Well, like another poster, who shall remane un-namd\ed, I told myself I wasn’t gonna build another gun, and like said poster, I did – a 6.5PRC.
Following said poster’s advice and past personal knowledge of running the 6.5-284 in a SA, the 6.5PRC is built on a LA – magnum bolt face to give me the added magazine length to seat bullets out if needed.
The nuts and bolts:
Bighorn Origin LA Magnum w/20MOA
Rem 700 BDL bottom metal w/mag follower
Bartlein S/S, #4, finished @ 26”, muzzle threaded 5/8-24
Southern Precision Rifles ‘Bugnut’ barrel nut
McMillan Game Hunter stock
Leupold VX3i LRP 6.5-20x50 (eventually a Swaro X5 3.5-18x50)
Trigger Tech Special trigger
Action and Bugnut wrenches
I tossed around the idea of using a Rem 700 LA Mag action. The difference in cost between the 700 action and the Bighorn was about the equivalent of what it would cost to have the 700 action brought up to par, or the way I’d want it – trued, bolt fluted, side bolt release, etc. So I went with the Bighorn.
Barrel choice boiled down to what was available. I’m a big fan of Mullerworks barrels, but Southern Precision Rifles had the Bartlein #4 in stock so that’s what I went with. I also decided to give a “Remage” system a try – opting for SPR’s Bugnut system.
All the part/pieces came together late last week. Wasted no time putting things together over the weekend. Installing the barrel and setting the headspace was a breeze with the barrel nut system. Installed the TriggerTech and dropped the barreled action into the McMillan. The Varmint/Sendero barrel channel inlet was more than enough to accommodate the Bartelin #4, but not so much as to leave a gaudy gap. Suprisingly, NO inletting was required to accommodate the barrel nut. Installed the bottom metal and spent a few minutes admiring the newest addition to the ‘collection’.
In following the un-named poster’s writings, I knew that he had mentioned that his Rem 700 LA Mag-based PRC fed like ‘chit through a goose’ (aka no problems) so I figured I see for myself. Let’s just say that my results didn’t quite match his.
First off, the Bighorn Origin loading port is not nearly as open as a Rem 700. So loading rounds is a little bit of a challenge. In any case, I loaded some dummy rounds in the magazine and tested feeding. It was hit or miss. With all of the rounds slid as far back as the magazine would allow, the most comon scenario was that the bolt would pick up the first round and chamber it. The bolt passed cleanly over all of the other rounds when cycled, never picking up the second round. At first I though maybe the fact that the Bighorn bolt is a controlled-round feed configuration might be the issue. Not the case. Rounds were not standing up high enough for the bolt to engage them. Rounds remaining in the magazine were resting on the follower such that the case head was well below the bolt with the bullet tilted slightly up. For lack of a better term, they were ‘teetering’. Moving the rounds slightly forward in the magazine did help. However, under recoil the rounds would likely slide back in the magazine and not get picked up. I played with the follower spring a bit, but saw little, if any change. I couldn’t seem to get enough pressure on the back of follower to keep the rounds level. As a last ditch effort, and before putting everything away for another day, I slid the magazine spring back in the floorplate (toward the trigger guard) about 1/4”. In doing so it appears that the follower now has enough upward pressure at the back of the magazine to keep the rounds level and thus at a point the bolt can pick them up when cycled forward. More testing- static and live fire - is warranted though.
Interestingly enough and based on my last effort to resolve feeding, I noticed that neither the floorplate or the follower spring had a ‘dimple’ to ensure proper positioning. As I recall, the ‘dimple’ was ‘standard’ on 700 floorplates and follower springs forever. If I decide to stay the course with BDL bottom metal, I’ll have to figure out a way to secure the follower spring in its current location on the floorplate. Alternatively, one of the guys I shoot with regularly has a Greyboe Terrain LA stock w/M5 bottom metal and some magazines (300WM, I think.) May have to talk him out of it for a few days and run some feeding tests with it and single-stack mags in lieu of the McM/BDL bottom metal configuration.
