Thread: light weight rifle setup

Gday,

Would love to get some opinions for a lightweight rifle setup.

Looking at getting into one of the Tikka T3x Super Lite and then upgrading to a Kiwi Composites carbon fibre stock.

I have been recommended a variety of different calibres from experienced hunters which is making it pretty tough to decide. Wanting to be able to do some semi long range shooting in S.I, however majority of hunting will be N.I based.

Leaning towards 7RM with DPT can. I haven't got any experience in hand loading as of yet.

Already own a nice wood stocked 308, wanting a rifle I can beat up a bit.

Any thoughts or opinions would be much appreciated!

My only thoughts after owning a 7rm is don't go light blue more bulk you have the more it will soak up the recoil. I went to a .284 instead of 7rm. With the 284 you get very similar performance and it will handle chopping also.

When you day long distance what are you talking?! Have you had a think about scope??

Hamish

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Originally Posted by hotsoup

Gday,

Would love to get some opinions for a lightweight rifle setup.

Looking at getting into one of the Tikka T3x Super Lite and then upgrading to a Kiwi Composites carbon fibre stock.

I have been recommended a variety of different calibres from experienced hunters which is making it pretty tough to decide. Wanting to be able to do some semi long range shooting in S.I, however majority of hunting will be N.I based.

Leaning towards 7RM with DPT can. I haven't got any experience in hand loading as of yet.

Already own a nice wood stocked 308, wanting a rifle I can beat up a bit.

Any thoughts or opinions would be much appreciated!

Would be a great choice mate

I have a t3 lite 7remmag in a stug carbon stock. Pachmare recoil pad and dpt mine is cut to 20" and shooting the 162amax.

It's nice and lite and recoil isn't an issue.
Could always run a limbsaver to soak up the push.

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Originally Posted by HNTMAD

My only thoughts after owning a 7rm is don't go light blue more bulk you have the more it will soak up the recoil. I went to a .284 instead of 7rm. With the 284 you get very similar performance and it will handle chopping also.

When you day long distance what are you talking?! Have you had a think about scope??

Hamish

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Potentially I'd like to be able to shoot out to 600/700. At this stage I'm leaning towards the 3-18 Swaro Z5 or the VX6 3-18

That's great glass you are looking at.
Just a little tip that is often glassed over, weight is your friend to a certain extent with a LR rig as it soaks up those tiny little movements that we all make. With a super lightweight set up you will find it harder to keep your cross hairs on target.

There are few options - depends if you want to buy "off the shelf" or go custom. Given you're already thinking about an after market stock & chopping barrel then you're half way there and you should consider custom route, or buying a good 2nd hand custom rifle. There are plenty that come up for sale.
For 500 -600 yds I'd vote for 284win or 7mmSAUM or 300SAUM or 280 (Ackley or not your choice.) or even the humble 7mm08.
I assume you hand load ? If you're not then availability of factory ammo will largely dictate your choices. And this is pretty limited and expensive for good long range options.
Personally I would never recommend chopping a 7mmRM, it needs the 24 - 26in barrel to get the performance out of the calibre. You'd be better off with 284 or SAUM if you want a lighter & shorter total set up & they'd be the pick of the bunch for me given your stated wish list.
& as Hamish stated above you will have a lot more felt recoil to deal with if you go too lite on 7mmRM which works against you on accuracy needed for long range.

Scopes - out of the 2, I'd go the the VX6 (to save weight the 44mm objective) as that gives you significantly more come up. Although both will dial you out to 600 yrds perfectly well.
In fact for 0 - 600 yards the VX6 2-12x42 is another very good option & lighter/more compact from memory.
Down the track you might find you want to reach out to 800+ & then you run out of adjustment on the swaro. Damn nice optics though.

Go with the 7rm, easy to get ammo and reloading components. Both ur scope options would be great ( with moa turrets and windage Plex ). If you want to keep it light fit a terminator break.

And if you're wanting to clean kill animals, then don't even think about going pass 500-600 yards, you need plenty of decent gear ( eg range finder etc ) practice, experience and grunt to start ethnical hunting at those ranges.

Pl

That's great, appreciate all the input. Definitely helped make the decision. Cheers

I tried to go light... but a Nightforce ended up on mine...Looks nice though!

That is a good set up... try Stug though. His stocks are nice and light. Bloody well made too and great service!


(Shameless Stug plug)

^ Looks awesome. 6 month wait for Stu's though. He is a fair bit cheaper however.

OK, so I know some people have a 7mm supermag that shoots 1/2" all day long. But overall, smaller calibers shoot better. Perhaps it's shooter related but likely its just a bit harder to get bedding, scope mounting, bolt truing, brass hammering all quite as spot on once you're up over 50 or 60 grains.

Try the max load numbers on a 6.5 of some sort eg Creedmore or 6.5x55 SKAN (stoked up 21st century specs for the 6.5x55SE cartridge dimensions) and perhaps you'll get good enough terminal ballistics at 600m but with better chance of building a durable tack driver. Also, if you can go down to a 3006 or 308 length action you've saved some weight you can put back into mounts or barrel length. Each bullet weighs less if its 140 gr instead of 168 (or 200 if you go to .30 cal).

Also, I've seen two swaro Z5 3.5-18 with wobbly elevation turrets (different types).

In terms of stocks, i was bloody impressed with Greg Duleys thin light carbon fibre stock he had on the display table at the Sika show.

They are made by kiwi composite for him into a custom mould with checkering.

Cheers for that info Friwi, i thought they were overseas. Makes me like them even more now that I know they are made locally.

Carbon and Tikkas match well for a non custom build. They shoot as well as custom without the heartache.