I want to start! Help

[208muley]

First let me say, I have been a bow hunter, except one strip deer hunt and I borrowed a gun, for the past 20 years or so. But with my family hunting now I have decided to get back into rifle hunting Coues deer again. So where do I start? I want to be able to kill at the 500-600 yd range and have fun practicing at much further range! I used to practice at 100-120 yards with a bow to make 50-60 yds feel like a chip shot.

 

So I have a ruger m77 7mm mag bone stock. I know the caliber is way good but is this rifle good enough? Do I keep the action and build around it including change out the barrel? I am also going to hand load, don't know a dang thing about that either, but that is another topic. Or do I just get a whole new set up. I am not lucky enough to work with unlimited funds so I would like to keep it under 4k for gun and scope if I can. So what say you guys. Can you help a brother out!? Thanks, Eric

[308Nut]

Remington or savage are great choices for LR platforms. Ruger scope mounting leaves a lot to be desired. Good solid mounting is a must for consistency. You will need as much consistency as possible for the ranges you want to get into.

 

As far as calibers and cartridges, if you draw the line at 500-600 yards, you have a lot more options. 260, 708, 308, 6.5-284, 284 are all great choices. Even if 800-1000 yard coues were on the menu, they are all capable with the right bullets. All are easy to load for and find good loads for. All have tolerable recoil. Sure you can go 7mag or 300 mag but a coues will fold at 600 just as easy with the smaller cartridges. Why beat yourself up and waste all that powder? Now if you're looking for 1K elk, that's another story.

 

If you're new to this, you will be firing a lot of rounds. Barrel life may be a consideration. The 708, 308 will lead the way for the best longevity. Though the 260 rem and 284 aren't horrible either.

 

Choosing high BC offerings for a given caliber helps a lot. The less wind drift, the easier it is to make good hits. 140s for the 6.5s, 162-180 for the 7mms and 190-215 for the 30 cals are examples of weights that typically have better BCs so long as they're the right type. A 140 6.5 amax or vld will blow the doors off the 140 accubond for example.

 

For coues, softer more frangible bullets work well. Amax, ABLR and VLD work well on lighter game. Again for elk, that's another story.

[azslim]

your 7mag will work fine, just need to work up a good load and spend trigger time, and maybe an optics upgrade to a scope with turrets set for your load/vel/bc

 

but then again this is an excellent opportunity to put a new gun in the safe, there is no such thing as too many guns

[sjvcon]

Coues are small ... 308Nut has some very sound advice. There are plenty of non-magnum calibers that you can reach out and touch with. And if you will double it for Mulies, you can add a bunch more to the list ... the '06 family and all it's Ackley derivatives for example.

 

Remy's and Savages are probably the actions with the most aftermarket support if you decide to build. I am a Winchester guy myself, but I acknowledge that the support market is slimmer with the Flat Bottom Mauser Extraction actions.

[208muley]

Thanks for the replies guys. So, because I see a lot of talk about the Remy 6.5, let's say I get one. Now do I leave it as is, keep or buy only the action and re-barrel it? If that's even possible. What about new trigger,stock, brake and anything else that you can think of? Again, I am super green, so if I am thinking way ahead of myself let me know. I want to learn the correct way to do this and do it right.

[208muley]

Oh and this gun will be for Coues deer mostly, maybe a Muley. Everything else including mule deer I like to chase with a bow.

[firstcoueswas80]

You can get a whole lot of rifle/scope for $4,000. Have fun with it go buy something you want. I'd suggest 6.5 or 7mm calibers because of the available high bc bullets.

[cbryant11]

If i had 4000 to spend on a rifle i would buy a remington action, mcmillan stock a krieger barrel and some badger ordinance bottom metal a timney trigger , then pay a gun smith to put it together buy a really nice scope an still have 500 in my pocket and i would do a 280 ackley with a break, you can never have too much gun

[Coach]

This is a great topic, and lots of really knowledgeable folks here. I certainly don't want to take this in a different direction from the original poster, but I've got a Savage American Classic in .300 WSM, and this gun is an absolute shooter. First off, I love the accu-trigger. It's not quite as crisp as the one on my 25-06 Savage - but really nice.

 

I'm a big fan of the "milder" magnums - anything .WSM vs. the Ultra Mags. Honestly, after years of reloading and experimenting with .300 Wby, .270 STW, my 2 favorite are .300 WSM, and .270 WSM, and given the mild recoil and inherent stability of the .308 round, it's hard even to make a case for the .270 WSM, aside from it just being so fun to shoot. I've never owned a 7mm, but it's reputation is well earned.

