wildcatter
Silver $$ Contributor
No even me a good friend or his son in laws can't get him to cut a barrel today! Ron quit making barrels over 20 years ago, we built this together in his shop, after I had Bill Franke hard chrome the action and bolt.
I also have a 6mm BR Norma I just built a couple years ago on another Pence barrel that I smoked the throat in 20 years ago. However this was a barrel that set in my safe from a 27.75" 6mm AI build I had Ron do for me on a 700 Remington over 25 years ago. I had Fred at SSS scope it and we decided that if we got rid of 4 or so inches of barrel on the chamber end we would have a quality starting point for a new chamber.
Since Ron won't cut me a new barrel,,,, I went with a Savage Axis, on a SSS Varmint stock, while Fred trued the action and bolt, and worked his magic on the factory Axis trigger, I used walnut hulls and deft urethane, to finish the stock. We ended up with 22.5" Heavy Varmint taper 6mm BR Norma that runs 62 grain Berger's at 3505fps then went to a Bart's 68 BTHP at 3470 fps both shoot .250" all day for 5 shot groups, and is a true terror on Ground hogs to 500 yards or a but further reliably, and sudden death to Yotes! 3 wet Patches, six strokes with a bronze brush and 3 more wet patches, one dri patch, and one last patch to leave a light oil film for to start my next hunt with and not deal with a fowling shot and still hold it's POI. Truly like a new barrel, and this time, it should last the rest of my life as a varmint only rifle.
Funny thing is it wears a 6.5-20x50 Zeiss with Rapid Varmint reticle for 600 yard hold dead on aiming points once the load is entered in the Zeiss hunting app which set's this load to 14.5 power on the scope, built by guess who????? YEP YOU GUESSED IT!
Meopta is who Zeiss licensed to build their Conquest 6.5-20x50 in every reticle configuration it was available in,,, as well as many other of their scopes that wear the Zeiss name!! Meopta is the sleeper of the hunting optics world!!! Producing scopes that function flawlessly with better optics and reticles, , than other makers scopes costing 3 to 4 times what Meopta cost.
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