Anyone have any experience with these?

i have held only one. very nice rifle, but not worth the price imo. others may disagree.

Just another soul less plastic stocked push feed. Like we needed another one of THOSE! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.......

I examined one in our gunshop. It looked like it would be okay. It seemed a little bulky to me. I like "plastic" stocks though so I may be in the minority!

I have shot and hunted with several.

They are put together very well, and the stock is made by one of the best syn-stock makers in the country (not McMillan, if you're guessing). The action is blue-printed, and honed until it works very easily. The barrels are Pac-Nor, chambered and screwed on in a custom shop. They shoot very, very well. The metal is all Cera-Koted. In short, they're not just an upgraded factory rifle, but are built like a top-grade custom syn-stock rifle.

Whether they're worth the money would be up to the individual. They're cheaper than quite a few custom syn-stock rifles, but you don't get any choice in the details, except the chamberings Nosler offers.

Held one at nra convention the other day - really liked it but I've never shot one. Didn't notice stock was plastic - assumed it was fiberglass

Nope. For the kind of green they command i can have Jim Borden work his magic. Besides...cant warm up to anything Pac Nor. I like having choices and input into a rifle I'm layin down that much jack for.

I'll give you $350 for it.

PM me.

Kyle

They chamber 280AI, that has to be worth some cool points.

I was not shopping for a Nosler 48 but I bought one at a ILA auction for a price that no one on this forum would pass up.

Looks like a really nice rig to me.

Some guys are obviously getting good ones so perhaps I got a lemon or their quality control is not what it should be but I own one in 270 WSM, talley rings and kahles scope on it and can't say as I'm impressed, I took a chance on it since I found a new one for a steal locally. The local Nosler dealer had several for sale they could not move at anywhere near full retail.

The steel floorplate/trigger guard have to go. You make a superlight rifle and put a 3/4lb floor plate on it. It's not a safari rifle, it's not a tactical rifle. They could have dropped another 1/3lb easily by using a strong alloy floorplate.

The action/barrel finish is just a baked on cheap cera-kote coating, not very durable, and on mine at least in places way way too thickly applied. Thickly enough on the action it almost obscures the lettering. They also coated the bolt itself, this is a no-no as it gums up the action because the coating is soft and thick.

The stock while very light and of good quality for it's weight NEEDS to be pillar bedded especially on a stock that is that light and flexy. The bedding job on mine is so bad that when you tightened the rear action bolt you could see it flex the action/stock. It was pulling the action down enough that it was altering the alignment of the scope rings from when the action was loose to tight. I tried a simple skim bed job to try and fix it, better but no go, it needs pillar bedding and for the price it should have it.

The stock paint job is a joke, fleckstone spray paint would be more durable. While it's a gun to be used and I don't mind some coating wear when you are dealing with a $2500+ retail rifle good coatings are expected.

The trigger is nothing special, good weight and not bad for travel but mine had a noticeable "notch" in the middle of the trigger travel and the trigger face especially was disappointing, very rough finish with sharp corners/edges.

I could forgive all that if it actually shot to the accuracy guarantee, but it didn't. It was in the 1.5" range with several different types of ammo. Which given the condition of the bedding interface does not surprise me at all. I also tried a proven S&B scope off another rifle same problem.

What really did it for me was when I posted these concerns on the Nosler factory forum, my account and posts were deleted. Seems they only allow positive comments on their products.

So it sits in the safe and I'm in the decision process deciding if I want to dump money into it having it properly pillar bedded to see if it fixes the accuracy issue, or trading it off. If I had paid anywhere near retail for it I'd be pissed. My remington LTR in .308 and HS-precision in 300wm shoot well under 3/4" 5 shot groups.

Someone correct me if i am wrong. I seam to remember reading somewhere that the nosler rifles were made by howa. Am I correct on this?

Based on a Howa. Built by a custom smith that I can't remember the name of.

I think they are overpriced for a non-call it like you want it custom.

Tom

Todd,

I don't have one of these rifles, but curiosity is killing me - did you measure the thickness or can you just visually identify areas where the cerakote is too thick or thin? I don't know who Nosler uses to cerakote their rifles, do they do that in-house or send it out?

Sorry to hear of your bad luck with that rifle - I would have thought that if Nosler provided a guarantee, you could have shipped the rifle back to them and they would have resolved the problem. What did they say when you contacted them?

