Cost to build a basic BR rifle

jackie schmidt said:
Jerry, I have to second that. I have seen shooters with old Pandas shoot phenomenal aggs.

Maybe you remember this. At one of the later Crawfish's that was held in Lafayette, a shooter was kicking every bodies tail with an old Panda that looked like it had been under salt water for a decade. Pure ugly. But.......
It was shooting lights out. I can not recall his name.

That was one of those matches that it rained, and rained, and rained. We had a tarp strung over the loading shed on the right trying to keep it from blowing in. Suddenly, it collapsed, filled with water, on several of our loading tables, on power, primers, everything.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that was the Crawlfiish that Ferris Pindell showed up with his "wonder bullet". It was an 81 grain bullet built on a 0.95+ jacket and had the needle point. Don Geraci shot some and told me "that bullet would defy the wind". I found a few loaded rounds in Ferris stuff. It was loaded in one of his 40 degree shoulder PPC cases. One of the last notes in Ferris's log he had written "the first 6 went exactly through the same hole".

Bart Sauter was shooting an about 80 grainer some at the recent River Bend shoot. Perhaps he will offer that bullet for sale.

.
 
Back to the original question;

If one is going to try bench rest or F Class shooting on a budget, it is hard to beat a box stock Savage Bench rest or F Class gun. The addition of a serviceable scope and you are shooting. Plus, it will be a while till you can out shoot the gun.
Once you have some skills, you can go two ways. 1. re-barrel the Savage with a premium barrel and have the action timed and trued by some one competent like Fred Moreno at SSS and maybe even have him add an evolution trigger. Or 2. buy a used gun.

I started with an ebay Savage RBLP PTA, added a Shilen pre-fit barrel and a reworked BVSS stock. All work was done by me.
Very quickly, I bought an SSS bench rest stock and bedded it myself and have gone through a lot of barrels.

I haven't yet wanted to buy an expensive action as it is too much fun beating these expensive guns with my Savage!
 
Norm,

Not trying to throw cold water over your savage, but it will not out agg a tuned bench gun. There are many areas where they just are not up to par with a bat, panda (fill in the blank). I can name several, bolt lift, ignition issues, bedding area, and so on. The savage can shoot very well with a good bbl. But not to true BR standards.

Richard
 
norm i agree with most of what you said except for two things:
1) the question was bench rest, not f class,
2) more custom br quality guns are being built for f class.

Normmatzen said:
Back to the original question;

If one is going to try bench rest or F Class shooting on a budget, it is hard to beat a box stock Savage Bench rest or F Class gun. The addition of a serviceable scope and you are shooting. Plus, it will be a while till you can out shoot the gun.
Once you have some skills, you can go two ways. 1. re-barrel the Savage with a premium barrel and have the action timed and trued by some one competent like Fred Moreno at SSS and maybe even have him add an evolution trigger. Or 2. buy a used gun.

I started with an ebay Savage RBLP PTA, added a Shilen pre-fit barrel and a reworked BVSS stock. All work was done by me.
Very quickly, I bought an SSS bench rest stock and bedded it myself and have gone through a lot of barrels.

I haven't yet wanted to buy an expensive action as it is too much fun beating these expensive guns with my Savage!
Click to expand...
 
Ccst of building a benchrest rifle

In agree with Jerry Buy a used one and learn how to shoot it. I ve see people come into the sport and drop out
within a year. There,s plenty of good used equipment for sale on the sites.

If you really like the game you can upgrade and either sell off the rifle you bought , with only a slight loss or rebuild re barrel your existing rig.

THere,s a learning curve in the games.
 
I stop in to see Bob White at "The Shooters Corner" on a regular basis. He has a very extensive selection of used Benchrest Rifles as well as scopes and about everything else you could need. You might be able to buy a used one for a little less direct from an owner, but Bob White is both a well known gunsmith and rifle builder as well as a 50 year competitor. He will give you the straight scoop on anything you buy there. Plenty to look at on his web site.

Bob
 
New gun cost

By the time you buy all components and pay a top gun smith you will have around 3800$ in a rifle .
Depending on type stock and action.
Basic rifle 3200$ If your lucky
 
I'd say you would be ahead of the "cost" game if you called Larry Costa on the phone today and offered him $6000 for the rifle he shot at the nationals.....and then just shoot it. He probably wouldn't sell it for any amount but it would be worth a try.
 
As a side note.
Stan Buchtel, Bob White, and George Kelbly Sr. have been to every Super Shoot.
 

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I read that deal I posted and it looks pretty "caddy". Not caddy at all and would be cheaper in the long run but I forget what happened along the way...or should say along my way. Given that I can't convince a whole lot of folks to do as suggested, I'll change my tune a little bit.

Let's say your planning to get into 100/200 yard centerfire benchrest. First, go to a REGISTERED match and see what's there. I say registered match because I don't know what you'll run into at a non-registered match in terms of equipment....probably the same stuff but I can't guess. Now that you have a good idea of what your stuff will look like, you can begin to gather it up. Doesn't matter if the rifle you buy will win or not as long as you don't pay a lot more than you can sell it for. If it won't win, buy another and sell it....not necessarily in that order. The loading and cleaning stuff can be bought either new or used. If it still has a shiny place somewhere a used one is probably as good as a new one. Try to keep it simple for starters. Over time, you'll develop a "method" and I hope it's a good method...good enough to win now and then.

While you're at that registered match....look at the top three rifles and then look at the bottom three....not much difference I'd guess.
 
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