Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Did You Ever Regret Spending The Money On A Custom Rifle?

I would rather have 1 custom rifle than a wall full of off the shelf factory guns.

I see no need to build a custom rifle except for looks. You'll never get your money back and accuracy can't be any better than my factory rifles.

Big Stick's COAL/Twist post is gold. Also as he said in his first post,"Have learned more than a coupla things though,in the trevails".
That goes for more than just the "custom" itself and things like who puts them together, the components and their sellers, the hype, etc.
You learn by doing.
I've done builds I would do differently in hind site. Try to put that hind sight into the next one. Have a couple that ring the bell.
If you have a passion for this stuff you count the mistakes as the price of admission and move onwards/upward rather than pull back and say I never should of never tried.
Not discounting doing your homework and being open to what that home work enlightens.

My only customs is a 6.5-06AI. No regrets.

Currently putting together a Ruger MKII from parts and am still deciding whether to leave the barrel as the .338 WM it is now or ream it to a .338-375 Ruger. Either way I doubt I'll have any regrets.

Lets see how accurate they are....

He's either trolling or deluded. Either way you're wasting your time.

I figure he may crack someday and let the world see these wonderful Remingtons of his..Grin

B8

I only have one custom which cost me $1500 in 1990. I bought the arts over time when they were on sale and kept the cost down. It is a beautiful rifle, which is a bonus, and it shoots lights out.

I argued with the gunsmith over chambering, and I should have listened. I have never regretted the build, but wish I would have chambered in 6BR rather than 308. I could rebarrel but I won;t. There is a pride in ownership of a rifle built to fill your particular needs.

Find a gunsmitth you trust and enjoy the process. The planning is a part of the experience working for you.

You are delusional!

no regrets, but i learned:

don't buy on impulse.

mausers look better in museums, don't try to make them something they are not, on a budget. your budget will be sorry.

anything worth doing, is worth having your gunsmith do, not you.

twist and bullet choices are a lot more important than barrel length or chambering.

wood looks good but synthetic doesn't warp or scratch or cost an arm and a leg.

I don't quite agree with this one. Price a bedding job and trigger adjustment from a smith. Both are area's where a small chunk of change can be saved and neither one is difficult to do for yourself. Skip the fancy coatings on a rifle and that's something else that can be a money saver. I coated about half a dozen rifles and a couple pistols with duracoat for the cost of paying a smith to do 1. And I had to buy an HVLP spray gun to do it. It wasn't difficult either. Cheaper yet is spraying it with a 15$ can of alumahydeII from brownells. I've used that and it too works great once its cured. I do see where you're coming from, but not everything a smith does has to be done by a smith and not everyone is interested in doing any of their own work on a rifle.

Brad- plus one.

No, I have not. I have three full customs, that's barrels and stocks, and one more than might as well be. I went through three stocks before I found what I insisted on.
But to avoid regretting that choice, I'll quote from Obsessions of a Rifle Loony by Barsness.
"Exactly why do you want this rifle ? This isn't a hard test. Let's make it multiple choice: A) I need a rifle that shoots more accurately than factory rifles. B) I want to be different and to fill my friends with envy. C) I want a rifle that factories don't offer. D) I'm a sucker for fancy stuff like curly figured walnut, sandpaper fine checkering, quarter ribs machined from the barrel blank, and sling swivel studs rivaling the smaller sculptures in the New York Museum of Modern Art. E) I want to duplicate an old rifle I can't afford. F) I'm a real rifle loony and can't help myself. If the answer is B,D, or F, skip the rest of this chapter. If your answer is A,C,E or any combination thereof, you might something interesting ( in the following chapter, So You Want a Custom Rifle.)"
That pretty much sums it up. I wanted light weight rifles with plenty of muzzle hang and very dependable features for use under tough conditions. Took more than one try to get it right. My original two, for instance, were redone by a very talented guy to make them lighter.
I'm very happy with what I got for my money.
However, it does take some idea as to what you really want. To get to that point, I'd suggest you try a promising factory rifle and then try either restocking it with something that might fit you better or rebarreling it with a different barrel. Be advised that a basic factory rifle these days often can shoot darn near as well as a fancy custom. Sometimes just touching up the crown helps. Trigger jobs and bedding work often do great things. Actually, you can get the chamber recut if called for or have the factory barrel recontoured as well. Lots of possibilities here if you want to try some "custom ideas." E

Damn Stick, you missed your calling in life. You should be a teacher. Straight to the point, all good info with no fluff.

speaking in tongues here? no offense big boy but it took me awhile to scrape through all the euphimisms to get at what you were saying which, when I got there, seemed like pretty good sense.

cheers!

Yes. Gunsmith delays, cost over-runs, high shipping costs.

While the custom/custom work costs 2-3 times a factory rifle, the finished product does not typically shoot 2-3 times better....sometimes it handles better, or is lighter, so those gains are there but not quantifiable....

Lightness is worth it, perhaps, but the return on improved accuracy is not that much greater for the time/$$/hassle involved.

Sometimes you do get something that is truly uniques...but priceless? That's a toss-up...

but perhaps priceless to the man whose hands hold it?

Can't see building a custom if the that same basic rifle is available over the counter. Not sure why anyone would build say a 30-06, with a 22" sporter tube, and slap it in a heavy Mcswirley stock. Customs are for picking a specific twist or cartridge. A stock can be replaced regardless, and certainly doesn't make a gun a "custom."

The post above by Big Stick is the first that I have seen that easily explains the different aspect(COAL, twist, etc) of a rifle in "layman's" terms that I have seen. Well worth a "sticky" all by itself for that reason alone. Many thanks for the information and the way in which it was presented.

I have never regretted the money or work, but have regretted a couple of my choices. I will never have anything built on a Model Seven action again, and I want to know the exact weight and dimensions of the barrel. Most of all, be realistic about what you want and what it will be used for, 'cause the only one's I ever really regretted were the one's that I though were a "great idea" that I just didn't use.