STOMP442

I was never a fan of the powder throwers too. I used the spoon that came with the die until I saved enough coin for the RCBS Charge Master. Now I will never go back to anything but the charge master, it makes things much easier and saves a lot of time. They are a pretty penny but worth every cent especially when you do as much reloading as I do.

Nope did it all on my lathe out back. It was given to me by a good friend of mine who i used to work with. Its an old Atlas 12 that need a few parts and some tlc but gets the job done.

I recently did a conversion myself and went from .308 to .260 Remington. I purchased a Shilen 28" #5 8 twist blank from midway for $175 and did the threading and chambering myself. 26" finished length and shoots like a dream. Here is a group I shot after the last time I cleaned it.

you can build a really nice Savage rifle for right around $700 or buy the long range hunter close to that as well. I personally like the custom route because I then get a match grade barrel and a nicer stock for the same money. Savage actions now days can be found for around $260-$350 depending on if you buy used or new. A quality match grade barrel can be purchased from a number of sources from $240-$350 depending on wat you want and a nice boyds stock can be had for $100. Even if you went with the highest costs you're only looking at $800 for a pretty nice setup. That's pretty cheap for a custom rig and can get cheaper if you look hard enough for a used action and parts. The one thing I recommend if going this route is decide on caliber and contour of the barrel. If you are wanting a standard sporter weight barrel or a magnum contour you will more than likely need to custom order it and its a minimum 3-4 month wait from most manufacturers and that could possibly impact your hunt this year. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Really!? It really doesn't take that kind of money to be successful and repeatable to 1000 yards. First and foremost important thing is practice. Spend the time behind the gun and get to know it and how it shoots under different conditions and you are more than half way there. Second a nice scope is a must im not talking $1500-$2500 optics I'm talking $700 Leupold will be more than enough to be repeatable and reliable. 3rd forget about factory ammo. To be successful in long range shooting and hunting you need the best and most consistent you can be and factory ammo does not provide that in most cases. Find a friend or someone to help you reload and develop a load for your rifle. As far as factory rifles go Savages are very hard to beat for out of the box accuracy and can be upgraded and customized on the cheap and easy. As far as factory calibers are concerned a nice .270 or 7mm mag should do the trick.

What's ur load on the 260ai or what's speeds u getting if u don't mind me asking. My current setup is a Savage action with 26" Mcgowan Varmint barrel 8 twist that is pushing 140 Berger VLDs at 2940 fps with 42.0gr of H4350. I have built a few of these over the years for others and they all run somewhere between 2920-2960fps using 42-44gr of H4350. For comparison sake my 6.5-284 was also a 26" criterion barrel and my best accuracy load was 48.0gr of H4831 and a 140 Amax at 2840fps. My next best load at the high end was with 56gr of Retumbo at 2960 fps with a Berger VLD. I stuck with the low node load and shot that rifle for years and had well over 1000 rounds down the pipe and still holding 1/2" groups at 200 yards before I sold the barrel.

Nice goat. Those kind of numbers is why I got out of the 6.5-284 business. To achieve those numbers in the 6.5-284 you need ~57gr or so of Retumbo or H1000.

Seems like I read somewhere that they lost their government contracts, perhaps that has a lot to do with going under.

Lance you made a good choice on the 6.5SLR. The 6.5-284 is a great cartridge but probably one of my least favorites in 6.5, not because there is anything wrong with it but because I have found there are others out there that can do the same thing without using as much powder. I used to have a 6.5-284 and I thought it was great until I built my first .260 Ackley. Coach welcome to the 6.5 club. You have witnessed the pleasure first hand of shooting one and soon you will begin to wonder why you ever shot anything else.

Some pretty bad business management to run a company in the dirt in todays gun buying climate.

Large magnum calibers use long heavy bullets, its just part of the game. If you want to seat the bullets at the lands you will need to forget about ever fitting a magazine and if you want to use the rifle as a repeater you need to forget about touching the lands. Develop your load to fit what ever style of shooting you want to do. Chances are you will be able to find a load at mag length no problem but you will sacrifice a little bit of powder capacity and velocity to do it. But when you are shooting a 300 grain bullet nothing you hit with it will ever know that it was loaded 100fps shy of what the cartridge is fully capable of.

