Good evening everyone. Jim, I recently asked about making a 1/2 moa .308 rifle in your new chassis and which barreled action you would recommend. After listening to your accuracy podcast. My thought process has changed. Or perhaps my realization that I dont need a “do it all” gun. I have a good hunting rifle. What i want is a target rifle in .308 (becuase id like to keep my components as simple as possible and im already tooled/stocked for that caliber). That will shoot tiny groups at 100 and that I just have fun and get trigger time at the range with. Is a begara HMR my best option to start with? Thats the first “quality” gun I can think of off the top of my head with a really heavy profile barrel, and stiff beefy stock. I would again still like to use AICS mags. Budget minus optics around 1500?
The Bergara HMR is a good rifle and should be accurate, but I don’t know that I’d have the confidence that it could reach the level of accuracy you’re talking about. It’s the same barreled action as all the other Bergaras with just a little thicker barrel contour and a heavy stock. I’m not sure if that will be enough.
Another option would be the Tikka Ace Game or even better the Tikka Ace Target. I only reviewed it in 6.5 Creedmoor, but it was fantastically accurate. That’d be a good choice.
Another good option could be the Aero Solus. The ones I’ve seen have shot quite well.
I’ve also always been interested in doing a custom build. But I dont think 1500 is quite enough to do that without a donor action?
Yeah, I was wondering if there are any truly off-the-shelf options that would give you that level of accuracy, even at any price point.
But this also begs the question; what exactly are we defining as accuracy here? We’re talking about 0.5 MOA groups. Is that three shot, five shot 20 shot? Is that a 0.5 average, which means statistically speaking several groups will be closer to 1.0? Or, are we looking for something where 0.5 is the largest group, which means the average needs to be something closer to 0.25?
Ideally id like it to never shoot over .75” groups at 100. “if im doing my part”. And 5 or 10 round groups. I want it to be a target/range gun. So id prefer to not be waiting for it to cool after every 3 rounds. Or even after 1 string of 5. I dont plan to shoot it quickly. But a reasonable rate of fire maybe a shot every 30 seconds. A “truck axle” barrel would be fine in my eyes for this application… but the only ones im aware of under $700 is outlier and I know Jim isn’t a fan. And I can see why after seeing the borescope video…. It is hard to argue the results I see on commietube if they are being as forthcoming as Jim is.
You can get. McGowan heavy Palma for around $500. My McGowen 30-06 is savage spotter and is .75 MOA.
It’d be tough to do a complete build for $1500 unless you maybe have a different rifle that could be a donor action?
You could get a $400 barreled action and then put on a Criterion barrel. https://criterionbarrels.com/products/precision-bolt-action/prefits/howa-pre-fit-barrel/?v=0b3b97fa6688
The only rifle I have currently thst could be a donor is remington 783. Amd although it’s okay. Im not a big fan of the bolt knob.. and id worry that that cheap of an action would be a weak point in the system? Not it is in a decent chassis. Mdt oryx. But thats becuase i could not stand the plastic stock it came with..
I will look into that seems like the last time I priced a mcgowen it was around 800 or so with pre fitting, chambering and muzzle threads.
My .308 is and AR10 and it is a 1 MOA or better, but it was $2800 for the rifle.