Thanks for your input.

Well "too thick" is subjective and it's nitpicking, but it's also $3000 "custom" rifle. I can't measure the thickness however on the action "flats" it looks like it's "caked" on.

I've never liked cera-kote much shops only use it because it's cheap, offers colors, and is easy to apply without a special setup. As a firearm coating it's very subpar. As you run the bolt the coating wears off and gums up the action. In fact various custom action makers specifically recommend NOT using cera-kote on their bolts for exactly this reason.

I did contact Nosler about the bedding issue to inquire if they would pillar bed it at my request, they don't do that. Since I don't feel non-pillar bedding is acceptable for this rifle (or any rifle for that matter) I saw no point in sending it in for them to lay in a little epoxy and call it "fixed". Over time the stock area where the action bolts are will compress or "squish" changing not only how the action sits in the stock, but creating weak points. This is just the nature of the beast as to get them that light the interior fiberglass filling has to have a lot of void space and very little epoxy. Pillar bedding would ensure the action always has a solid interface between the action and the torqued bolts. Without transmitting the clamping stress to the stock. Full length bedding would also address the issue similar to what NULA does though personally I prefer pillars.

If it was just one issue I might be more forgiving and give them a chance to address it. Every company and custom shop makes mistakes sooner or later. However this isn't a $400 gun from walmart, it's a $3000 gun. I can see one of these issues making it by a company with concern for quality control, but all of them....no way. When you pay that much for a rifle it better be right the first time and frankly it's too bad more customers don't demand it and spread the word because there are a lot of companies making "custom" guns these days that just don't stack up to their hype.

This one obviously was not inspected properly, or test fired for accuracy in the stock before shipping, or it was and they didn't care when these issues were noticed. Add to that when these issues were brought up on their forums they deleted my account and posts which says to me they don't want to deal with customer issues and who knows how many other people have tried to report similar or other problems and had their posts and accounts deleted.

That really doesn't encourage me to bother with sending it back to them and letting them "fix" it.

There is no way I'd let them slide on a $3k rifle.

Tom

toddm,

Which of the versions of Nosler's rifle did you get?

I post on their forum from time to time. I notice it usually takes them some time to fix an obvious (to me anyway) problem they have.

I would hold their feet to the fire, well explosion.

jim

Gotcha. I didn't know if you tried to send it to them based upon the bedding issues or the accuracy issue, since it wouldn't meet the guarantee.

I've only had one cerakote job - it was on a muzzleloader and Doug did a great job.

Jim,

This is the Nosler M48 custom sporter in 270wsm. Shown here:

http://www.nosler.com/riflemodel48home.htm

The interesting part is their new lower priced version the M48 the "Trophy Grade" should be heavier but address the stock and bolt issues. They are using an B&C AL chassis on the stock and it looks like they are no longer coating the bolts on those at least with cerakote. Curious though that they list the same weight for both rifles at 6.5 pounds. The BC stock has to be heavier, so either they saved weight going to an AL floorplate/trigger guard or the weights are not listed right. Also the MSRP is $1200 less, so that can't just be the stock so perhaps they are also using lower quality actions/barrels/tolerences to make up for the price point difference.

Cerakote can be a good coating, I've had a couple custom rifles done with it, but never the bolt. It has it's uses and is more durable than spray paint for sure. However it's thicker and softer than other coatings if you have tight tolerances such as a custom bolt raceway etc. it can really gum things up.

I called them to discuss the issues and after the call I didn't really see the point in sending it to them on my $$$ to have them skim bed it again. If I buy a $500 remington or a winchester etc. and it has some issues, I don't mind giving the company a second or even third (in some cases) chance to make it right. I expect at those price points from huge quantity companies that some things are going to slip by quality control and such.

However with a $3000 MSRP rifle that the maker claims is custom, and test shot and verified multiple times before leaving the factory there's no way it should happen, period. A small issue maybe, stuff like this nah.

Also in my experience those companies that do let things like this get out of their factory rarely fix the issues properly when they are given the opportunity.

In my mind the best way to encourage them to improve their product and quality control is to get the word out to potential customers. Not to bash them, or run them out of business, but at least to let potential customers know that not all the products coming from them are up to par and quality control is a concern. Nosler is already aware of the issues not only due to my talking to them about it, but also due to my deleted and removed account on their own forums.

