Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles How many Blaser men here?

Can't say i've had a jam with the Blaser, and i would say that it would be particularly unlikely with the R8, due to the feed mechanism. I have heard a bit of feed issues though with the "mini" cartridges - .222 and .223. Which is not suprising in an action that can also accomodate the .458 Lott! I have decided, personally, i don't think i will add a .223 bolt head for this reason. If i wanted a varmint gun, i'd either go to the .243, or just buy a specific varmint rifle. You can buy the R8 without the detachable trigger/magazine set if you want to.

Typically, the guys that can afford such rifles have a lot more money than practice with such a gun. They think high price equals high functionality. In the end, the gun is no better than the operator behind the bolt. Most often problem I see is short stroking the bolt. Not even the finest bolt gun is immune to a jam under that condition.

The Blaser R8 has a near foolproof feeding system as it gets. Single-stack, guided straight in from the mag. 360 degree lockup once in with 200+ thousand PSI strength at hand!
Since I have owned my R93 & R8 I have never had a miss-feed or malfunction in any way.
Plain & simple the new Blaser R8 is the strongest, finest/most well made factory rifle for ones $ in today's market & IMO up there as one of the most thought out action designs ever.

Same to you George, but those Blasers are not for me.

That is your opinion and mostly mine too.

I owned a Prestige (middle-of-the-road model) R93 and had a Pro stock also with 6.5x55, 30/06, and 375H&H barrels. These three barrels were the most accurate three sporting "rifles" I've ever owned or shot. I shot a .38" group with the 375 and with this load it averaged about .5". The 6.5 did as well with the 06 just behind those two. The 375 with the 06 barrel went to Africa--Namibia with it's famous red dust about the consistency of white flour--and I read here how the R93 with it's close tolerances would bind upright after you uncased it. It not only didn't bind but didnt in ten days of traipsing through the bush becoming covered in the stuff. I simply took it down each evening and wiped it off.

Size and weight-wise (this does not pertain to the R8) it is distinctly more compact and lighter than the typical traditional bolt sporter with the same barrel length. This is because the bolt head locks into a 360 degree detent just within the barrel, not the receiver. So, the receiver not being the recipient of high thrust pressure can be made of lighter alloys which it is and it's unique design enables it to be 3-4 inches shorter.

The point made about jams could very well be short stroking as it's difficult to jam cartridges held in a straight line any other way. Perhaps hand loads with OALs that jam the bullet front into the front of the magazine would be another scenario but these issues would be so with any bolt gun. It is true that the modularity of the design puts the .223 in the same length action as a 375 with only a magazine and bolt head change. As mentioned above, there might be a greater propensity for a jam with the shorter cartridges, but not necessarily.

I've addressed this before but this is as good a place as any to repeat it. Early in this past decade there were some highly publicized "blow-ups" of R93s in Europe that after much research turned out to be one documented case where a hand load was determined to have developed over 120k psi. This was all documented by an independent European agency. While the shooter was injured many parts of the action were still useable. In the same time frame there documented blow-ups of Mausers, Weatherbys, and Winchesters (or these were recalled to put the Blaser's in context). The point being that a careless hand loader can turn any sporter into a pipe bomb.

The Blaser "Bolt Action" is a typical Teutonic Engineering approach... find the most complicated route to do the simplest end.

Some are fascinated by the unnecessarily complicated, I'm not one of them...

Brad, you do realise your Kimber is still essentially a Mauser action, don't you? And you know where Paul Mauser came from don't you (in fact, did you realise Mauser and Blaser are the same company). You could also argue the mauser claw and ejector is unneccesarily complicated.

Give me a German anything over anything made in the USA - particularly rifles. In all honesty, folks in these parts really do make joke about "Made in USA" these days, just like folks used to make jokes about made in Japan. Everybody shoots european or japanese made rifles. Buy european or japanese, and you are buying quality assurance. Buy US and you are buying a marketing campaign and massive corporate bonus. This is the real reason the US is broke - it is your corporate culture. You have been making $hit for decades, and trading on your reputation. Nobody outside of the US wants to buy anything made in the US anymore. And bizzarely, in Australia or 'most anywhere alse in the world i can buy a Sako A7 for the price of a Winchester M70, or a Sako 85 for the cost of a Kimber - and there is just no comparison in quality. Even though the Finns pay their workers twice what you guys pay. And thats because half the cost didn't go on a marketing campaign.

