Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting My custom backpacking rifle

Hello everyone. First of all, I apologize to those who've seen this rifle already in a thread on the Elk forum. I've received many comments and questions regarding the rifle so I thought I'd give it it's own thread.

This rifle is ULTRALIGHT. 7wsm, Rem Titanium short action, McM Edge Tech carbon fiber mtn. stock, and Lilja light contour 20" barrel. We added a Jewel trigger, titanium firing pin with lightweight aluminum bolt shroud and skeletonized the bolt handle and trigger guard. Weighs in at 4lbs, 10oz.

The load I'm using, in an effort to keep recoil to a minimum and to fully burn all the powder in the short 20" tube, is 57gr Varget behind 120gr Barnes TSX.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my rifle, in return I'll offer up some quality gear p0rn for ya

Very nice! What does she weigh? Does that short barrel have quite the blast when you touch it off?

OOOPPSS!! Sorry, I really can read! Wow!!! That is LIGHT!

I haven't weighed it all up, but by itself it's 4.6lbs. When I first tried 168gr bullets with 70gr H1000 it had a ton of blast, that's another reason I went with a faster burning powder.

What kind of velocity are you getting with the 120 TSX?

Very nice. How is the recoil with that setup.

How does it shoot from unsupported positions?

Beautiful combination of components, VTi! Post it in the blueprints only thread, it belongs there too.

The load I stuck with is a definite maximum for this rifle, very slight sticky bolt, but that's the way I like my hunting rifle's set up. I only chrono'd 3 strings of 3 shots each, and overall avg velocity was 3341fps, ES was 11 at 69 degrees F.

The recoil is perfectly manageable. Just for a comparison, my hunting partner had his 30-06 Rem 700, standard plastic stock model with a similar scope shooting factory Fed 165 Gamekings. We both agreed my 7wsm had lighter (or at the very least comparable) recoil.

I paid a good amount of attention to this because I really dislike rifles that have enough recoil to hinder my ability to make good shots in the field. I've spent enough days with .300wby, .340wby, .338RUM and so on to know I shoot more accurately with less recoil, especially in the prone position which I always prefer if the opportunity is available.
Thanks for your interest.

You know, I love shooting this rifle "off-hand" much better than I anticipated. The reason is because the balance point is very far back, due to the superlight, short barrel. This was surprising because on my tactical rifles I love a heavy bbl for exactly the opposite reason, being barrel heavy.

I can shoot it more accurately just standing, or kneeling with my elbow on my knee better than any rifle I've ever owned, no bs. When I throw up the rifle, settle the crosshairs, they stay put much better than I would have thought prior. Plus the very light barrel makes it very easy to pan the rifle following a target, and stop it with great control.

I'm sold on butt-heavy hunting weight rifles from now on.

Thank you very much for the compliments on my little bundle of joy

I was going to ask you why would you go through all the trouble of saving an ounce then throw a heavy scope on there but before I opened my big mouth I looked up the weight of the scope and found out it's only 14oz. It's still a little heavier than I would like and not nearly as sleek as I would invision appropriate but not nearly what I thought it would be. Why is it that such a big scope is so light comparitively speaking?

How much weight could you have saved on the lug?

One more thing, do you want to sell it? (grin) I REALLY like the concept and the caliber is perfect!

I like everything about it, except the trigger guard. I just replaced the one on my lightened m70, it was cut similarly. I just see too much chance for disaster.....just me. I will narrow mine but no more slots on the pressure side of the trigger. I am not nit picking so please don't take it as such, you have a very nice rig there.

I LOVE the rig, but I'm with you. The weight gained with a full guard could be saved with a perfectly adequate normal size lug.

Hi there. Yes, the scope is deceiving regarding the weight. Basically it comes down to personal preference here, but I prefer a 50mm objective for 2 reasons. At dawn and dusk, I really notice an increase in usable shooting light. Also, a 50mm objective will always have a larger exit pupil (for any given magnification) than a smaller objective. I like this because when you throw up the rifle for quick off-hand shots, target acquisition is much faster with a 5mm exit pupil than a 4mm e.p. (or at least it is for me)... and those are the type of situations this rifle was made for.

I've owned and mounted many, many different pieces of glass on my hunting rifles, and for me -- I'll take a lightweight 50mm obj over a 2.5-8x36mm leupy any day. I know others will disagree, and will be completely valid, but for my needs I'll lug around an extra 2oz in the glass dept. for the quality and ease of use this scope provides. Just my $.02 here.

Well, I'm always ready to start a new project I've sold many, many custom rifles in the past that I've had no reason to sell other than wanting to move onto something different.

At a cost of 2oz, I say go for it!