338 Lapua

[Seismic Sam]

Any collapsible stock has some play in it, even if only a few mils, and even if it's dead tight, it's not the same as one piece of plastic and aluminum molded together, which is what a Remington Sendero stock is. A one piece stock can simply not flex or bend, and if you're talking about a rifle designed for shots out to 2,000 yards, everything has to be rock solid. You're talking about a gun with 80 ft-lbs of free recoil to it, so putting a folding stock on a .338 Lapua is like putting gull wing doors on a Humvee. A folding stock is useful for close quarters tactical situations, but it has no place on a bench rest quality rifle. Its tacticool factor may be up there, but in reality it's a completly mixed metaphor.

[PRS]

I'll let ronnie barrett know

[Seismic Sam]

I will admit to be a little surprised by Barrett putting out a gun like this, but what percent of all superstars finally buckle to the bright lights and fan adoration and finally do something less than brilliant?? Uhh, like about 98%?? Hell, I can do it in here on a daily basis, and most people don't like me at all!!

[PRS]

that or it just may work.

[RAGGED]

They are fun little toys, I think the Savage is a good buy but have seen Eurooptics.com blow out Sako TRG’s for $2200, even at $3000 I think the Sako is the best value, everything about it is top notch and heavily engineered, I’m a big Savage fanboy as well but that’s simply because they WORK, they are not the prettiest girls at the dance, attention to details like the trigger and bolt design come to mind, but they have put a good layer of makeup it.


You will have to make sure you save plenty of money for a top notch reloading set up, you could spend $600 on some good dies and 100 pieces of brass alone, bullets are also pretty expensive 60 cents or more, SMK 300’s are great choice but make sure you get a 1-10 twist as they will not like a 1-12 as much if at all. As Sam said, Retumbo is a great starting point and doesn’t do any really wacky things, comes on nice and slow but you will need 92+ grs of it to get where you want to be, 2600+ FPS, other powders work, I have had pretty good luck with 4831 SC, there is some spendy Vihtavuori N570 that some have done well with, obtaining that 2600-2750 FPS range.


The cartridges namesake is one of its biggest advantages, Lapua makes some of the best rifle brass out there, more competitive matches are won using it than any other brand, not saying you can’t select, cull and prep your way to go results whilst using domestic brass but if you want to buy 100 pieces of brass and know 98+ will be perfect then its your best shot, using domestic brass to form wildcats like the Edge is cheaper and MAY yield a couple more FPS over a factory round like the Lapua, but for me having tons of book sourced load data, factory rifles and uber high quality off the shelf brass for than made up for few small advantages the Edge and others had, also lots of the Edge data circulating out there is from VERY hot loads, you can hot load a 338 LM and play with fire if you want, but it’s pretty good as it is.


Also make sure you squirrel away enough money for a VERY robust optics system, tossing a $300 scope in some janky rings could end poorly.

After the initial investment it’s not that bad to shoot, figure about $1 every time you pull the trigger, a full day of long range shooting can be done on 25-50 rounds, I can blow thru that on the pistol range in no time.

Also this is a given but make sure you have some good distance to shoot, join GRRC if you don’t have some private land, the rifle isn’t worth it for 400-600 yards, 308 would be just fine for that.

Here is a little write up I posted a few years back viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13531&p=148641&hilit=trg#p148641
My opinion hasn’t changed, it’s still a phenomenal piece of engineering.


As for SHTF use, its pretty useless, only in our twisted dreams would something like that be useful, they are not light rifles, and they are LONG but don't let that stop you, I'm sure most of our collections revolve around twisted SHTF dreams : )

There was only one member here who had one that I know of, and it was RAGGED, and I haven't heard from him in ages.

Got sick of reading pink pony posts, I don’t even disagree with everything he says, just think he comes off as a complete asshat and Id rather take a swig of my own piss than read a couple dozen of his posts every day.

Also started a little LLC a year and some change ago, mostly R&D work for my own stuff, wife’s pregnant with our first (a son), business is booming at the day job, life is great but incredibly busy, took allot more mental health days up in the BWCA last year instead of the range, it has been a nice change….

[Seismic Sam]

Got sick of reading pink pony posts, I don’t even disagree with everything he says, just think he comes off as a complete asshat and Id rather take a swig of my own piss than read a couple dozen of his posts every day.

Ah, I miss ya, RAGGED!! Sounds like you moved on to a better life, and I'm just an old retiree with too much time on his hands, so I hang around anyway...

Dunno about the whole swig of piss thing, and while any normal person would rather drink his own than somebody else's, after a couple of EFFEN Gopher Coney's, a slightly off greenish n00b sammich, a couple bottles of Night Train, and some old cans of Sterno I found at a garage sale, I dunno know what I'd choose. I did have to quit peeing on the girders under my end of the bridge, because some of the steel started looking like somebody took a plasma torch to it...

BTW - did you ever get them 300 grain Berger hybrid bullets to work for you?? I have a box of the "rebuilt" ones loaded up, but haven't had a chance to get out and shoot them over a chrono.