Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats 7mm PRC Build Begins

Thanks Wolverine!

👍
Looking good. Following with significant interest!

What twist did you go with?
Do you have a particular bullet in mind to shoot in it?

Mark

1-8"

Will try the 175gr. ELD-X but also the 165gr. Bondstrike and some others. We'll see what she likes.

Tell us about your lathe and such.

Can't afford to go quite as fancy so I am using McBros Evo II stainless, Lothar Walther fluted stainless, 22" (.650" @ the muzzle) and Manner's UltraLight Classic w/ Hawkins Oberndorf bottom metal. Hoping to come in at 5 lb, 10 oz.

I was down at https://shop.kaugerarms.com/ today looking at my new rifle and talking about having a 7PRC or a 7-300wm built. Just for sheits a giggles we started looking for 7PRC brass, none available, then looked for 7PRC ammo, none available. What the he'll, is this a build it and they will come type of deal?

Lathe is a 1983 Hardinge HLV-H Super Precision. I bought it a year or so ago and finally have it ready for barrel work. I made a spider for the outboard end and had the jaws of the 4-jaw milled to accept the half-round steel gimbals that I use. The gimbals allow you to hold the barrel securely but with as little stress as possible. Straight out of the Hambly-Clark book Centerfire Rifle Accuracy https://a.co/d/hfyelR1

Some will tell you that a Hardinge is not ideal for gunmaking. I disagree, especially when the spindle bore ID is large enough to chamber through the headstock- mine is plenty big.

The lathe also has a Newall DRO that makes life easy. This lathe has been used but not abused. After building rifles on a POS Grizzly, this thing is like driving a Cadillac.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8q98tx8hclax52z/2022-11-06%2013.28.09.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kt0ewy8k3xee6v/2022-02-05%2009.20.29.jpg?dl=0

Wow! Cool that you have a Hardinge. Nice. Dumb question, but what makes it superior to the Grizzly?

It's kind of like comparing a Hi Point pistol to one built by Nighthawk or Wilson; the Hardinge is superior in every way. Everything is well-built, extremely precise and the engineers made every effort to eliminate vibration whenever possible. Even after replacing the motor and making other tweaks, building a rifle on my Grizzly was like playing the game Operation on a vibrating bed. The guns all shot well, somehow, but it was a real chore to get right.

Here is an old thread on some of the struggles with my Grizzly:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...ith-before-and-after-videos#Post13325858

I don't have his book but I have come to believe he discusses good, better and best tiers of barrel fitting and chambering. I think you're following his best practice recommendation here. Can you briefly summarize his baseline good procedure? If that's not possible I understand.

I was pricing some used Hardinge HLV-H Super Precisions on the interweb last night and they're not cheap ($16-22k) Are you self-taught on the lathe? Be fun to have a quality lathe and tooling to do one's own gunsmithing. Wishful thinking on my part I'm afraid.

Very cool. I like the 6.5 Creedmoor you put together a few years back too.

Do you have a pic of these steel gimbals in the four-jaw? I made spiders for the back of my EMCO Super 11 spindle and modified a D1-4 plate for the front, but I'm always hoping to learn other techniques.

I believe his baseline procedure is to dial the muzzle and breech ends to +/- 0 with a gauge pin in the bore. Plenty of accurate rifles have been built this way, the problem is that barrels are rarely straight and, but using the spider, you're simply bending the barrel temporarily while you work.

I'm self-taught on the basic operation-- I had never run a lathe before I bought my first one. I learned to fit and chamber during a visit to Robert Gradous several years back and D'Arcy Echols has taught me more than a few things over the years. I've been fortunate to have some excellent teachers and I learn something new every time.

These lathes aren't cheap and it makes zero financial sense for me to own one, but this is America! If I were in the market now I would look at Precision Matthews, they appear to be a lot of machine for the money and the quality coming out of Taiwan is far superior to the Red Chinese machines.

Thanks! That gun is a real shooter, still my go-to whitetail rifle.

I watched Olympic rifle barrels being indicated in and chambered using Deltronic pins on each end. Lots of Olympic rifles and national match rifles have been built for years using this method.