Yes & no Brad.

Let's break this design down...

Barrel. 3 pieces. Barrel & 2 threaded studs, which are used to secure the barrel to the stock. Which is basically a 1 piece due to the way the studs are fixed(high pressure hydraulic presses).
The 2 barrel studs mate to the 2 nuts(permanently in stock, so these cannot be lost & cannot be stripped due to the design) located in the 1 piece stock.
The barrel has 4 scollops to accommodate the mounts. So what we have is a very basic designed 'modular' barrel system.

PS-R8 open sights are screwed-in steel type.
Blaser coating is hard & not too many other coatings could match it for toughness.

The Blaser is NO Mauser... the basic Mauser is the simplest, most efficient, battle-proven way to get it done.

Everything else in the bolt action world is an also-ran including the Kimber.

ok, stupid question coming. how is blaser pronounced?

blazer
blosser
blasser

i've heard them all.

Plus 1 scollop which mates to the 'steel' tongue in the stock. Similar to the T3 is some aspects.... Maybe even the reason why Tikka adopted this system. Which has proven to be extremely simple, reliable & superbly accurate, in both designs!

You know, the Mauser action was considered very innovative in its day, and I figure that if we had internet forums in the early 1900s, we would have to listen to a bunch of guys crap, about how the were too complex, expensive, ugly, unsafe, over engineered, and possibly unsafe. These fellows were wrong then, and the guys who filled their boots are wrong today.

Stock.

1 piece construction(not including the tip of the fore-end) using proven/extremely stable plastics. Which then has Blasers unique steel bedding system. And as mentioned. Steel tongue mates into the barrel-scollop.
3 elastic inserts for grip. These are IMO not matched by any other rifle design I have the pleasure of owning. The XCR inserts come close to the feel but yet so far.
Palm-swell, removable rubber insert to protect rounds from deforming under recoil(which has to see & used to fully appreciate), semi soft recoil pad, drop out mag with a locking feature(mag cannot be lost).

Very hard to put into words so these really have to be witnessed to gather.......

IMO both the stock & barrel are simple. As is the mount, especially the SR rail system I use.
The bolt head is simple too, as it's locking features. But I will say. The safety system & bolt mechanism has some parts!
The new R8 trigger is outstanding!!! It might pay to do a little homework on that design men.

From my time with rifles(which is not allot, only 40 years) I have learnt there is nothing that is perfect!!! Not even the great M98.......Everything is a compromise......Pre-64, M98, Model 700, Sauer 202, Mauser M03 & the R8........
So buy what you wish, enjoy, breath that sweet country air & let's enjoy what we are all here for. Putting some grub on the table & getting out there as many times before we move on

I have a LH professional R8 ordered in 9.3X62 with a 23.6"semi heavy barrel. Also ordered a fluted semi heavy 20.5" in .308.

My dealer told me today it would only be 8 weeks

I shot and handled a 06 quite a bit and it was one of the few rifles that have impressed me latley.

Lefty C

True! but the same can be said on the reverse.......as could be said about the M98 Vs the Pre64 trigger...... NOTHING IS PERFECT, EVERYTHING IS A COMPROMISE

Brad, your opinion is certainly as valid as mine, though the statement above is of course arguable. Their Teutonic "end" includes simple fast takedown capability including the scope (with repeatability), modular construction, with parts (barrels, bolt heads, bolts [left & right], forearms, etc) that all fit each other withe exceptional triggers and very good accuracy thrown in. Over engineering? Few other bolt guns come close to that. Flexibility? Buy a serialized stock/ receiver and there is practically no limit to the "guns" you can build off of it from 222 to a 416.

But I also appreciate your classic tastes as mine run that way also. But, I would add that with well over 100 k R93s sold it may one day be recognized as a classic also.

Well thats a pretty ignorant statement...but then it is TYPICAL of low life trailer trash.


Lefty C

I guess I'm repeating some of what has already been stated. I apologize for that. And no one need be criticized for their opinion concerning guns.

Needless to say at this point, I was very impressed with the R93 while I had it. Still am and if I wasn't very satisfied with what I have including the above K95, I'd spring for a R8 and a barrel or two.

No extra charge for LH blaser will just switch the bolt out.


Lefty C

I would rather buy American.

However, I must say that the the decocking ability and the removable trigger magazine in the R8 are very well thought out features.