Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles One NULA for all of North America?

You got me beat. Bunch of Whitetails, one Elk, couple Mulies, 1 Blackbear and 1 Antelope and the two Mountain Goats.

Had a Dall picked out, but Smokepole went out and killed him first.

You know how to operate one of those fancy bolt action rifles? I thought they came long after those Flint Locks of your day!

💪💪Atlatl💪💪

Yea, Yea, Yea it's all in fun. Just killing time in between elk hunts. Killed a bull Wed with the ULA 300 Win. headed to Wyo next weekend w it. Never had a flint lock. If Melvin made it I'd probably have to buy one. Do have my first NULA on the way a muzzy. Can't wait to try it. Glad you are a hunter Battue. Good luck this fall.

And to you also!!!!👍

Considering the same but pretty sure I’ll just go 280AI Fieldcraft when they are available. SWFA 3-9 on top or a 2.5-10x32 NF if I can find one. Wouldn’t need anything else could stop buying rifles and spend the money hunting.

Why not a .280 Ackley?

Something to consider...
Purchase a forbes rifle and send it back to Melvin for a barrel,paint and any other things you may want and be around 2000.00 total depending on the donor rifle

This is what I did. I wanted a Nula form the time I first heard of them in the 80's but couldn't afford one. Bought a Forbes not long after they came out and shot it for awhile but dreamed of it being a 284 Win so called Melvin and had it done. It is a good rifle and shoots very well , Douglas barrel and all.

35 Whelen!!

Plenty of power, moderate recoil for old bones!

The very last sentence is of some concern...........

This minus the Iron sights and install a Swaro Z3 3-9x36 👍.......Enjoy!....Hb

I don't know what Barrett does and I personally don't care if Forbes touches his NULA rifle builds or not,
as long as the product is up to scratch.

but for any prospective customers seriously considering handing over their money for a rifle they think
will be built by Mr.Forbes personally as a guarantee of quality , it may interest some to know that their
order may have very little hands on involvement from the man.

when the more budget priced mass production Forbes 24B was being reviewed and promoted, Forbes went on record
to explain the difference between it and his customs ..




but it didn't go on to say what or how much personal 'touching' you got from Melvin Forbes on a NULA.

I took it that a person buying a new Forbes 24B would be getting a great value rifle - in that you would have a lot of what
the NULA custom shop delivers but at a fraction of the price.

As suggested by some, buying a pre-owned 24B for under $1k and then fitting a high quality barrel, seems smart.

It would seem that Melvin Forbes has made two major mistakes in his rifle building career. One with Colt and the other with Forbes. Or at least the outcomes didn’t live up to his expectation.

The Barrett comment was made to state the obvious, that he no longer does much of the hands on smithing, and for the most part oversees the final product.

Another later mentioned that with the reopening of the mines, this has changed. Something I don’t know to be fact or not.

However, Melvin Forbes laughingly calling himself the Master, would seriously be an anomaly from what I know of his character.

Melvin is probably touching the rifles they make as much as he use to and maybe more...he cant find help or anybody that wants to learn to build a rifle...the last time i was at the shop thats next to his house he had two employees

I've tried other light rifles over many years, but never found one that would shoot like my NULA .308 that I ordered about ten or so years ago. I have the #1 barrel, 22" in length, with a 6x36 Leupold. I've used it only for elk hunting and have taken several with it at ranges up to a little over 300 yards. No doubt this rifle would be fine for deer or most other game on this continent. Granted NULA rifles are expensive and they may not always be out-of-the-box perfect, but my gun has been a good one that remains very accurate after years of the uncontrolled load development that I do with all rifles (can't seem to try enough powders and bullets). I now use only the Barnes 150 TTSX BT and H4895 powder that provides a muzzle velocity of about 2850 fps.

I won't argue cartridge choice as I think there's virtually no field difference between the .308, 7mm-08, the .284 or similar short cartridges. And, sure, the .30-06 is always a good one, too. My NULA is not one of the "all day long rifles" that many Internet pros have, but I've shot enough small groups with it to know that it's a very accurate rifle, despite having been fired a great deal. There's nothing wrong with Douglas barrels, even if they aren't the most popular.

Agree on CA Ridgeline. Mine in 300wsm has minimal recoil. The lightest I've felt in that chambering. It's a shooter too. The happiest I've been with a rifle in a long time.

Kind gesture for a newer fire member

Hank

There are too far many quality factory rifles on the market these days that come out of the box sub moa accuracy for this to be acceptable imo.

If I’m sending $1000-$1500 and I get a rifle that has a mechanical issue or I can’t get a sub moa group with it using premium factory ammo, it’s understandable because it’s a factory rifle but if I’m ordering a rifle in the $4000 range and have to wait a year and a half to receive it, it had better shoot and function as advertised, otherwise all I’m spending the extra money on is the name stamped on the side of it (which by the way was crooked on my model 24).

bigwhoop,

While I haven't shot a NULA made in the last decade, I did get to extensively shoot one of the Forbes rifles in .30-06, while doing an evaluation of a couple of "limited production" rifles for a a magazine. That particular Forbes was one of the early ones put together by Melvin, and it shot exactly like the .30-06 ULA I got in 1996, with the same handloads I worked up for the ULA.

In fact, it shot so well a local friend who was at the same, small private range while I was testing it decided he wanted to buy it. I was pretty sure that would be okay, so let him take it home to play with it some himself. The people who ran Forbes said it would be okay as well--but Melvin heard about it and objected, because it was among the test rifles he was sending around to gun writers. So I got it back from my friend, and Forbes sent me another .30-06 for him to buy--which shot just like the first one. He likes it a lot, and has shot a bunch of game with it, including several bull elk. As I recall, the handlooad he uses features the 165-grain Nosler AccuBond. Can't remember the powder, but three shots at 100 are usually touching.