All,

I wanted to share a couple photos of my youth/ladies rifle project - a LNIB "factory-refurbished" Remington Model Seven AWR in 6.8 SPC, with a Leupold VX-II 2-7x33, S&K stainless mounts and a Gre-Tan firing pin assembly upgrade (to replace the J-lock). I hope to use her as a first hunting rifle for deer/pigs/goats/sheep for my young sons.





Yes, the stainless rings/bases and bolt shroud don't match the black Teflon, but I'll eventually strip the Teflon and coat the stainless barreled action with NP3 or NP3+ from Robar.

I emailed Remington to get more information about the rifle, but all they'd tell me is that the stock was replaced. It's a McMillan, and appears to be new/unused, althogh Remington stopped using them years ago. It's a hair under 1.5 pounds.

The bore is pristine and cleaned very easily (was fired at the factory or by the prior owner). What's most interesting is that there's a mirror polish to the bore, as if it was hand-lapped and broken-in the painstaking way (whether you think break-in is gospel or hogwash). Afer a few cycles of cleaning with M-Pro 7, two long soaks with copper solvent resulted in no indication of copper on the patches. Too bad I don't have a borescope.

I guess we'll learn more and see how things go during load development! My fingers are crossed!

Looks like an awesome rig for those purposes. You might find yourself "borrowing" it from time to time too!

Neat little rifle.

I would think the 6.8 in a little bolt action would be a more popular round being so close to the 250savage.

Thanks, gentlemen.

"Borrow" I sure will...haha. I've done that many times with my wife's Model Seven 7mm-08.

Also, the .250 Savage was another consideration. In fact, there's an AWR in .250 on Gunsamerica.

Nice gun--let me know if you ever want to sell it. My wife and kids could sure use it.

First handloads are ready for testing.

I prepped a bunch of cases and sorted by weight, with 1 of the 15 being pulled due to excessive variance. That became my dummy/seating depth test round and later max OAL dummy round. I used another case for a dummy OAL round and kept a spare unloaded. 12 were handloaded.

The lands are touched if the 110 NAB is seated to an OAL of 2.408", so I backed down quite a bit by .05" to 2.358" for initial, conservative testing. With my comparator, the length is 2.861" (not OAL but base to ogive plus the comparator unit itself). There's lots of magazine length to spare. I'm using RL-10x for starters.

Being new to the 6.8, I'm amazed at how tiny it is compared to some of my favorites:

(L-R: 6.8 Rem SPC, 7mm-08 Rem, .308 Win, .300 RUM, 6.8 Rem SPC)

The new McMillan stock was not glass bedded by Remington, so I just rectified that overnight:

My 8 year old used her Ruger Hawkeye Compact with Zeiss to drop a 240llb 9 point last year. We do not reload yet, so I was using over the Premier Core-Lokt Ultra Bonded 115 grainers. Good performance. I dont know why Remington isnt spending more money to push the 6.8 in their bolt action lines. I have shot .243, .260 and 6.5 Swede and find the 6.8 to be the mildest...perfect for women and children....good luck.

P.S. If anyone knows of a better factory load, please let me know.

Nice rifle!

The 6.8 SPC is a sweat round. You should be able to hit 2,900 fps with the Barnes 85 grain TSX. I use to own a couple of Rem light tactical 700's that were super accurate.

Thanks!

Okay, one last touch for the day, per request from the wife and kids:



After all this work, she'd better be a good shooter!

How big of a gal is she? Mine burns diesel,so she shoots a custom Savage wearing a heavy Shaw barrel in '06 with a 4.5-14x on it with 180PT's. Great all around rig for her.

Boxer, by "she'd", I was referring to the rifle, not a person. Your setup sounds great, by the way.

Anyway, my sons are tiny - Just 5 and 3 years old now, so this is a future rifle for them. The wife is 5'4", 125 lbs.

Field ready, with scope + accessories and after glass bedding, this AWR weighs in a 7 lbs. 2 oz., and calculated recoil using an estimate for the 110 NABs (say 2650 FPS)is significantly less than my Tikka .243 or any of my 7-08s with their pet loads.

Given lack of personal field experience with the round, based on energy and TKO-factor calculations plus some input from friends who've used the 6.8 on game locally, on-game performance seems to be similar to the .250 Savage. "Stray round" echoed this a few posts ago.

The concept was for a youth/ladies' starter rifle, so I hope I've landed close to the mark here. In the future, the boys can graduate to bigger, better things.

Aw heck, my .243 and 7-08s could easily have served the same purpose, so maybe I just invented an excuse to buy this cool rifle!

Cheers!

Nice rig sir. All the 6.8 bolt actions I have seen were heavy
barreled.

What would be the easiest way to gave a model 7 barreled in 6.8 without mortgaging the house? Can u send the receiver to them or would u take it to a gunsmith to buy u a new barrel for him to fit on receiver/stock?

I researched that and figured it would be easier to go with something like this AWR on the used market. Modifications to a standard Model 7 would include getting a donor rifle (preferably a used Model 7 Stainless/Synthetic), a new barrel, bolt-face modification and probably changing the follower, all of which would cost more than a used AWR. Throw in a stock upgrade, and the cost would jump even more. However, you'd end up with a fully custom rifle, spec'd exactly to your liking.

By the way, your Ruger Hawkeye Compact is a good cost-effective alternative, so why change?

If you wanted to lighten her up, just go with a lightweight aftermarket synthetic stock. For added weather resistance, Robar NP3, Cerakote, etc. would protect everything but the inside of the barrel. In the end, you'd have a package that is lighter and more compact than mine, and almost as weather-proof.

Reason overruled temptation for several months. I took my blacktail last year with my .300 RUM as well as a Montana mulie and elk. My Brown Precision .308 got the call for Lanai axis deer...etc., etc., etc.

I finally took the Model 7 AWR in 6.8 SPC out this weekend for my Unit H goat hunt along the picturesque Na Pali Coast. She performed well, filling my two tags with one shot each, both DRT at 200 and 225 yards. Admittedly, feral Spanish goats aren't the largest, toughest game by any means, but they were a good first field test of the little .277.

It was a traditional boat-in, triple-anchors set by diving, swim-in hunt. Boat/fish/dive/hunt. All that we missed were the ladies in bikinis. Enjoy the photos!







[img]http://i701.photobucket.com/albums/ww20/eushio/Nualolo%20Aina%207-28-12/DSCF0859.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i701.photobucket.com/albums/ww20/eushio/Nualolo%20Aina%207-28-12/DSCF0861.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i701.photobucket.com/albums/ww20/eushio/Nualolo%20Aina%207-28-12/DSCF0870.jpg[/img]

A few more:



Steering cable broke, so I had dual human steering for the initial part of the 19 nautical mile trip home...until I did the port/starboard alternating power trick to steer back to port.

Very nice.

that looks like a very cool hunt in some very awesome country.

Awesome Bulltail...

something most of we mainlanders never see...

must have been a wonderful day....

thanks for posting the great pictures of it..

Awesome pics and a great hunt!

How do those goats cook up? They tender or tough?

Looks like a beach!

Cool rifle and very cool pics of the goat hunt. Looks like an awesome way to break in a neat rifle.

Thanks for the great story and pictures! GRF

Very nice, I just left Waimea on the Big Island but never made it to Lanai for a hunt. Nice job on the surf and turf combo.

Thanks, all!

@4winds, in general they're pretty good, but availability of water and the age & gender of the goat play a part as well. The strongest-flavored and toughtest ones out there would tend to be old billies from a drier area.