New birthday rifle

timc

I put together a new rifle for my birthday last month. I started with a Remington SPS Varmint in .308 as my base rifle. I trashed the stock and trigger, then added a AICS stock, Timney trigger, Versapod bipod, Brownells base, Nightforce steel rings and a Leupold Mark 4 6.5-20 scope. The rifle came out very nice and heavy as I expected tipping the scales at 15 pounds empty.
The first trip to the range with ther rifle was just to get an idea of what she likes to eat. I found 168 grain Breger VLD hunting bullets did very well running around .6 to .75" at 100 yards and easily hitting the 4" swining target every time at 200 yards. I think I will try some loads with H-335 and IMR 4895 to see if I can get her below .5" at 100 yards. With the weight of the rifle recoil is very light so she is easy to keep on target.

Here is a pic to avoid the fine...

Eli

Tim, that is amazingly sexy!!!

:drool:

timc

Thank you! :beer:

Vic's Viewpoint

Spectacular! Oh, and by the way, you SUCK!!! Kudos for putting all that together yourself! Clearly your gunsmithing skills are at least equal to your marksmanship skills. But given that 168-gr bullets are too big for varmint hunting, what are you going to do with the rifle? Accuracy competitions? Hunting? What.....?

timc

Vic's Viewpoint wrote: »

Spectacular! Oh, and by the way, you SUCK!!! Kudos for putting all that together yourself! Clearly your gunsmithing skills are at least equal to your marksmanship skills. But given that 168-gr bullets are too big for varmint hunting, what are you going to do with the rifle? Accuracy competitions? Hunting? What.....?

For now she is just a paper puncher, too heavy for hunting. I have been wanting to build this rifle for a long time; I have no real need or reason for it but then again my needing a reason for a gun has long past gone by. This is more of a "Just cause I wanted it" rifle.

BPsniper

Outstanding!

BPsniper

What did that stock end up running? If you don't mind my asking. When I bought mine several years ago, they were running around $500. I suspect they're upwards of $800 by now.

NN

:beer: Ok nice

Jayhawker

That works! :up:

CHIRO1989

I like it, Happy Birthday to you, are you back home working?

bullsi1911

WOW! That is VERY nice, Tim.

I wish I had known you were in town. We need to meet up for a shoot sometime.

NN

I'm going to try this again.
Nice rifle

timc

BPsniper wrote: »

What did that stock end up running? If you don't mind my asking. When I bought mine several years ago, they were running around $500. I suspect they're upwards of $800 by now.

I bought it for $835 delivered. They be expensive!!!

timc

CHIRO1989 wrote: »

I like it, Happy Birthday to you, are you back home working?

Thanks for the birthday wishes! :beer:
No, I was just back home for 10 days now I am back in the Balkans. I was extended until the end of the year with the possibility of up to another year but I don't know if I want to stay that long.

timc

bullsi1911 wrote: »

WOW! That is VERY nice, Tim.

I wish I had known you were in town. We need to meet up for a shoot sometime.

I would enjoy it maybe next trip!
I was in a solid rush the whole time I was home. I was lucky to sneak out to the range the one day I went. You tend to find a lot of stuff piles up when your gone for long periods of time, my wife had a huge honeydo list.

timc

NN wrote: »

I'm going to try this again.
Nice rifle

And thank you again! :tooth:

beartracker

Man, that looks good indeed. Love it, and it is shooting mighty fine. Good job!!!! :beer:

BigDanS

definately noice! you suck...

See any Makarov's in the Balkans?

D

timc

bullet wrote: »

Man, that looks good indeed. Love it, and it is shooting mighty fine. Good job!!!! :beer:

I am very happy with it, sooner or later I'll be able to do some real load tuning for it and I'm sure it will be a fantastic shooter.

timc

BigDanS wrote: »

definately noice! you suck...

See any Makarov's in the Balkans?

D

Man you don't know the half of it; two moths ago I watched them destroy four crates of weapons, it almost made me cry!

SirGeorgeKillian

:yousuck:
:drool2:

BigDanS

sadly we can't import them anymore either... wahh! :nono:

TSchub

That is a beautiful rifle!!!!!!:cool::yousuck:

NN

timc wrote: »

And thank you again! :tooth:

Been having computer/forum issues, sorry for a peat and repeat.

snake284

Great Job Tim. It' a beauty and sounds like it shoots better than it looks. I like the SPS. It's just a BDL or a CDL with a rough finish. But once you put a good trigger on em they shoot with the best.

timc

snake284 wrote: »

Great Job Tim. It' a beauty and sounds like it shoots better than it looks. I like the SPS. It's just a BDL or a CDL with a rough finish. But once you put a good trigger on em they shoot with the best.

The nice part about when I picked the rifle up a local sheriff was there looking at some guns and overheard me talking about not using the stock so I sold it to him for $30 which paid for my transfer fee and gas to get there.

snake284

That was nice. I took my SPS Mattel stock and filled it full of foam insulation and bedded the Recoil pad in and a couple inches of barrel along the chamber. Mine is a 30-06 I bought 4 years back because I didn't have a sporter 30-06 in my collection. I had my smith in Refugio do the trigger and it shoots into a MOA. That's good enough for what I want it for, hunting. I put a Cheapo Nikon Prostaff on it and I absolutely love the gun. For the money you can't find a more clear scope than a Prostaff. It has 90% light transmission and it stands up well to recoil. For $160 how can you beat it? I have many more expensive scopes and rifles, but none that perform any better than this. The trigger was the stumbling block as far as accuracey, but once my smith tuned it up, it breaks clean at about 1.5-2 pounds. Anyway, I would love get me one in .308 and do what you did. That is just awsome.

glockman0422

Awesome rifle!!!!!!
Happy B day

timc

snake284 wrote: »

That was nice. I took my SPS Mattel stock and filled it full of foam insulation and bedded the Recoil pad in and a couple inches of barrel along the chamber. Mine is a 30-06 I bought 4 years back because I didn't have a sporter 30-06 in my collection. I had my smith in Refugio do the trigger and it shoots into a MOA. That's good enough for what I want it for, hunting. I put a Cheapo Nikon Prostaff on it and I absolutely love the gun. For the money you can't find a more clear scope than a Prostaff. It has 90% light transmission and it stands up well to recoil. For $160 how can you beat it? I have many more expensive scopes and rifles, but none that perform any better than this. The trigger was the stumbling block as far as accuracey, but once my smith tuned it up, it breaks clean at about 1.5-2 pounds. Anyway, I would love get me one in .308 and do what you did. That is just awsome.

I set the Timney trigger right at 1.5 pounds so it is very nice. I am still up in the air avout the swivel Versapod, I think I would lke a staionary one better.

mythaeus

THAT is freakin' sexy!!!

:beer: / Al

ghostsniper1

Beautiful. Im jealous. Im still planning on building a sub MOA .223 bolt action in the same configuration.