It actually would be interesting to drop it into one of the AL chassis stocks either HS precision or BC to see how the accuracy improved.

I've accepted that I'm much more picky than the average guy that walks in and buys a rifle. Even if I returned the rifle to Nosler and they skim bedded it and got it to shoot to their standards I'd still desire it pillar bedded because over time these ultralight stocks compress under the action bolt stress. So I'd still have to address that, along with having the bolt stripped and blued, along with addressing the trigger issues (as I'm sure Nosler would consider the trigger acceptable).

I also have a sneaking suspicion that Nosler either doesn't test fire them for accuracy or as many other companies do, they lock them in an action vice without the stock. Which to me is a joke because the action/barrel/stock interface is pivotal to actual accuracy of the rifle. You can take an action/barrel in a vice and shoot .25" groups with it but put it in a crappy stock and it won't shoot 2".

Nosler has a statement on their webpage that says "Each rifle is tested for accuracy with Nosler ammo and is guaranteed to shoot 3/4" 3 shot groups at 100 yards AFTER 20-40 rounds of break in".

To me that's highly suspect. If the rifle is accuracy tested and has to shoot 3/4" or better when it's brand new from the factory, why then does it take 20-40 rounds of break in to do so for the owner? Unless they are testing them to a larger group standard (say 1-1.5") and hoping they group smaller as more rounds go down the tube or not testing them at all hoping the quality of parts and workmanship get them that level of accuracy in most cases.

These companies also know that most guys can't shoot 3/4" groups anyway so they'll never know if the rifle lives up to it's guarantee or not.

Toddm,
IIRC AlaskaCub had a similar problem after cerakoting his rifle - bolt caused problems. Doug Burche mentioned that it will take a while for the bolt to slick back up from use.

toddm,

My Rifle #251/July 2010 arrived with the article "Nosler Model 48 Trophy Grade" by John Haviland. John asked about the $1,000 price drop and Mike Lake from Nosler responsible guy for the rifle said "...lower cost is mainly the result of less hand-fitting of the stock the action and barrel and a composite synthetic stock instead of a Kevlar-reinforced synthetic stock."

John was able to get sub-MOA groups afterwhat I judge to be a lot of reloading...jim

Ah, that explains a lot! All Model 48's I've shot were with the previous Kevlar stock, which I believe was pillar-bedded.

I've got a Pac-Nor screwed onto a standard Ruger 77 which is quite capable of shooting hole-touching (.375 holes) five shot groups at 100 yards. It was no more trouble than putting the freshly barreled action back into the high tech (factory skeleton) stock and mounting a high tech (Leupold M-8 Compact 4X) scope on it. I think sometimes we make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. Oh, I forgot the high tech bullets too: Hornady 300 RN.

So did Nosler change in midstream and stop pillar bedding the Model 48?

Its a difference between the two lines: Custom Grade is pillar bedded and the newer and cheaper Trophy Grade line uses an aluminum "bedding skeleton".

Reading between the lines I believe more expensive synthetic stock is a NULA/Melvin Forbes product, but I don't know that.

jim

But if I'm reading things correctly, toddm says he has one of the expensive custom 48's (the $3,000 one) and it doesn't have pillar bedding. Just curious...

There's actually 4 Nosler 48's from what I can see on their site.

There's the new lower priced Trophy Grade that has the AL skeleton bedding block Bell and Carlson stock. MSRP at $1800. Never played with one.

There's the Custom Sporter that has an ultralight stock that's skim bedded but has no pillars (at least mine doesn't), nor is the trigger guard/floorplate bedded. Perhaps the older or newer models than mine do have pillars. Mine was bought in Mid 2009 and is SN 16XX. MSRP at $3000

There's the Varmint heavy barrel I don't know much about the stock on it and Nosler doesn't give much for specifics MSRP is $3000

There's also the wood stocked "custom" that is their most expensive model at $4200 MSRP. They don't say if that one is pillar bedded or not and I've seen one but never took one apart.

I know I've read a couple other people have had issues with bedding on the custom sporters so perhaps they started adding pillars to the stocks in order to help reduce the problem. I wouldn't mind finding one of the full AL bed/pillars Hogue stocks or an bell carlson with the AL bedding block similar to what the Trophy Grade has just to see how much it improves the accuracy if any but haven't convinced myself to put another $200-300 into it just to test it.