My Spartan Build Has Arrived!
A little over two months ago I had been talking to Mike Cecil (CS Tactical) about a number of items I was ordering from him and mentioned that I was in the market for a new build. We talked around what I was looking for and the like. He mentioned a local smith (Bay Area) Marc Soulie at Spartan as a good choice. Mike had mentioned his recent purchase from Marc and noted that it was a laser, then informed me of the Nor Cal teams .260 build project and told me I should check him out. About a week later I was talking to Todd Powers at Phantom about a cerakote job I was thinking about and he said that spartan was in the shop next door and that Marc's guns are legit. Now I have glowing recommendations from two top Nor Cal shooters and two highly respected members/Business owners of the shooting community.
Todd gave me his number and Marc and I talked for about two hours about what I was looking to accomplish, and how he was going to build it. You can tell from the start that Marc is a good guy and super passionate about his work.
We settled on the following rifle specs:
Virgin Remington 700 Action Trued and Blueprinted
Bartlien .308 MTU contour finished at 22" from the recoil lug
Badger precision recoil lug
Badger Thruster Brake
Talley One Piece 20 MOA base
Timney Trigger set crisp at 2 LBS
Manners T5-A with Mini Chassis (painted thanks to Todd Jackson)
Barreled action Cerakoted OD Green by Todd Powers at Phantom
_also_
USO 20th Anniversary SN-3 (courtesy of JBW3)
(apologies for the bad lighting)
Marc has been in constant contact throughout the process, calling or emailing with updates and even allowing me to come hang at his shop while he was chambering a rifle (not mine unfortunately). He called monday to let me know it was ready to roll.
He invited me to the range to take it out for a test fire today. I was pumped, first custom rifle and getting to go shoot with the smith. I met Marc at USI in concord at 1400, I had my USO and a couple boxes of Southwest Ammo's 175 SMK Match, Marc had my rifle and a 300WM hunter he built to test.
We grabbed a couple benches and I set up some sandbags (forgot to bring my bipod), and mounted my scope. before the ceasefire I boresighted to 100 and adjusted accordingly. We set our targets and were off.
After three or four dry fires I loaded a mag with three rds and my first (about 1 mil right and .5 down from POA) it felt clean but since I was a little excited so I made no adjustment (to ensure no user error) and fired the second, Marc is spotting and calls "same hole - fire a third" and here was the result:
I adjusted and fired a four shot group (shot four was a pull from excitement) and Marc shot the three shot on the left. As you see this is a laser.
The others were all me as excitement took over my form.
But we ran out of Time and had to run. 23 rounds.
No barrel break-in whatsoever.
As you can tell, attention to detail was Marc's priority, the rifle is perfect (the chamber looked as if the reamer spit shined it). Marc's customer service is fantastic and he is a super nice guy. He is fast also.
I will update this post in a week or so when I have some time to really shoot and settle in. After today, I expect this to be a legit .25 MOA gun if I can perform. And I'll be ordering a .260 from Spartan very soon.
Cheers,
Todd
A little over two months ago I had been talking to Mike Cecil (CS Tactical) about a number of items I was ordering from him and mentioned that I was in the market for a new build. We talked around what I was looking for and the like. He mentioned a local smith (Bay Area) Marc Soulie at Spartan as a good choice. Mike had mentioned his recent purchase from Marc and noted that it was a laser, then informed me of the Nor Cal teams .260 build project and told me I should check him out. About a week later I was talking to Todd Powers at Phantom about a cerakote job I was thinking about and he said that spartan was in the shop next door and that Marc's guns are legit. Now I have glowing recommendations from two top Nor Cal shooters and two highly respected members/Business owners of the shooting community.
Todd gave me his number and Marc and I talked for about two hours about what I was looking to accomplish, and how he was going to build it. You can tell from the start that Marc is a good guy and super passionate about his work.
We settled on the following rifle specs:
Virgin Remington 700 Action Trued and Blueprinted
Bartlien .308 MTU contour finished at 22" from the recoil lug
Badger precision recoil lug
Badger Thruster Brake
Talley One Piece 20 MOA base
Timney Trigger set crisp at 2 LBS
Manners T5-A with Mini Chassis (painted thanks to Todd Jackson)
Barreled action Cerakoted OD Green by Todd Powers at Phantom
_also_
USO 20th Anniversary SN-3 (courtesy of JBW3)
(apologies for the bad lighting)
Marc has been in constant contact throughout the process, calling or emailing with updates and even allowing me to come hang at his shop while he was chambering a rifle (not mine unfortunately). He called monday to let me know it was ready to roll.
He invited me to the range to take it out for a test fire today. I was pumped, first custom rifle and getting to go shoot with the smith. I met Marc at USI in concord at 1400, I had my USO and a couple boxes of Southwest Ammo's 175 SMK Match, Marc had my rifle and a 300WM hunter he built to test.
We grabbed a couple benches and I set up some sandbags (forgot to bring my bipod), and mounted my scope. before the ceasefire I boresighted to 100 and adjusted accordingly. We set our targets and were off.
After three or four dry fires I loaded a mag with three rds and my first (about 1 mil right and .5 down from POA) it felt clean but since I was a little excited so I made no adjustment (to ensure no user error) and fired the second, Marc is spotting and calls "same hole - fire a third" and here was the result:
I adjusted and fired a four shot group (shot four was a pull from excitement) and Marc shot the three shot on the left. As you see this is a laser.
The others were all me as excitement took over my form.
But we ran out of Time and had to run. 23 rounds.
No barrel break-in whatsoever.
As you can tell, attention to detail was Marc's priority, the rifle is perfect (the chamber looked as if the reamer spit shined it). Marc's customer service is fantastic and he is a super nice guy. He is fast also.
I will update this post in a week or so when I have some time to really shoot and settle in. After today, I expect this to be a legit .25 MOA gun if I can perform. And I'll be ordering a .260 from Spartan very soon.
Cheers,
Todd
