I ordered my ultimate elk rifle from Mr. Forbes ten or so years ago: a NULA 28 in 7x61 Sharpe & Hart Magnum with a 26" #3 barrel. Even with added weight per Mr. Forbes suggestion, it balances perfectly, is accurate, and recoil isn't bad. Weight with Leupold 2.5x-8x scope is under seven pounds and eaily carried in the mountains. Shoots very well and on it's third barrel. It does fine on bull elk with either Partition or Barnes bullets. Great rifle...
10 years and 3 barrels is a heck of a accomplishment especially on a hunting rifle. Congratulations on all the shooting.
I got carried away with load development. I tried twelve bullets and about five or six powders and shot lots of groups, a few at 300 and 400 yards. At about a thousand rounds on the first two barrels, accuracy deteriorated significantly. I'm pretty well through with load development. This third barrel has no more than about 350 rounds on it since NULA installed it almost three years ago.
My first NULA, a Model 20 in .308 that I bought twelve or more years ago, also has had many round throught it, but it still has the original barrel and continues to be capable of very small groups.
