I have a Remington Sportsman 78 in 308 Win. I installed a Timney trigger, mounted a Nightforce SHV 3-10, and bedded it in a B&C Alaskan stock.
I have a few loads that shoot well in this rifle. From the occasional 0.75” groups with ELD-M, to 1.25” groups with various 150-165 grain hunting bullets. Currently, I am shooting out to 325 yards, and can manage 3-5” groups at that range. Would like to see a little more accuracy.
I bought a suppressor (Silencerco Hybrid 46) a few months back, and should have it in hand Dec-Feb time frame. It will cost me $125 to have a local gun smith cut the barrel down from 22” to 20” and thread the barrel for the suppressor.
I have also been looking at replacement barrel costs. The Remage barrels look like a good option and instead of spending the $125 on the factory barrel; I could use that towards the cost of a new barrel and do some of the work myself. I have a friend with a Savage wrench as well as headspace gauges. I would only need the gunsmith to remove the factory barrel and maybe true up the action.
I use this rifle for out west for elk hunting, and in the future for informal long range shooting.
Spend the $125 on the current barrel and hope that accuracy improves, or spend a little more and get a new barrel?
For a regular barrel, I have been looking at Douglas, for a remage, I have been looking at RaggedHole. What are some other barrels I should be looking at? Total budget is in the $300-500ish range but would like to keep costs down as much as possible.
