Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Kevin Weaver 7 Mashburn

Gunsmith Kevin Weaver in Peyton, Colorado, finished a new 7 Mashburn just in time for elk season!

I took delivery 28 August 19. Kevin actually went a bit out of his way and dropped it off locally on his way through Cheyenne. Because he's pretty awesome like that.

Rifle details:
Wood from Roger Vardy in Australia
Stock and metal work done by Kevin (I think he sent the bolt out for bolt checkering)
Borden Timberline Magnum action (SS steel)
#2 Krieger, 8-twist (CM steel)
Dakota bottom metal
Nitride coating by H&M (Kevin sent it out for coating)
Talley Signature bases and Screw Lock rings
Leupold 6x42 LRD

In Wyoming:


In Idaho:


In Utah:


Shoots well, this is a 5-shot group. This is about as well as I ever shoot, the rifle is probably capable of better but I'm not! And looks like I air mailed a flyer at the top. Group was still less than 1 inch for 5 shots, plenty good for me. It's 160-grain Accubonds.


Load data:

Velocity around 3135 fps. No pressure signs. I could push it more but good accuracy, good velocity, I'm not going to mess with that.

The nitride is pretty terrific. I really like that the two different steels look identical. This is likely not the last rifle I have nitrided by H&M. And Kevin is about to work on fitting an Echols Shrike on my Remington 7 Mashburn, then I'll have a wood and synthetic Mashburn pair.

Beautiful rifle!

One of my 280AI is a CM receiver with a Bartlein SS barrel, nitrided by H&M and you cannot tell the difference. I really like looks of the nitride finish, and there is nothing that is more durable.

That nitride looks fantastic. I’m not a big fan of the two tone look so that is very nice to see. Great rifle and pics!

very nice

dave

Beautiful rifle!

Is that a 26" barrel?

Thanks!

25 inch barrel.

What a wonderful project you put together, enjoy!

Looks awesome Joel. Great pictures buddy. That rifle is a treasure for sure. I was a little jealous seeing it in person. It is a looker.

Nice rig

do you know if that is a big knob upgrade or a shortie big knob upgrade on the bolt handle in order to have it engraved

Thanks Scotty! Now all I need to do is figure out how to kill elk every trip!

It’s the regular Big Knob upgrade.

I don’t know if you could have the regular bolt knob engraved or no.

I didn’t know about the shorty big knob until you mentioned it. That’s interesting. I wonder how much shorter the “short” version is. I don’t have any problem with the regular one, they are probably both fine.

I hear you buddy. We take the bad with the good. Next year we will be back in our old country. With bull tags.

Beautiful rifle, our old buddy BobinNH would have highly approved. I miss his posts

Very nice!

Man that’s a handsome rifle

Lovely rifle! Any elk would be very proud to be shot with that.

Nice looking rifle, really nice!
I can’t see changing much of anything in that build.
Enjoy it and go forth and slay elk.

Joel,
Haven’t you been working on that project for quite some time?

Looking back about 2 years, maybe a little longer. Probably half of that was waiting on various parts ie receiver/barrel etc.

Wow what a beauty!

Incredible build. Worth every minute of that 2yr wait.

Beautiful rifle; looks a little heavy for my taste though.

What does it weigh with the scope & mounts?

MM

I haven’t weighed it, I would guess 8.5-9 lbs. Light enough I carried it in the mountains several days without the assistance of ATVs or horses. My lightest rifle is around 7 lbs, and I have a couple heavier rifles than this one.

It’s around the lightest wood stock rifle I have. Roger Vardy’s wood blanks are rated at light/medium/heavy and this was a light blank from his inventory.

Very nice!!

Thanks for sharing! That is a awesome rig. Congrats on the Elk.

Man that’s a fantastic rig right there; very very nice!

What’s the difference between black nitride & black t? Anyone know?

There’s a relatively straightforward answer, which is:

(From Wikipedia) Nitriding is a heat treating process that diffuses nitrogen into the surface of a metal to create a case-hardened surface...so Nitriding is a technical change to the metal, not a coating on top of the metal.

In contrast, Black T is a coating, like a paint or Cerakote.


However, I think a logical extension of your question is which is better, Nitride or Black T? That one I can’t say. Nitride seems tougher than Cerakote (which I have scratched), but I don’t have any rifles with Black T. I’ve heard good things.

