Custom rifle help

[Mr. Patis]

So my wife bought me a defiance short action...i have no experience with precision shooting and this will be my first. I don't know where to begin in building this rifle or where to send it.

I need help in choosing a good barrel and contour. Do I just send my action to a shop and have them build it or do I get the barrel myself? Again I don't know what I'm doing and hoping someone can guide me to the right direction or what you would do.

[NorCalFocus]

I'm sure Randal will be along shortly to give you all the details but here's the short of it.

You'll want to get a barrel blank, trigger, bolt, and stock and take it all to your smith to have him assemble and chamber your gun.

When building a custom rifle, you first pick your round, then the bullet you want to run, and build the gun around that. So do you have a caliber and bullet picked out? If not what do you hope to do with this rifle?

[Mr. Patis]

I'm thinking 6.5 cm or 308...it's gonna be use mostly just range on a bench and occasional blm

[Mr. Patis]

Also the action came with the bolt

[NorCalFocus]

6.5CM hands down. There is no reason to use.308 over it when your building your gun.

What kind of stock do you want?

[Mr. Patis]

I'm thinking of mcmillan a5....my reasoning for wanting a .308 is barrel life. From what ive read the 6.5cm barrel life is only about 2k

[NorCalFocus]

Read this thread. Only days old on the same topic.

Remington 700: What to Upgrade During a Rebarrel?

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=1154786

[bsumoba]

I'll make it easy on you, but expect to pay a little bit of money...

So it will be a bench gun and occasional BLM, so I would recommend a slightly heavier setup

Defiance Action SA (you already have this)
Bartlein/Brux/Hawk Hill Heavy Palma Contour, 26-28" barrel with an APA Little B* muzzle brake
Jewell Trigger with top right safety
Stock: You choose
Scope: Don't go custom and put a mediocre scope on it. At minimum, a Bushnell HDMR 3.5x21x scope.

6.5 creedmoor, 6.5x47 Lapua chamberings. Don't worry about barrel life. most people IMO get overlyconcerned about how many rounds they will shoot in their gun and most will never get even close to 2K out of their gun yet alone 1K. By then, 2-4 years will have gone by and I think you can afford to save a little each month to replace the barrel then.

140gr bullets or 123-130gr for the 6.5x47 to really maximize the cartridge and because you will get the bolt action bug and want to shoot it out to distance.

H4350 powder for the 140s, Varget for the 120-123gr class bullets

Hornady brass for 6.5 creedmoor and Lapua for 6.5x47

large rifle primers for the 6.5 creedmoor, Small rifle primers for the 6.5x47

[ar15barrels]

So my wife bought me a defiance short action...i have no experience with precision shooting and this will be my first. I don't know where to begin in building this rifle or where to send it.

I need help in choosing a good barrel and contour. Do I just send my action to a shop and have them build it or do I get the barrel myself? Again I don't know what I'm doing and hoping someone can guide me to the right direction or what you would do.

If you want me to build it, you chase down all the parts, then schedule a day to come over for the build.
You take home the assembled rifle at the end of the day.
Most other shops, you mail or drop off the parts and then wait weeks/months for it to be done.

Do you reload or shoot only factory ammo?

[Mr. Patis]

If you want me to build it, you chase down all the parts, then schedule a day to come over for the build.
You take home the assembled rifle at the end of the day.
Most other shops, you mail or drop off the parts and then wait weeks/months for it to be done.

Do you reload or shoot only factory ammo?

I don't reload...but depending on how this all go i might start

[Mr. Patis]

If you want me to build it, you chase down all the parts, then schedule a day to come over for the build.
You take home the assembled rifle at the end of the day.
Most other shops, you mail or drop off the parts and then wait weeks/months for it to be done.

Do you reload or shoot only factory ammo?

Yes..i will get all the parts I need and take make the trip up..thanks

[ar15barrels]

I don't reload...but depending on how this all go i might start

Shooting factory ammo makes it an easy decision: 6.5 Creedmoor.
If you reload, that opens you up to other cartridges based on your preference of brass.
Since you don't reload, we won't complicate matters with those extra options.
Those options will always be available at each rebarrel.