My father loved the outdoors like few people I have ever known. He and I spent countless hours together walking the fields he and I grew up on and around looking for pheasants, or rowing a johnboat around a pond casting crankbaits for bass, or sitting quietly in a blind glassing for deer or bear. He was really the only “hunting buddy” I ever had, and I cherish all those memories.
As Dad got older and I got busier with raising my own family, our outdoor activities were curtailed to an annual outing in the sandhills of west central Nebraska looking for deer. The deer were so plentiful, that even that became somewhat of a chore for both of us. He passed away in 2010, and remains one of the best outdoorsmen I have ever known. So now without a hunting buddy, I figured my days of regular time hunting were over.
Two things came along to change that. My nephew, Dad’s grandson expressed an interest in trying his hand at whitetails, and the hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the whitetail herd in Nebraska. Now the deer were not so easy to find anymore. I decided that if I was going to get back into deer hunting, I needed to figure out a way to do it that would make it interesting.
Long range hunting was just becoming popular. The longest shot I had ever taken at a deer up to that point was 275 yards, and Dad and I were both impressed with my marksmanship that day. With my new focus on longer ranges, I bought the most expensive rifle in one of the major manufacturer’s catalog. I put an expensive scope on it and went to the range. I was disappointed to discover that it didn’t shoot any better than my trusty old Browning A-Bolt that had harvested more than 50 deer.
I had a couple of factory Remington 700’s reworked, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the results, and was very disappointed at the turnaround time on these projects. I found a custom rifle builder that had an unclaimed Remington 700 clone in stock in 7mm/300 Win Mag and I bought that rifle. That rifle is to this day absolutely reliable on deer out to 500 yards and beyond, if I do my job.
I am approaching retirement from my job of the last 40 years or so as a commercial pilot, I have a good mechanical sense and have worked with my hands my whole life, so I bought a heavy, old, English built lathe, and a milling machine of the same quality. I find that the precision required to build a truly accurate rifle appeals to my sense of organized thought that was of such value during my career at the controls of a jet airplane. I look forward to the opportunity to share with you the fruits of what I have learned.
The Secret to Building Extremely Accurate Rifles by Steve
Reading trade publications and surfing the internet might well lead one to believe that there exists “the secret” to building extremely accurate rifles. So many claim to have that secret and that their rifles are the most accurate in a market crowded with contenders.
The real secret to accuracy is that there is no secret at all. If you build a rifle with perfect concentricity and linearity, and assemble it in such a way that there is zero stress on the crystals that give the metal its strength, and you build it to tight tolerances in dimensions, it will be accurate to the exact proportion of the effort that was invested in building it precisely. The same is true for ammunition. The results are proportional to the effort expended in its manufacture.
When building a rifle, I might spend a couple days getting the barrel as perfectly true in the lathe as I possibly can before I cut any metal. There are two reasons for this. First, I don’t have the decades of experience on the lathe required to be precise and fast, so I have to settle for precise. Second, I know that any time I invest will be wasted if I am willing to compromise at all in dimensions, linearity, and concentricity. Machining techniques are critical to taking advantage of the virtues inherent to the heavy old manual lathe, while avoiding errors caused by tool flex, etc.
All metal to metal contact surfaces are epoxy bedded with the pieces in a totally relaxed state so there is no “spring loading” in any rifle component when final assembly is complete. For example, when bedding an action, I stand the chassis in a vertical position to avoid the “muzzle down” torque the weight of the barrel applies to the action. This is just one of the ways to take one more ten thousandth of an inch out of the total tendency toward inaccuracy.
Let me show you how stubborn attention to details can help you shoot consistently smaller groups and add confidence to your hunting adventures.