Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Best bang for your buck custom action (700 clone)

Excuse my ignorance, but which company is offering the best bang for your buck action these days? Where I am located, I have never had the chance to handle or even look at any of the actions like stiller, Borden, pierce, or defiance. Of those listed, which would you say is the best deal? (Not interested in a trued up factory 700.)
Thanks for your time

Stiller or Borden are the cheapest and plenty good to build a ludicrously accurate hunting rifle.

Thanks. Of the two, is there any noticeable difference in finish, primary extraction, perceived "smoothness" (if that's a word) that sort of thing?

Have Stiller and Borden, both are great for the money and recommend either for a hunting rifle. My preference has gone to the Stiller with recent purchases.

Thank you, very good to hear from someone with both.

Haven't had a Borden, but do think very highly of my Stiller.

John

I've had a chance to shoot several Stiller action based rifles - all have been short actions and I sure could like one.

I have a .243 built with a Borden Alpine action and I'd be happy with 5 more:) For a light-weight build the Borden sure is a nice action IMHO.

Oregonmuley, what are the build specs on that .243? Thanks.

Why are you looking for a Remington clone, whilst being disinterested with a trued up Remington?

Tis not a bad question. They certainly are not substantially more accurate at hunting rifle considerations. But a likely answer is one that I would empathize with. A full custom is just cooler sometimes.

PM'd so as not to hijack the OP's thread.

Shhhh

I wouldn't count out BigHorn and Third Generation Shooting supply has some in stock. I have one on a .308 truck gun and it's awesome!

ETA: of the rest I would get a Pierce.

Fair question.
Reason I mentioned "Remington clone" was for several reasons. Mainly for more options - triggers, bottom metal, and stocks. I also assumed they would be lighter weight compared to some of the flat bottomed customs I read up on. The rifle is to be a hunting rifle, not a 10 pound target gun.

Why not a trued up Remington? Well by the time you true up a Remington properly - action face, threads, lugs, side bolt release, raceway reamed and a new PTG bolt you will be into it for the same or very close to a stiller. And it still says remington on it, also if the time comes the remington will have lower resale value.

There is something nice about a action that was done right from the start - not altered later/corrected. Will the Remington still be as accurate? Probably, but so would a savage - but they just dont do it for me.

Have built rifles on Stiller, Borden and Lawton and would pick a Defiance over any of them. #1 most important feature is the primary extraction is cut correctly(5 axis milling) and Glen
Harrison knows what a good Rem Clone is and offers any option you can think of. PS, they manufacture GAP's Templar actions, nuf
said.

Having Bordens and handling a sample of 2 Stillers, Bordens win hands down in the smoothness department, Jim has also put alot of time perfecting the extraction, trigger timing and the proper firing pin fall to add consistency in the accuracy equation,

There was a discussion going on the hide a while back about this.
Dirty little secret was that sometimes, not all the time or even most of the time but sometimes those custom actions aren't as true as you'd like to believe.

Often a smith "assumes" they're GTG and installs the barrel and you go forth. Others check and find them out of spec. Now you have a choice.

Fight with the mfg about it, hope they see it your way and either pay the smith to make it right or send you a new one (which has its own headaches and time line issues).

Or

Start with a Remington to begin with and KNOW everything's true because your smith just did it. There's no wondering or worrying about if the action you just spent a grand on is true or not.

I don't know what the truth is - suspect it's somewhere in the middle. I've never built looking at resale either, custom action or not - you're losing money.

I would take the defiance over all smoother tighter!!
Big factor the ejection port doesn't differ like on the stiller and leads for no reason to have a specific stock for that action. The defiance will fit standard Rem 700 stock with no issues and the lines will match up.
Plus the are cool

When I had my last custom built up, I was trying to decide between a Stiller and a Borden. My gunsmith said that every once in a while he has to true up the Stillers. Never had to true a Borden.

I own both Stiller and Pierce and they are both good actions. The Stiller Predators have been very consistent and a good "bang for your buck" but the price has climbed, add Borden and Defiance and you are no longer bang for buck, high quality and expensive but I would take the defiance. For my current build for the price of a defiance I skipped straight to the top and went with a BAT.