Very interesting thanks. I chose Black T on a chrome-moly action & SS barreled rifle does the same reason you chose Nitride. I’m waiting to take delivery right now and will post up pics/report when I get it back.

Again love the rifle Joel that’s absolutely perfect in my estimation. The combination of beautiful wood and modern weather-resistant playing is a great balance especially with the general look of bluing.

Cartridge is about perfect too!

I would be interested to see the Black T results. Weaver is fitting a Shrike to a different R700 7 Mashburn now and I’m debating nitride or Black T.

Same here for mine. I’ve got a couple getting Black T right now. Kevin will be getting my 700 for the Shrike and barrel pretty quick. I can’t imagine either will be too bad. Your nitrided MSM is incredible though. Definite head turner.

Sweet!

The downside of the Nitride is the rifle needs shot a touch, then cleaned, then disassembled and sent off to do it right. I called and talked to H&M and they said the best way is to disassemble everything—barrel off the receiver, bolt disassembled, trigger removed, etc. Kevin did this stuff when he had it but if you are just doing a barrel it’s more effort and shipping back and forth.

If that is the case it may just get the Black T treatment. I can actually send it off once Kevin does all of the gunsmithing work. Maybe not quite the protection of Nitride but it'll be enough.

It may be a touch heavy but it balances excellent. Feels pretty good in my paws. Joel/Kevin knocked it out of the park with that build.

I bought a Mexican Small Ring 98 7x57 here about 10 yrs ago and sent it off to the smith to have a Dakota 3-position safety installed. Then it needed chamber recut. Then some reworking of the action yada yada yada to today it’s a .257 Rob with 1-in-9” twisted Rock Creek #1 tube in a McM Edge.

Re heat treated, Glimm’s engraved knob, G33 shaping on the driver’s side, S&Ks, reworked tang to eliminate the “Mauser notch” in stock and allow more open grip.

Anyway I’m 4 wks of the 4-6 expected into its time at Birdsong right now. Pretty excited after all this time!

I’ll post pics and whatnot here.

Beautiful rifle! Great cartridge! What a combination!

Thanks! I look forward to seeing the pictures!

That is a beautiful rifle Joel, Bob would love it.

EFW, looking forward to pics.

That is definitely a 10 in my eyes! Awesome looking rig. Looks like it balances perfectly. Congratulations!

Nice stick Joel, and yes, Big B, you old enabler!

I was pretty reluctant to try the Mashburn as I’m not willing to put up with recoil. Scotty convinced me the Mashburn recoil wasn’t worse than the 30-06s I was using.

So yes, he’s the enabler!

LOL, yes he is, I have a hell of an accurate load that launches 160 ab's to 3220 fps with H-1000 if you ever have the need.

Around 75.5 grains? Hornady brass? CCI250s?

160 AB around 0.07 or 0.08 off the lands?

Just guesses after listening to Scotty for a while.

Yessir, 76gr H-1000, 15 thou off at 3.550 inch, Fed-215 or CCI-250, Using the MAI brass Fred was hawking a couple years ago, it's made by Norma, 300 win mag necked down, bought a pin kit at Beretzs' direction, still no donuts!

That’s a classic load in my book. I may try it again with 160 Partitions so I can use up some of these 160 BBCs I’m sitting on.

You bet Big B, a quick spin up 12.5 moa will have me wearing that ball cap size hole in the 700 yard rock a little deeper ; ]

I recently picked up some ADG 300 Win Mag brass, after Form/Trim/FL dies (before firing) no donuts yet. Could be another candidate for brass. I’ll report when I have some more firing. Right now I have wood flooring all over the house waiting for install.

10-4 on the donut report, hope you never find any, my damn fire form loads are too accurate to blow through, need to kill a deer with that thing this year.

That rifle is flat gorgeous.

That is some kinda fine rifle, absolutely beautiful!!!



Bob would have loved that rifle and especially your caliber choice!!!

I have a very similar setup from Kevin built on a Kimber in 7 Mashburn. Was originally built on a classic, but now bedded to a Montana stock. Runs 175 partitions with H1000. My go to Elk rig at the moment. Kevin has the magic touch. His stock work looks fantastic. I was inspired by all the Mashburn zealots and especially Bob's posts.

Man, I’d like to see a picture of that rifle. Kevin has been nothing great to me and my family.

Kevin’s done two for me.....both were shooters.