. A friend of mine missed a nice Coues buck with this system because it was getting dark and he had a hard time seeing the buck at the highest power (where his dots worked) He kept going back down to low power to find the deer, but when he went back to the highest power he would lose it. He eventually ended up forgetting to go all the way back to high power and shot 4 times and never touched the deer at 550 yards. It wasn’t until afterwards that he realized he was on the wrong power. Another problem is Premier Reticle no longer is allowed to do Leupold scopes, Leupold wants that business for themselves. But they (Leupold) will only go to 500 yards max with their dots which is about worthless IMO. You can still have Premier Reticle do a scope for you, but they can only do it on Schmitt Bender scopes which run about 2 grand and if you ever change your load or grain of bullet your dots are worthless. There are some scopes out there that come with lines or dots on them from the factory, but these are all for arbitrary distances that you have to shoot to find out what line is for what distance. This usually ends up with a line for like 267 yards and the next line is 380 yards, etc which can lead to some unwanted math in the field. In my opinion, turrets are the way to go. You create a sheet off of a ballistics program, match up the yardage from your cheat sheet to the minutes of angle on your turret, dial it in, hold dead on and squeeze. For spot and stalk applications, it’s awesome. Leupold will also take your particular ballistics and create a custom turret for your exact load that actually has the yardages etched into it for about 80 bucks. ZERO guessing. This is what I did and I really like it. Best thing is the turrets work for any power your scope is on as they are a minute of angle correction, so if it’s too dark to shoot at 14 power I can go all the way to 4.5 power and be right on. And if I ever change my load I can get a new custom turret for that new load for around 80 bucks. I hope I somehow help in all that rambling. I’m not sure if it’s ok to post that guy’s info on this thread as it might be seen as advertising so I’ll send it to you in a PM, along with how much I dropped on my rifle. Good luck on your purchase. Kevin

Looks good dude. Love that left beam

Matt, alot of good information here. And Coues7 brings up a good point about practicing at long ranges too. Especially with field conditions (off a bipod instead of a bench, uphill/downhill, doping the wind, etc) Besides, it's just fun when you can do what you want with a bullet at long ranges like that. I will get you the information for that guy in Sierra Vista tomorrow, i don't have it with me at the house. I've seen a couple 300 RUM's he has done that look great and shoot even better. He can do pretty much whatever you want. I'll give you some more info on my gun as well.

Matt, I built a longrange gun last year because of a buck i missed a chance at because he was 600 yards out. After a ton of research i went with a 300 RUM from Christensen Arms. It's awesome but a little pricey. And their prices have gone up since i bought mine. IMO you can get a custom job at about half the cost that will shoot just as good, but won't be as light. I put a Leupold VXL 4.5-14x56mm scope on it with turrets and really like it. I can shoot out to 1000 yards very effectively. Some people like a higher power scope, but i like having the 4.5 low end for close shots or if i jump something, and haven't found the 14 power to be a problem for long shots at all. The 6-20 power would be a great choice as well. For real long range stuff i think the 270 is a little small, even for Coues, after about 550 yards or so. If you want i could send you a name of a guy in Sierra Vista that does AWESOME customs that are reasonably priced and drive tacks. Kevin

Nice work Clint I took the new Foxpro out this weekend and got skunked I had to go to an area i knew nothing about as a buddy decided he wanted to tag along, but didn't have much time. But the desert around Vegas sucks anyways. You guys around Phoenix don't know how good you have it. (I lived there for 13 years.) Anybody knows any good spots close to Vegas they don't mind sharing, help me out. (insert pathetic pouty-faced smiley here)

Negative. Public land. Of this I am positive

I'm with you dude, 100% My cousin died from a 4 wheeler accident - no helmet. He was 26 years old and married for 3 weeks. Loads of people i know have been hurt. Some pretty serious.

I'd like to, that would be a blast. I'm having a hard enough time finding time to go up here though

Awesome Doug - as usual.

That's a dandy. Congrats and welcome to the site.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, massy.