Since I can't sleep anyway, might as well start a discussion here that may be interesting and perhaps beneficial for myself and others....
As a very picky left-handed shooter, I've spent far too much time horse trading to find the ideal hunting rifle. A few years ago, I bit the bullet and had my first "custom" rifle built. Custom means different things to different people, but for the my purposes, it means that I chose all of the components and had them assembled into what I decided was the ideal rifle for my local deer hunting. Custom fabrication work was minimal, just spinning up a barrel from a blank and some inletting modifications to the chosen synthetic stock. Maybe not a true custom in the sense of engraving, a fitted walnut stock, etc., but custom enough for my purposes. I've found that if something is either too pretty and/or too irreplaceable, I won't use it much. If it's not pretty and easily replaced, I'll use it without concern for cost and just fix it if/when needed. Ironically, this means that the discontinued lefty Browning X-Bolt White Gold Medallion I used to own just sat in the safe for fear of beating up the gorgeous walnut stock, while the custom Defiance at four times the cost goes everywhere. Just one of my quirks, no logic involved.
That first Defiance .308 build was done without a budget and completely spoiled me for more typical factory rifles. Over the next several years, more customs have followed. I'm waiting on my fourth one to be assembled now. These subsequent builds have been built at a much lower price point than the first. Thus far, they've also been built with light weight in mind, so carbon fiber stocks and pre-fit cf barrels, lighter weight Remington 700 pattern actions, etc. I've typically been a little over $3k into parts for each of these rifles.
All this blathering brings us up to Black Friday, and one of far too many advertisements that landed in my inbox. "A long-action, LH, magnum bolt face Pure Precision Summit action for $650? What could I do with that?" I've long desired a left-handed .458 for no earthly reason, but a push-feed .458 seemed like sacrilege. A .416 might be slightly less useless to me, but only slightly, and which one? In the end, I chose to be at least a little practical and limit myself to another .375. Truthfully, I have no need for a .375 either, especially not a third one, but I can envision a need for one and that's good enough for me. I can, and probably will, sell one of the Rugers to partially fund this experiment. My two .375 Rugers (an African and an Alaskan) are my sole remaining factory bolt actions, so it seems that one can be replaced with this build.
While hand-wringing about whether to buy this action, and what the hell to do with it if I did, another idea started to form. "How cheaply can I build a high-quality custom-ish rifle?" Now obviously, there will be some limitations here in the interests of cost containment: No walnut, no carbon fiber, no engraving, no CRF, etc. It will be a fairly basic rifle; the kind I could buy off the shelf were I right-handed, but this one will be backward, chambered in .375 Ruger, threaded 5/8-24, mine, and it will cost about $1900. I expect that I'll get near $2500 with NECG express sights and a barrel band swivel. Those will be added later after I know everything is working. I'm prepared to accept a push feed .375, but one without sights is a bridge too far.
Any frustrated lefties who have read this far might be wondering "what parts do I buy to build the rifle I want for under $2k?" The answer of course is "the ones that are on sale."
In this case, my choices were:
1. The aforementioned Pure Precision Summit action. $650 on sale, $1000 regular price. I haven't received this order yet, but have two other actions from them and find them to be an excellent value.
2. Bell & Carlson Remington 700 stock. $290 on sale, $340 regular price. I'll have to open up the barrel channel a bit, and modify the ejection port.
3. Triggertech Primary. $149 on sale, $195 regular. I have one Triggertech or another in all my customs and saw no reason to change.
4. Wyatt's .300 PRC box, spring, and follower. About $50. The .300 PRC is based on the .375 Ruger case, so this should work, if not I'll try a standard Magnum box.
5. Redhawk Rifles BDL floorplate. About $150. No prior experience with this part, but it appears to be quite nice. The Hawkins Oberndorf is nicer, but significantly more costly.
6. The barrel hasn't been ordered yet, between $500-$550 for either a McGowan or Preferred Barrel Blanks pre-fit. I didn't see any sales on pre-fits, so I decided to wait a bit on this.
There are many other options in the world of Remington 700 compatible parts, these just happen to be the ones I chose. I estimate that I probably saved about $500 by shopping Black Friday sales. I estimate that the finished rifle will weight between 7.75 and 8 lbs bare.
As far as the barrel, I'm planning to suppress this rifle, so I'm looking for a muzzle diameter of .75." The barrel will be 20" long, which basically means one of the various #5 contours. Oddly, this is a #3 in the world of Preferred Barrel Blanks for some reason. Does anyone have experience with either McGowan or Preferred? My Carbon Six barrels are made from McGowan blanks and I have no complaints other than lead-time, but I've never used a barrel from PBB.
Any thoughts, commentary, or feedback on my plan is more than welcome. I'll try to update as things progress, but it may be a while, both because I'll be rather occupied until Christmas and because I can't really build this thing without a barrel.
Has anyone else built a rifle on a very tight budget? What would you recommend?
