building a tactical rifle (i need help)

[bcpdshooter]

hellow fellow shooters

this is my first post trying to get out of the stone ages.

i have been shooting all my life and have been a natural with most guns i have picked up. my passion is precision shooting. the down side of this is i have never been a student of the technical side of shooting/precision rifles because it has been so natural.
i have shot a 700p and always wanted to do a custom build and have finally got the chance to do the build on a police officers salery.
the more i read the more i realize how ingnorant i am on the subject. the folloowing is a list of the pieces i have for my build.

mike rock 5r m24 1/11.27
lawton model 7000 action (700 clone)
jewell hvr trigger
hs precision m24 stock
badger m5 detatachable mag/floor plate.

through reading and other references these are the pieces i selected. i thought the hard part was over until i started looking at match chambers and reamers and all of the opinions on what is the best. it has been a cool ride so far learning from all the posts and articals online but somewhat confusing due to my lack of knowlage.

i plan to shoot 168gr smk and 175gr smk. i have a friend that does handloads but i do not want to depend on handloads alone. i want to be able to purchase a match rounds and be able to work with them also.

question is: what chamber/reamer/fee bore/jump will give me the best of both worlds?

thanks for any information and an explination of why would be nice.

bcpdshooter

 

[LoneWolfUSMC]

Re: building a tactical rifle (i need help)

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: heath boothe</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
question is: what chamber/reamer/fee bore/jump will give me the best of both worlds?

thanks for any information and an explination of why would be nice.

bcpdshooter </div></div>

Now you know why choosing a 'smith is the most important part.

I know a good deal about pulling triggers. I know just what I need to know about chambers to produce accurate handloads.

If I was having a custom rifle built I would contact a reputable custom rifle builder and simply tell them the ammunition I want to shoot under what conditions. Then let them choose the reamer and the rest of the specs.

Why? Because that's what I pay them for.

Remember I said REPUTABLE? The reason is simple. They are not going to put their name on a turd.

A good riflesmith will not only tell you WHAT, buy WHY they recommend what they do.

 

[TonyAngel]

Re: building a tactical rifle (i need help)

heath, what part of the country are you in? If you're down south, you might be able to recommend someone to you.

LoneWolf is right about having the right smith and those questions mentioned by LoneWolf are exactly the questions that my smith asked me. What are you going to be shooting? I told him 168 followed by 175 SMKs, without any special consideration to the ammunition except that they will be loaded to spec.

He cut my chamber so that when I load a 168 SMK to 2.8" OAL, I'm .010 off the lands. That puts me in a good place to be able to adjust my seating depth relative to the lands without having to seat ultra short or so long that I sacrifice neck tension.

Like LoneWolf said, this is the sort of question that you are paying your smith to answer.

As another example, I just bought another used rifle that was built by the same smith that did my first one. With this rifle, the guy planned to shoot Bergers, so when you load one of those rounds to a spec OAL, it is jammed by .010. The reason being that, as a general matter, SMKs like a little jump and Bergers like a little jam.

Just try to be sure of what it is that you want to shoot the most of. I'm also sure that your smith could provide a "factory" cut to accommodate the widest range of ammunition.

I'll tell you this though. It sure sounds like you have one nice rifle coming.

 

[bcpdshooter]

Re: building a tactical rifle (i need help)

i have two builders in the area where i live in louisiana... one is ben mccullah and the other is an older man who shoots 1000 yard matches...mccullah has built several custom rifles for hal sutton the golfer and for tactical teams and just hunters in the area.
i knew mccullah and spent some time in his shop. the other side of that is that he rarely gave out any information about the specifics but he alway called me when he finished a rifle to shoot a group with the rifle to give to the customer. have not been able to get in touch with mccullah.

the older guy (dennis) i have not met yet but have scheduled a meeting with him next wed .

i also know that i am not limited to just builders in the area. i have never put this much money into a firearm before and want it right.
i also understand that i have not been searching for a higher learning for very long and there are probably people who have been doing this for years and are learning.

thanks for your reply

bcpdshooter

 

[bcpdshooter]

Re: building a tactical rifle (i need help)

i am excited about it and cant wait to pull the trigger. i generally shoot rem premier match 168gr since that is the round that my 700p likes. i have read that the 175s and the 178s shoot really good to. to tell you the truth i shoot the factory match round, hunting and at paper. it seems that when u shoot a whitetail behind the eye it really doesn't matter what kind of bullet it is.

i live just outside bossier city louisiana and i would be grateful to learn of any good smith's that are fairly close...not crazy about shipping all of this off to somewhere to have someone put it together and would rather bring it to them.

all of the information that yall talk about on the forum is very interesting to me and would like to learn mor about loading my own..

i have friend that has a good knowlage of handloading but he also is always looking for new to him information.

i also have another build to do after this one which will be putting a new barrel on my 700p a rock 20" supressed.

i was surprised to see that the rock berrals price was not to bad.

bcpdshooter