Beautiful Buck Scotty!

Says right on the home page "Nikon No Fault repair/replacement policy for binoculars, rifle scopes & field scopes.

Nikon would have replaced it too. http://www.nikonsportoptics.com/en/index.page

Pretty much it. I would recommend getting all the nessisary tools like the action wrench and barrel vise. It will save you a lot of work in the long run and they really arent that exspensive. Be warned though once you do one you will do them all the time.

The federal premium stuff with the 165gr Sierra Game king is where I would start.

As soon as I get this scope mounted I am shooting 5 dif loads ALL with 165 grn accu-bonds. You will get 10 dif answers to that question like I did. Some say heavier bullet but I shot heavier and want to try something a little faster that will still kill at long range. Good luck Bob. Faster is rarely better especially at long range. The heavier bullet will actually retain velocity better than the lighter one due to a higher BC and more than likely be faster beyond 600 yards or so. A heavy for caliber bullet will always maximize the potential of the caliber by providing more energy, and less wind drift. That means 185-210gr bullets in the .300 as Lance suggested. Fast and flat used to be what worked best because laser rangefinders were not readily available to everyone and being able to hold fur out to 400 yards or so was a big deal. Now days 400 yards is not even considered long range at all and 600-700 yards is the norm where wind conditions become much more important than a flat trajectory.

I will break an arm or a leg before I let a rifle hit the ground. Your body will heal, rifles and scopes do not.

54.0gr of H4350 and a 130gr bullet has worked in every 270 I have ever tried it in.

Half inch groups should be plenty to be competitive with at 500 yards or even more. Barrel heat may be more of an issue than anything else if long strings of fire are being shot. Here is some quick numbers using standard condistions and a 200 yard zero. .22-250 with 53gr Vmax with a BC of .290 at 3700fps 500 yard drop = 31" 500 yard drift in 10mph wind = 25" .243 WSSM with 95gr Berger with a BC of .486 at 3200fps 500 yard drop = 33.23" 500 yard drift in 10mph wind = 16.16" Thats almost 9 inches difference in wind drift. Both calibers are more than capable but the .243 allows for a better buffer and possible higher score if miss judging the wind.

Sam's rifle is a 12 twist and they shoot great at 3000ft elevation when pushed at 3440fps. That being said what kind of accuracy and bullet are you shooting in the 243wssm? I would work on tuning a good load with a 95-105gr berger depending on what twist you have. Heavier bullets and higher BC with the 243 will provide better wind drift numbers and hopefully less misses at longer range. The 53gr vmax is a great bullet but it will be pushed in the wind.I started my nephew with the 53s as they shot really well too but we moved to the 69gr sierras and scores improved greatly and again even more so with the new tipped match kings. Since you can't shoot the 69gr class bullets I really think the 243wssm offers the best performance.

Savage is known for out of the box accuracy and the axis is no exception. Trigger can be easily fixed with just a couple clips of the spring and bring the pull weight down to 3lbs or less or an aftermarket rifle basix trigger can be had for less than $100. Calibers can be easily changed as well in the future if you so choose and be done yourself without the wait and cost of a smith.

Oops double tap.

Every rifle is different so what yours likes may be totally different than someone else's. I would not shoot less than 180s out of it as you have a magnum might as well get all you can out of it. 210-230 berger is what I would use.

Spend the extra $100 bucks and get a Leupold VX3. Much better scope for the money and you wont have to send it off to get fixed. The first thing you hear every Vortex owner say is "they have an awesome warranty". The reason they say this is because they have used it. Vortex scopes are nothing more than over priced boat anchors as far as I am concerned. Not good for much else. This scene from Tommy Boy pretty well sums up Vortex Optics and their Warranty. https://youtu.be/mEB7WbTTlu4 Not sure how to post you tube links, hope this works.