My advice to your friend - Baby Steps.
Since he hasn't built a custom rifle before If he takes Baby Steps he may find out that the donor rifle will be just fine with nothing more than an upgraded trigger, or he can build the rifle in increments so that he can stop where he is satisfied rather than dumping a lot of money into something that may not turn out the way he wanted it to.
Many folks don't realize how deep the rabbit hole is before they start going down it. Also explain to him that should he want to sell it that he likely will only recoup about one-half of what he has in the rifle
1. - Purchase a Rem 700 in the chambering of choice
2. - Install a quality aftermarket trigger
3. - Shoot the rifle and see how it performs
4. - If it does not perform as well as he wants then temporarily free-float the barrel by putting a bread wrapper tie under the front recoil lug then shoot the rifle again, this will give a fairly good idea of how the factory barrel will perform.
5. - At this point sit down with your friend and talk money with him - after-market barrel = $500 - $600, after-market stock = $300 - $600, bedding $50. - $100.
drover
