Building budget precision rifles

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My younger son and I are shooting partners and compete in vintage military matches together. Last fall we decided to begin building a couple of budget precision rifles. This plan was sparked, in part, by Brownell's sale on Howa barrelled actions.

My son decided to go real budget and selected a 24" #6 (#6 is the heaviest barrel profile offered by Howa) barrelled action in .308, ($249). While he was deciding on a chassis, MDT put their LSS chassis on sale ($240), so that decided the issue. He recently completed the project with a stock tube and Magpul stock that I had laying around. I lent him a Bushnell 6-24x50 Elite Tactical FFP scope with a G2 reticle.

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Hoping to shoot it this week end.
Last edited by Mustang on Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Building budget precision rifles

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shinzen wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 4:46 pm Nice. I have that same Bushnell on one of my rifles. How do they both shoot?
It's a great scope. Funny thing is that the price for it floats on Amazon. I bought mine for $596. After I bought it, I noticed the price went down to $562. Then it ballooned up and is now at $727. Weird.

We haven't shot these rifles yet.

Re: Building budget precision rifles

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shinzen wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:59 pm Oh, I misread. I've got the HDMR, which is a is the step above that one. A step or two below your March.
The Bushnell HDMR is a great scope and probably several steps above my ERS. A few years ago, Precision Rifle Blog ran a series on precision rifle scopes and the DMR finished in the top 10, above many big name scopes that cost 3 and 4 times what the DMR cost. They described the value that the scope provided as "shocking".

I do like the ERS for the money. It is made in Japan (reputedly at Light Optic Works, like your HDMR), has a great reticle, is First Focal Plane and has mil/mil adjustments. But it does not have zero stop or locking knobs, and it is certainly not the scope that your HDMR is.

The only reason that I sprang for the March is that I got it at an estate auction for less than half of it's price on Optics Planet and it appeared to be NIB. I emailed the March distributor with the serial number and they replied that it was first sold in December of 2017. I got it in June of 2018, so I think the poor guy passed before he got a chance to mount it.

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