Turning old .243 Rem 700 in to Hunter Class Silhouette Rifle

[rangertim]

I've got two of them and love 'em.

For a period correct scope that tracks well, the Simmons Gold Medal and Silhouette series Japanese made scopes are killer good. Don't let the Simmons name fool you...these were from the day when Simmons was a quality product. They are a shiny satin finish, too. The vintage Tasco 6-24 World Class TS series are good one with very good tracking and decent optics with an 1/8" dot or cross hair reticle.

There's both a Simmons 15X Silhouette and a Tasco TS 6-24 here just taking up space on scope shelf.

Again...neat project. -Al

Al is spot on with the STac I have 3 ! it helps my cousin is a dealer Lance @ Buchannan Accuracy ! I have a Simmons Atech that was Japan made, very good scope ! I’m like Al, I will take and older Japan made scope over a Leupold ! Just saying

 

[Albany Mountain]

Here is my take on it as a long time silhouette competitor. Put a scope on the rifle, adjust the trigger or put an aftermarket trigger on it that will give a consistent 2 lb pull, glass bed the action if the accuracy doesn't suit you. After that start shooting matches, you will likely get about 1500 rounds out of the barrel before it starts giving up, by that time you will have a lot better idea of what caliber and stock you may want. You can use your Hunter rifle in both Hunter and Standard class which give intimate familiarity with the rifle and upped my scores considerably when I started using just one, there are a lot of advantages to not switching to different feeling rifles and different weight triggers.
Prior to switching to just the Hunter rifle for both classes I had started out by shooting a 308, I then dropped down to a 7/08, then a 243 in my Hunter rifle. I tried a 308, a 7/08, a 7BR, and a 7 TCU, for my Standard rifle at different times. Then one day looking through my score books I noticed that throughout the years my best scores were shot using the 243 - that is when the light went on. The faster bullet, lack of recoil and using the same rifle for both classes was the perfect combo for me. I almost immediately moved from a competitive AA class shooter to a winning AAA class shooter then even though I did loose some rams at practically every match I more than made up with the lost rams by a higher percentage of hits on the closer animals.

moral - use what you have and enjoy yourself, you will likely have different thoughts after a few matches

drover

This is the best solution of the whole thread.