Know what you�re going to do with it. A real understanding of what I needed in my first several custom rifles would have saved me thousands of dollars and a ton of wear and tear on my marriage. It helps to write it out, then review and study your notes while you save money. Once you know exactly how you�ll use it, your other questions get easier to answer.
Second, study custom rifles and pay what it costs to do it right the first time. This is important because you�ll lose around 50% of your investment if you get something you don�t want and have to sell it. Study as many custom rifles as you can get your hands on and talk with their owners. That will help you decide where to go and what to spend � just keep your BS detector very finely tuned, especially when it comes to accuracy.
Accuracy sells rifles to the unknowing and gives experts confidence. Just don�t let it fool you � no one can do in the field what he can from the bench. It takes years to learn how to shoot well off the bench, and most riflemakers are better at it than the rest of us. I�ll piss people off by saying it, but 2 MOA and proper shot placement will do for any big-game animal on Earth 99.9% of the time.
Third, synthetic stocks beat wood hands down, but I�d take a good wood stock over a bad synthetic any day. A dwindling number of masters build proper wood-stocked rifles, and you�ll PAY for them, both in money and time. That said, I live in the Pacific Northwest, where conditions are as bad as anywhere but Alaska. For many years, I only saw one hunter with a synthetic-stocked rifle: me. The locals ran rings around me, and they all used factory wood-stocked rifles, at least where I hunted. Go figure.
You�ll get a lot of good advice on this board, and most of it will contradict itself. Before you spend a dime, do a lot of searches and read a lot of threads. Pay very careful attention to who is saying what, and more importantly, why they�re saying it.
Good luck.
Okie John
