Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Most common mistake on custom rifle planning

Another mistake is not letting Boxer do your barrel break-in for you.......................Boxer please post video!!

Can't speak for Ray, but Dan has been a favorite. Number of friends have used him and he is class all the way. Nice cause he is over near my bear hunting spot and always nice to drop a rig off or pick one up while in the area. Plus his shop is a man cave from heaven. Love stopping in there.

but Dan only works on M700's...

Stick is the one who got me started down the right path on about my 3rd build. Much appreciated his time and knowledge along the way. Not using his break in procedure though....

Yup. No problem for me though.

search it out on youtube...it's still there...I watch it once a week...:-)

Yep. It's some good schitt!

Dan Dowling is a great gunsmith, he is even a better human being. but dont let him talk you into trying his ghost pepper hot sauce. WOW burnin ring of fire is an understatement !!!

WRONG !!!!!

I talked to him on the phone. Why would I lie?

Not saying you are lying, he is a bit hard of hearing and you might of misunderstood him

Letting somebody else build it. Do it yourself. Be happy.

Last I talked to him, he would work on 700s and 700 clones. Think he does a lot of benchrest stuff too and sure those are higher end actions. Easy enough to call him during his shop hours and find out.

I called him when I had my 6.5-06 built. It was a Savage action. He told me he only works on M700's these days, and told me to call Ray Montgomery for Savage, Ruger, etc. I talked to him for awhile, and he was a nice guy. We just bullschitted about guns and shooting.

Those barrel stubs with the reamer ran in are called "neck Checkers". The term came from wildcatters and benchrest shooters necking down cases from other cartridges other than the formed case. The brass gets thicker when you neck it down, if the case would drop in the barrel stubb, then the round was safe to shoot in the rifle, in as far as neck Outside Diameter was concerned. The added benefit came when someone realized that you could also check the Bullet seating depth. Milling away 1/4 of the barrel stubb along the bore axis reveals the leade angle, amount of throat, and distance between the front of the case and the point where the leade angle starts. You can not measure these distances, but you can sure see them.

And they work great for checking shoulder bump dimensions accurately!

Likely; one of biggest mistakes a man can make is thinking he can do it right the 1st time... I can't think of anyone I ever knew that had a custom built that didn't do it again, and again, and....

After I get one done, I always find there is something I wish I had done differently... Never fails!

GH

Paying what one costs'. Other than looking prettier, I'll put my stock Savage outta the box up against any custom. Yeah you might shoot a quarter inch better, but you have to ask yourself, is several thousand dollars really worth that 1/4 in?

In my experience it has been building the rifle too heavy for the task intended and not watching a local hack gunsmith close enough and winding up with a ruined rifle in the end.

#1 mistatke is probably building a rifle too heavy for the intended purpose. Second would probably be not getting the coal of the rounds correct for the intended purpose.