Last year Nathan with HuDisCo offered on 24hourcampfire to build a custom rifle for the two winners of a writing contest. The rifle would be built at cost for the parts that I chose. I submitted my essay and was one of the two chosen winners.

I spoke to Nathan at length on the phone about what I wanted for the build and what my intended end use would be, all around hunting rifle. What I mean by that is a rifle that will work well for just about anything though may not be perfect for any one thing. My goal is to narrow the herd of rifles in my safe so to speak significantly with this rifle. Nathan offered some friendly suggestions without being pushy and was easy to speak with.

I ended up going with the following:

Defiance action, 7mm Remington Magnum

McMillian Remington Classic in a mcswirly color pattern

Bartlein Barrel, No 3 contour, 24" and fluted, 5R rifling, 9 twist

Timney trigger

Cerakoted in graphite black color

Once I received the rifle I added a Leupold VX3 4-14X40 in Talley LW rings.

The rifle is not a lightweight nor is it heavy in my opinion. I don't have a great scale but it is a pleasure to carry compared to the Ruger M77 in a laminated stock I carried up a lot of mountains.

I have run four different factory loads through the rifle so far and it has shot them all extremely well by my standards. That is it has put them all under 1" for 3 shot 100 yard groups. I have run Accubond, Accubond LR, TTSX's and a Winchester PP's for a total of around 100 rounds at this point. So far the rifle likes the 168gr Nosler Accubond LR's the most and that is what I am going to continue using those.

Any fault in the build surely lies with me as it was built exactly as I specified. I have been unable to find a flaw in Nathan's work in any way.

The only thing thing about this process that was less then advertised was the time it took to get it. HDC opened a new retail store while I was waiting for my rifle and some time was lost due to that. In no way am I complaining about this however as I was kept up to date during the process and I understand a new and small business will have some growing pains.

I wanted to wait to post this until I had a chance to shoot the rifle a little and get some blood on it. At this point that has been accomplished.

The bottom line is I would use HDC again and would recommend them to a friend in the market.

225 yard shot and a drag to the trail

Good for you!

I'm starting to warm up to the 168 ABLR I've killed two elk with it so far 2 shots 2 elk ! nice rifle !

Thanks butch.

Aviator, glad to hear you are liking the ABLR, sample of one for me, but so far so good.

Awesome color choice...and McMillian did an outstanding job of swirling them together!

Thanks GB, I've been impressed with every McMillan I've had

I agree.

Very nice.

donsm70

Your rifle looks great. I really like the looks of your stock.

Nathan is good people.

Very nice! Congrats and enjoy!

twofish

Thanks guys, the more I'm using it the more I'm liking the way it came out.

[i][/i]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/13184893/hdc-2018#Post13184893[s][/s]

Figured I'd keep updating the post as it continues to get some work in. Spent the past week chasing antelope and managed to fill all three tags with it. Changed out the stock from a McMillan to a Manners EH6A. I've been using a accutrac bipod with the new stock and am loving the change so far. Scope on it is now a Nightforce SHV 3-10 with the force plex reticle.

Very nice looking rifle!!

Managed to add a WT doe to the freezer last week and hopefully will get to add a buck during late season.

That's cool as heck and looks like it's getting put to good use.

Now that you've vetted the EH6A, what are you thoughts?

I'm really liking it so far. It was a perfect drop in, no blemishes and the dimensions are just right to me for a walking rifle. I bought another EH6 for a mountain rifle to save a little weight so I'm two in. I like how much more trim they are compared to an EH1 I have but are still great for shooting prone. Overall, it's my favorite stock at this point for a hunting rifle and an improvement over the McMillans I have though that's very subjective as they are great stocks too.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/13223956/hdc-2018-2#comments

>, did you go mini chassis in the EH6's?

No, I did pillars in both.

Got the rifle out as I drew a late buck tag. Ended up shooting a small buck that I had a few interesting encounters with after passing several larger bucks early in the hunt. Shot was 225 yards and the Nosler Accubond LR I recovered looks like it functioned perfect. I recovered it in the hide on the offside while skinning the buck. The coyote I shot in the forehead later in the day at 348 yards didn't seem to like it either. I posted a few pictures in the image gallery if anyone is interested.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/13295038#Post13295038

Any comments on the Defiance action?

Takman,

It's as nice as I expected it to be. I've never had a fail to feed or extract no matter the speed I'm operating the bolt. Very tight action. In the future I wouldn't ceracoate the thing but it's worn in at this point and is very smooth. At first not so much but I attributed that to how tight the tolerances were to begin with. I'm already trying to justify another one in a SA to build on. That action and the barrel have shot every type of factory ammo I've fed it so far sub moa.

Great looking rifle! Do you happen to know the weight of the naked rifle? Thanks

Thanks. Having thoughts on using one on a new build. Beautiful rifle.

Gunnut, I'll try to figure it out but I don't have a great scale handy at the moment. It's a little beefy but that's because of the No 3 Bart barrel I went with, otherwise it's setup to be pretty trim.

9lbs 2oz is what my scale came up with. The barrel is beefy, if you're looking to come in lower it'd be easy to do with a smaller contour for sure.

Added a few more photos of the rifle in the gallery linked below of a recent hunt for bear in the Wenaha wilderness in Washington. Didn't get a chance to shoot it as the Bears didn't cooperate.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/13849389#Post13849389