Budget rifle builds

I’ve got a lithgow la102 .308 but had a little bit of a hardtime with it a few weekends ago out of my own stupidity and pretty much messed up the bolt so i’ll be keeping that .308 as a beater i reckon, it’s a little worse than i thought when i posted this probably not in a condition i’d be comfortable selling it to someone unless i got a new bolt

7mm stuff is something i know next to nothing about, so will have to research some velocities, i know someone on here will tell me to stick with .308 when he replies haha

Wouldn’t it be easier to just up grade to a more expensive rifle? Less hassle. Also unless u reload your basically wasting your time and money.
You don’t reload, or do you?

Well i can’t really afford a nice like $4000 rifle, but have seen a few build good solid accurate rifles off howa and rem actions just for example with nice barrels and i do reload just not fullly on my own gear yet i’ve got bits of peices for various cals but that will change with this rifle as i’ll be collecting data on it

Got no idea what the dimensions of the 102 are… I’m guessing pretty tight to a short action length so that’s a bit limiting if you want something with more punch. Maybe it’s worth emailing my smith to see if he thinks it’s possible to rebarrel and ream the boltface to a short magnum…

I’d also be more inclined to find s cheap 2nd hand Howa action than a Rem…

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Cleavers have good priced rifles as well as barreled actions, like this one in 300wm…

There are also a lot of accessories available for the Howa.

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m.usedguns.com.au/Product_Desc.aspx?Pid=140305

m.usedguns.com.au/Product_Desc.aspx?Pid=140298

Will be interested to follow this. Seems to me just from what I’ve heard the savings are minimal when building your own. And no warranty. But know very little about it.

There are some very nice rifles out there for about 2k.

There’s no way i could have sold my Howa 223 and bought a left hand 223 and a heavy barrel 7-08 that both reliably shoot well under 0.5MOA for $1600. I guess you have to then take into account the $500 i spent on the Howa to begin with, so both rifles cost me a total of $2100.

As for rifle warrantee… most of us void the warrantee pretty quickly, especially is we re-load. Firearm warrantees have so many caveats that they are almost pointless unless there is obvious manufacturing issues.

I think you could look at it like rebuilding a car, sometimes it is just easier/cheaper to go and buy a new one but the satisfaction of knowing that you built it is priceless.

Depending on how customised you want to go I think for $2k or there abouts you could build a decent rifle. $500 for action and barrel and $800 for a basic chassis leaves you $700 for some finer work like bedding the action and maybe some trigger work. This will give you an accurate rifle but far from competition winning.

Another other option is full custom where you sell a kidney or two to help pay for it.

What he actually wants is a magnum calibre in heavy tactical metal chassis. :stuck_out_tongue:

OK. So can be a cheaper option than buying new. Fair enough.

Hey mate, what’s the intended purpose?

The intended use is a turn key rifle for shots out to 1km my particular short barreled 308 really starts to fall away at about 700m, i reckon the 300 win mag will require less vertical dialing in the scope

The recoil will spoil any gain in technique that you master though. The 300 win mag in a 24 inch does the same sort of speeds I can push with the 30 inch 308.

I dont think there is anything you could do tho that lithgow that could not be fixed with a new bolt and perhaps bolt stop.

I have done the fully built custom thing and also the use a Remingtom 700 action which was sent to a gunsmith to be trued and he said I had a good one and not much tinkering could achieve anything better that could be seen on paper. After it had the custom barrel on it, I had already done a custom trigger. The bolt of course could / should still be probably drilled and filled for a better bolt hole and so the firing pin is fully supported.

I was going to say I saved about $1000 on the re using of an action but I paid $1200 + a trigger for that action so it cost me more the the fully custom rifle.

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Why a new bolt and bolt stop out of curiosity? I didn’t knkw your .308 was a 30" thats a game changer, my 22" 308 really suffers i feel at distance anyway, i’ve got a few thoughts at the moment but first up i think is a new optic, thinking about a tract toric at the moment

Iv got two 308 the one you shot the other week is a 28 inch that is my crossover just have to be Arnold if you want to walk any real distance or climb a hill. The other true custom is a 30 inch about 50fps between them shooting same ammo.

Not sure of your budget for an optic but I reckon a second hand NF 8-32 BR for about $1000 is were the value buy is. Having bought an Athalon and a Bushnell nothing wrong with the Bushnell a great scope but at $1500 for a new one 6-25 Ellite tactical with G2 so you get a good reticle and target turrets IMHO the second had one is better value.

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Haha wasn’t sure if you read that or not, i’m probably being precious but its fair scratched, all i’d need is a body but not sure of the fitting that would be required for that, stupid cheek rest was in the way off removing the bolt.

I’ve had a squizz at whats around 2nd hand NF at the moment, i didn’t see a whole lot, but also only looked on a few sites

https://m.usedguns.com.au/Product_Desc.aspx?Pid=141032

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Geeez that is tempting… i dunno about 300 RUM though :grimacing: