Anyone familiar with this website?
They are legit. Viking armament does their barreled actions. Viking armament make some great guns one of my buddies has a couple and they shoot great
2 Likes
Thanks man! Looking at a solus action with a proof barrel from them
What caliber you thinking of doing?
Right now 6.5prc. My thought is I can do a barrel swap to 300wsm or 7saum if I don’t like it
It would interesting to see if you do order the Solas action/proof barrel if you get it quicker then me. As I ordered the Solas/Proof directly from Aero Precision back in November and they have no idea when it might ship….
It’s showing as back ordered right now but it is still allowing me to place the order. If I place the order I’ll let you know and we can track it.
you might want to call Red Hawk or email them asking if this is a back order through Aero Precision? As if it is you can read some of the frustrations we are having with them.
I’d consider an xm or long action for both the 300 wsm and 7 SAUM. Not sure about the 6.5 prc.
Would you mind elaborating a little more?
Building the short action magnums like 7 SAUM or 300 wsm on a medium or long action allows you to play with the seating depth and not be limited by the length of a short action magazine. To take full advantage of this you’d likely need a custom throat job so you can seat those long for caliber projectiles out further. Some barrel makers offer these as prefits, otherwise you’d have to have your gunsmith do it or you can do it yourself too with the right tool.
This kinda conveys what I mean. The Sammi length for 7 SAUM is 2.825” as seen on the right. Notice how far the projectile sticks into the case. On the left is the same cartridge, but the OAL is 3.150”. Both projectiles are 175 eld-x.
Here’s a comparison of a longer OAL 300 wsm hand load vs a factory offering…
short action magazines are going to allow for a coal of maybe 2.8-2.96ish.
so the benefits of going with a medium/large action are magazines that allow for longer OALs which allow you take advantage of the full potential of short action magnums. 6.8 western does essentially all of this but from the factory. 7 SAUM has more versatile projectile offerings though given its .284 instead of .277 so I thinks it’s more of a favorite for the hand loader.
300 wsm is a very powerful cartridge. It just kicks like a donkey. Some ppl are into that though, lol
Thanks for the info. Really gives me a lot to think about. Any medium action recommendations?
1 Like
Very good description.
I still don’t understand medium however. When would you choose it over long? What are its specific dimensions, if any?
I’ve got a 300 super WSM, and it’s in a standard long action. That really kick that bad when you put a suppressor with a brake combo on the end and have a good recoil pad. I also don’t push it that hard
1 Like
I don’t know why talking about this stuff really gets me going, but I guess how a young liberal college girl feels about protecting Somali fraudsters in Minneapolis is how I feel about how underrated the short action magnums are. They really are ballistic perfection and if you look at the long/heavy/high bc for cartridge projectiles they really deserve an action longer than a short action which can be achieved in a long action but if you didn’t want the extra weight of a long action, tikka actions are considered a medium action and some rem700 clones specifically make medium actions (aka xm actions). Not sure how accurate the numbers are bc I used AI so take the numbers with a grain of salt…
A tikka action whether long or short cartridge will always be the same dimensions. The only differences are *bolt face, bolt catch, and factory magazine.
*bolt face doesn’t matter in terms of cartridge length but will be different depending on cartridge diameter. Tikka has 3, small caliber (223, 300 blk, etc), regular caliber (308, 6.5 creedMoor, 30-06, 7 backcountry, etc) and magnum (prc, wsm, SAUM, 7/300 rem mag, etc)
some coals on tikka vs rem700 long vs rem700 clone medium actions…
Max coal
Rem700 LA: 3.62”-3.68”, 3.8” with mods
Tikka: 3.34”
Defiance: 3.2”
BAT: 3.4”
Zermatt: 3.255”
Lone peak: 3.255”
Stiller: 3.255”
I’m not sure what the numbers look like for the max coal to which you could push the 300 wsm, but 3.25” or 3.3” should be plenty. You don’t necessarily need to do this any more with the 300 wsm bc of Barnes super wsm bore rider which is 212gr. But running a 220 eld-x out of a 300 wsm getting near 300 win mag/prc velocities seems incredibly fun.
An action that accommodates a max coal of 3.25” would be perfect for a 7 SAUM. I load 175 eldxs and 180 eldms and 195 bergers. You can approach 7 prc and 7 rem Mag velocities with the same projectile but with 8 less grains of powder. It’s impressive
as an example this is chrono data for 195 elite hunters out of a 30” 7 SAUM barrel on a tikka action with 60-61 grains of n560 powder and a coal of about 3.14” (I’m at work and don’t have the exact load data on hand).
I wish rifle manufacturers would update Saami specs to make the wsm and SAUM with longer coals and that ammo manufacturers would produce such ammo but I don’t think that will ever happen. If you consider the ideal cartridge geometry, I think of the 6.5 creedMoor which came out in 2007 (or the 6.5 x 47 lapua which came out in 2005). The 300 wsm came out in 2001 and the 7 SAUM in 2002. It’s like the short action magnums were the evolutionary missing link of ballistic progression to get us where we are today with cartridges like 6.5 creedMoor, 6.8 western, the prcs, arcs, etc.
Short, fat, steep shoulder angle cartridges with shallow seating depth seems to be the most efficient cartridge design at least for the ballistics relevant to the civilian hunter/shooter.
Makes it a bit surprising when they come out with the 7 backcountry with more traditional geometry but that may have something to do with the new materials of the “brass” that is the limiting factor. I’m not sure.
2 Likes
Someone On a podcast last year said that they chose The Longer 280 style Case design for the 7back country Because of bolt thrust. Bolt thrust increases significantly with Diameter of the cartridge, And decreases with the length. So short and fat leads to significantly increased thrust where as long and skinny does not
1 Like
That makes sense. Would need reinforced, heavier bolts to handle the increased force. There might be a point of diminishing returns if you’re trying to build light weight hunting rifles. And maybe all of this is moot because the 7 BC is a better cartridge than the PRCs, saums, wsms, creedmoors, etc and these new alloys are the way of the future.
I was looking it up and the basic formula for bolt thrust is fairly straightforward:
F = area of cartridge base x chamber pressure
7 BC ~13,840 lbf
7 SAUM: ~15,470 lbf
7 SAUM with peak case alloy: ~19,000 lbf 
375 cheytac is 20340 lbf
pretty impressive cartridge design with the 7 BC. Maybe it is the real deal?
1 Like
Personally, I think the overall idea of the backcountry is great. The only issue is, did they screw up the execution by getting it out before they had all the bugs worked out, as well as the whole issue with how things are marketed these days.
1 Like
Yeah it’s interesting. I think a lot depends on if anything better comes out. Like the strength of steel but the malleability of brass? Probably not but you never know. Also, if the military is committed to peak alloy and uses it for the next 80 years then I think there’s a real trickle down effect to the civilian world as seen with 30-06, 5.56, 308, etc.