I’m looking for advice and to generally discuss the topic of an SBR bolt-gun build.
Backstory: I have a Remington 700 that’s a registered SBR. It currently has a 12.5″ .45 Raptor barrel on it, but it’s just awful. Even for a short .45, the accuracy is totally unacceptable. The best I have ever gotten it to shoot is 3 MOA, and I know the problem isn’t me because I have gotten my 12.5″ .450 Bushmaster AR to group nearly 1 MOA. So I am going to rebarrel it, but this time I am going to skip the wildcat-cartridge route in favor of something commercially available; I simply don’t have the bandwidth for reloading like I used to.
My original intent with this build was to have a lightweight, compact hunting rifle for medium game. I have a Christensen Arms MPR chassis I’ll be chopping down the forearm on and dropping it into, so the whole package will be pretty light and compact and easy to stow away when hiking out from a hunt. Up here in AK, caribou are pretty damn easy to shoot, and most people don’t take a shot over 100 yards if they don’t need to, so I am not worried about the lack of effective range. I also wanted it for the novelty of having an SBR bolt-gun with a heavy-hitting big-bore round.
Why .450 Bushmaster or .308? .450 Bushmaster is an 80% solution compared to the .45 Raptor, but still meets my intent of the original build without the headache of having to reload. I already have a .45 rifle can, which I have no use for other than this build (I am scrapping my aforementioned .450 Bushmaster AR upper because of feeding-reliability issues), and now there are factory subsonic rounds for .450 BM, which would be a fun novelty for range days. However, I am also thinking .308 because it will be more accurate than .450 BM and still deliver plenty of punch out of a 12.5″ barrel for something like a caribou at 100 yards. There is an abundance of factory ammo options, and some manufacturers like Fiocchi are making SBR-specific ammo now. With a short barrel, I don’t think there is any advantage to using a more modern cartridge like the 6.5 Creedmoor, or anything with greater powder capacity.
I am not interested in going the .223 or .300 Blackout route, but I am open to suggestions on other cartridges. If anyone has experience with SBR bolt guns, I’d like to hear what you have to say.
Backstory: I have a Remington 700 that’s a registered SBR. It currently has a 12.5″ .45 Raptor barrel on it, but it’s just awful. Even for a short .45, the accuracy is totally unacceptable. The best I have ever gotten it to shoot is 3 MOA, and I know the problem isn’t me because I have gotten my 12.5″ .450 Bushmaster AR to group nearly 1 MOA. So I am going to rebarrel it, but this time I am going to skip the wildcat-cartridge route in favor of something commercially available; I simply don’t have the bandwidth for reloading like I used to.
My original intent with this build was to have a lightweight, compact hunting rifle for medium game. I have a Christensen Arms MPR chassis I’ll be chopping down the forearm on and dropping it into, so the whole package will be pretty light and compact and easy to stow away when hiking out from a hunt. Up here in AK, caribou are pretty damn easy to shoot, and most people don’t take a shot over 100 yards if they don’t need to, so I am not worried about the lack of effective range. I also wanted it for the novelty of having an SBR bolt-gun with a heavy-hitting big-bore round.
Why .450 Bushmaster or .308? .450 Bushmaster is an 80% solution compared to the .45 Raptor, but still meets my intent of the original build without the headache of having to reload. I already have a .45 rifle can, which I have no use for other than this build (I am scrapping my aforementioned .450 Bushmaster AR upper because of feeding-reliability issues), and now there are factory subsonic rounds for .450 BM, which would be a fun novelty for range days. However, I am also thinking .308 because it will be more accurate than .450 BM and still deliver plenty of punch out of a 12.5″ barrel for something like a caribou at 100 yards. There is an abundance of factory ammo options, and some manufacturers like Fiocchi are making SBR-specific ammo now. With a short barrel, I don’t think there is any advantage to using a more modern cartridge like the 6.5 Creedmoor, or anything with greater powder capacity.
I am not interested in going the .223 or .300 Blackout route, but I am open to suggestions on other cartridges. If anyone has experience with SBR bolt guns, I’d like to hear what you have to say.