 

My .300 wsm savage is by far the best gun I've shot, and it currently has a pretty cheap (Cabela's Alaskan Guide 6-24 x 50mm) scope. It's actually a really nice, clear scope and I can shoot this setup with hand loads at 500 yards with confidence. For a $450 gun and $300 scope, it will definitely outshoot me. I've got some 4-6" groups at 500 yards out of it but I've also got some that wouldn't fit in a basketball - long range shooting takes a lot more than the right gear. There's a lot of practice and technique to make any setup shoot to its full potential. I know this gun and my handloads have the potential to shoot out to 7 - 800 yards.

 

I'm wanting to invest a little more into a really good turret scope, maybe switch over to some bergers and see if I can build a long range platform out of this rifle. I'd love to be able to dial in and hit a balloon at 8 or 9 hundred yards. I know the gun is capable of it, but the skill required will take some time and a lot of practice.

 

With a $4k budget, I'd say it shouldn't be hard at all to achieve what you are looking for. In fact, I think you can get a really accurate setup of under half of that. But I would suggest investing in some reloading equipment so you can get the most out of your rifle. IMO, the rifle is only half of the equation - the loads are the other half, and having full control of the brass, powder, primer, bullet and marrying the right load to a rifle is the only way to get consistent long range performance.

[roninflag]

a remington with a krieger barrel is an excellent choice. do you reload?? that affects what cartridge to choose

[roninflag]

i have shot my remington/kriegers against factory rifles. some that do well are the savage f-class, savage lrp, some sakos like the trg and 85 heavy barrel.

[208muley]

This has been exactly the kind of convo I was hoping to have, thx guys! So now I am leaning toward a new custom build. With what I have been reading and hearing the 6.5/284 seems to be a solid caliber. For what I'm wanting to do is this a wise choice? Or stay with a 7 mag? I keep hearing the Rem 700 action is the one to use? Is there better? If so how much better? Sounds like a hs precision or a McMillan stock but which one? Triggers Jewell or timney? Barrels?? I'm totally in the dark on this one.

 

If you guys don't mind I would like to get some education on a few things. What is blue printing, trueing, floating, bedding ? Is this all thing that a smith will do as part of a build? How important are these things?

 

For glass I will probably go vortex as I know a dealer and can get it at a pretty good cost. But what about rings and other stuff?

 

Thanks ahead of time for taking the time to help a greenhorn get a little smarter and hopefully build a quality gun the first time around. Eric

[208muley]

And I will be reloading. Don't know how but I will start another thread about that as I want to keep this one on track.

[firstcoueswas80]

Remington is good.

 

Mcmillian

 

I like timney

 

Kreiger, brux, lilja.

[308Nut]

Truing is squaring up the bolt face, receiver face, bolt lugs, receiver lugs etc...IMHO, unless something is clearly wrong, truing a 700 is not necessary. They're pretty straight and square from the factory. Can't vouch for the savage.

 

Floating is keeping a gap between the barrel and stock. This allows the barrel to vibrate the way it needs to without outside influence. You'll hear the term 'barrel harmonics'. Free floating allows uninterrupted harmonics.

 

Bedding is mating the action to the stock with some type of compound such as epoxy. This helps keep the action stress free. Stress in the action hurts your accuracy potential be it from improper bedding or improper scope mounting. By mating I don't mean permanently gluing them together. A releasing compound is used so they can still be separated but it allows the stock to be molded to the action for a perfect fit. It also ensures that when things get put back together that it all goes back exactly the same. Pillars are commonly used between the bottom metal and action at the action screw locations to prevent the stock from crushing when the screws are torqued. Proper and even torque is needed.

 

As far as barrels, Krieger, Brux and Bartlein lead the way in the match world. Others are excellent as well. Lilja, Hart, Schneider, Rock Creek are all great barrels.

 

Triggers: I like jewel but I also prefer trigger pulls in the ounces. If you want pounds, a cheaper make can suffice. My cousin uses a shilen and likes it. Timney are popular as well.

 

As far as the 6.5-284, it is a solid round. I'd try and steer a noobee towards something that has a bit more longevity such as the 284 win. Same case, bigger bore. Barrels hold up a lot more on the 284. I'm shooting with guys at matches using the 284s and they're in the thousands on round count and still pounding the x ring. 6.5-284s will get you about 1000 if you're lucky and 1200 if you're super lucky. For a noobee, you'll need trigger time. No point in getting 1/2 way through your learning curve and have to wait on another barrel and wait on a smith to cut it. Besides, whatever the 6.5 version can do, the 284 does it better in every category except recoil.