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I'm building a new FTR rifle from the ground up and I am a little worried about the overall weight. I have the exact weight for all the components except for the barrel. I ordered the barrel from Krieger and according to their specs it whould weigh 6.5-6.7 pounds. I selected a 32 inch heavy Palma contour, btw.

I was talking with a fellow competitor who thinks the finished weight of the barrel will be closer to 7.5 or more pounds like the 30 inch one he just removed from his rifle and he suggested I go to a medium (regular) Palma. I talked with Krieger and they say it would be 6.5 pounds with another ounce per inch or so.

Any thoughts on this? Should I play it safe and go with a regular Palma or am I safe budgeting 6.7 pounds for the barrel?

depends on how much your ruger action weighs. Grins.

Dennys everything I've read said there's no accuracy difference between a heavy palma and a standard palma.

So, tell me again how the action influences the weight of the barrel, Mr. Comedian?

BTW, it's a different action anyway.

AJ, everything I have been reading backs up what you just said/wrote.

Actually trying to prompt you into telling us what action you are going to use...

And ya know if the ruger is heavy ya gotta have a lighter barrel....man I gotta teach you everything...

How's life going? Range float away yet? We are thankful for every drop of rain we get up here. Of course now instead of fire calls all the time we get vehicle wreck calls all the time... no rest for the wicked.

BTW who is puttin er together for ya?

Best of luck!!

It's a Panda action.

Life has been, interesting and sad. Couple of funerals and some competitions. We almost got rained out at the last 1000 but I took a chance the meteorologists would be wrong, again, and held the match. It was very windy instead of wet.

We have been catching up on the rain deficit, but still a ways to go.

AJ, I think I'm going to call Krieger and change that to a standard Palma.

I hear good about Panda.

I hate it when I will maybe get to your point, having to decide on something other than a 700 for an action.... the choices are so many and for so many differing reasons...

Whats a Panda run these days?

Pandas don't run, they eat bamboo. Slowly.

http://www.kelbly.com/price2.html

Not so bad price wise.

Good Humor too, and not the ice cream bar.

My Benchrest rifle is based on a Panda action. Are you using a polished action or one that has the bead blasted finish?

Jewell trigger?

OT, but sorry to hear of the funerals and such. We've had our share here too, I"m about sick of them already... an 18 year old duck hunter/bowfishing friend of mine, on Christmas eve, had dropped his friends off and was on the way to his uncles to pick up a lab.... ran off the road and hit a tree.....
One of my fellow fire fighters just lost a 5 month old to SIDS and his wife is not good, we firefighters fill the hole by hand with shovels...
and the last, a 41 year employee of the city, doens't sound that sad, but was 62 and it hurt a bit.
And then Saturday we landed a helo to get one of our City employees on lifeflight from a massive M.I.


Best of luck on the gun. I concur that barrel weight rarely has a lot to do with overall accuracy on same quality barrels, other than the lighter they get the harder the complete gun is to shoot consistenly... But you won't have that issue here.

10 twist?

AJ, it's the bead blasted one. And yes, Jewel trigger. I already have the trigger and the stock. I also bought a new NSX 12-42X56 with the .125 MOA adjustments. I am mounting it on my current rifle until the new one is done.

Jeff, understood. I have had a few shocks that hit home and I have been grumpy at the universe for a while but I am getting over it.

11 Twist, don't need no excess pressure at the ragged edge.

Aj, quick question for you. Tell me about the scope mounting system on your Panda. How are you set for an inclined ramp. I heard some weird stuff about the Panda.

Dennys the rifle is used for short-range benchrest so the dovetail on top of the action isn't canted. Did you get the 20 MOA canted action?

You'll like the scope...

I've found that the bead blasted action is a bear to keep clean. I haven't found anything that will preserve its appearance in a like new condition. Wish they'd clear anodize the darn thing...

Yes, I specified the 20 MOA canted model.

I use Simichrome to keep my blast-beaded and other stainless steel and aluminum stuff clean.

http://www.simichrome-polish.com/

Well, after reflection and AJ's comments, I called Krieger and I amended the order to a barrel midway between the heavy Palma and the standard Palma. I start at 1 inch in the neck and then take it down to .860 at the muzzle instead of .900 for the heavy and .820 for the standard.

Clean nice exterior of action doesn't equate to accuracy.... just sayin....

My service rifles had scratches, paint all over the knobs and so on.

But a dirty barrel interior is a BAD thing.

Jeff have you ever seen the paint jobs on some of those rifles? Most of the "smart" ones run a polished action, guess i'll never learn...

Dan Lilja has a barrel weight calculator on his website that I've found to be fairly close when figuring barrel weight.

Ill be curious about how the canted dovetail works out for you. We shoot midrange fullbore so I need to be able to zero my scope for 300 yards. Twenty MOA was too much on my Winchester so I machined a custom rail at 10 MOA. I'm 2 MOA high at 100 yards bottomed out on travel leaving me the full 40 MOA of internal scope adjustment available plus the hash marks of the reticle.