by MysticPrecision | Nov 5, 2013 | Gallery, Rifle, Tech
I’ve been fascinated by long range hunting from the onset of my hunting career, thanks to the writings of yourself, Ian McMurchy, and others- both on paper and online. I decided that if I wanted to start shooting and hunting at long distances, I’d need a purpose-built long range gun; and with my love of guns and gunsmithing, I decided to try building it myself. I spent many hours gathering info online on all aspects of my project, from actions and chamberings to twist rates and headspacing, finally settling on the inexpensive and ubiquitous Remington 700 action with a heavy, 1-10″ twist McGowen barrel chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum. Because of its high ballistic coefficient and terminal performance, the bullet of choice would be the 210 grain Berger VLD Hunting. Choosing the stock would prove to be a much more difficult task, with the huge number of options available, but after much deliberation, I settled on an XLR Industries Evolution chassis for the excellent features, adjustability, and reasonable pricetag. While waiting for my chassis and barrel to arrive, I set out on building my own barrel vise. Thanks to my father being a mechanic I had access to all the tools and metal I needed, and the barrel vise was done in no time. The barrel from Mystic Precision, and chassis from XLR arrived right on schedule. I stripped the old barrel (with no small amount of cussing) from the used M700 I purchased, and installed and headspaced my beautiful, new McGowen stainless short-chambered #8 contour barrel in short order. Then, I hand-lapped the action,...