As a very picky left-handed shooter, I've spent far too much time horse trading to find the ideal hunting rifle. A few years ago, I bit the bullet and had my first "custom" rifle built. Custom means different things to different people, but for the my purposes, it means that I chose all of the components and had them assembled into what I decided was the ideal rifle for my local deer hunting. Custom fabrication work was minimal, just spinning up a barrel from a blank and some inletting modifications to the chosen synthetic stock. Maybe not a true custom in the sense of engraving, a fitted walnut stock, etc., but custom enough for my purposes. I've found that if something is either too pretty and/or too irreplaceable, I won't use it much. If it's not pretty and easily replaced, I'll use it without concern for cost and just fix it if/when needed. Ironically, this means that the discontinued lefty Browning X-Bolt White Gold Medallion I used to own just sat in the safe for fear of beating up the gorgeous walnut stock, while the custom Defiance at four times the cost goes everywhere. Just one of my quirks, no logic involved.
That first Defiance .308 build was done without a budget and completely spoiled me for more typical factory rifles. Over the next several years, more customs have followed. I'm waiting on my fourth one to be assembled now. These subsequent builds have been built at a much lower price point than the first. Thus far, they've also been built with light weight in mind, so carbon fiber stocks and pre-fit cf barrels, lighter weight Remington 700 pattern actions, etc. I've typically been a little over $3k into parts for each of these rifles.
All this blathering brings us up to Black Friday, and one of far too many advertisements that landed in my inbox. "A long-action, LH, magnum bolt face Pure Precision Summit action for $650? What could I do with that?" I've long desired a left-handed .458 for no earthly reason, but a push-feed .458 seemed like sacrilege. A .416 might be slightly less useless to me, but only slightly, and which one? In the end, I chose to be at least a little practical and limit myself to another .375. Truthfully, I have no need for a .375 either, especially not a third one, but I can envision a need for one and that's good enough for me. I can, and probably will, sell one of the Rugers to partially fund this experiment. My two .375 Rugers (an African and an Alaskan) are my sole remaining factory bolt actions, so it seems that one can be replaced with this build.
While hand-wringing about whether to buy this action, and what the hell to do with it if I did, another idea started to form. "How cheaply can I build a high-quality custom-ish rifle?" Now obviously, there will be some limitations here in the interests of cost containment: No walnut, no carbon fiber, no engraving, no CRF, etc. It will be a fairly basic rifle; the kind I could buy off the shelf were I right-handed, but this one will be backward, chambered in .375 Ruger, threaded 5/8-24, mine, and it will cost about $1900. I expect that I'll get near $2500 with NECG express sights and a barrel band swivel. Those will be added later after I know everything is working. I'm prepared to accept a push feed .375, but one without sights is a bridge too far.
Any frustrated lefties who have read this far might be wondering "what parts do I buy to build the rifle I want for under $2k?" The answer of course is "the ones that are on sale."
In this case, my choices were:
1. The aforementioned Pure Precision Summit action. $650 on sale, $1000 regular price. I haven't received this order yet, but have two other actions from them and find them to be an excellent value.
2. Bell & Carlson Remington 700 stock. $290 on sale, $340 regular price. I'll have to open up the barrel channel a bit, and modify the ejection port.
3. Triggertech Primary. $149 on sale, $195 regular. I have one Triggertech or another in all my customs and saw no reason to change.
4. Wyatt's .300 PRC box, spring, and follower. About $50. The .300 PRC is based on the .375 Ruger case, so this should work, if not I'll try a standard Magnum box.
5. Redhawk Rifles BDL floorplate. About $150. No prior experience with this part, but it appears to be quite nice. The Hawkins Oberndorf is nicer, but significantly more costly.
6. The barrel hasn't been ordered yet, between $500-$550 for either a McGowan or Preferred Barrel Blanks pre-fit. I didn't see any sales on pre-fits, so I decided to wait a bit on this.
There are many other options in the world of Remington 700 compatible parts, these just happen to be the ones I chose. I estimate that I probably saved about $500 by shopping Black Friday sales. I estimate that the finished rifle will weight between 7.75 and 8 lbs bare.
As far as the barrel, I'm planning to suppress this rifle, so I'm looking for a muzzle diameter of .75." The barrel will be 20" long, which basically means one of the various #5 contours. Oddly, this is a #3 in the world of Preferred Barrel Blanks for some reason. Does anyone have experience with either McGowan or Preferred? My Carbon Six barrels are made from McGowan blanks and I have no complaints other than lead-time, but I've never used a barrel from PBB.
Any thoughts, commentary, or feedback on my plan is more than welcome. I'll try to update as things progress, but it may be a while, both because I'll be rather occupied until Christmas and because I can't really build this thing without a barrel.
Has anyone else built a rifle on a very tight budget? What would you recommend?
You're right, I probably was right around the cost of an R8 by the time I completed my Defiance .308, but I did have some very specific goals for that rifle which would have involved some customizing of the R8 as well. 
