**I'M DONE WITH IT**And the odyssey continues. Christensen 338LM.

[7pt62THOR]

NOTHING is easy!!!!

I got the new rifle on Monday, not Friday, so I lost two days trying to get ready for the Legion shoot on the 14th. My first impression of the rifle was very positive. It's a very good looking rifle with very nice bluing. Satin, but not glossy or overly reflective.

The second thing I noticed is that the brake is not quite indexed properly. It won't have any effect on performance, but I'm way to anal to leave it that way. It has a pressure collar on it, so all it probably needs is a moment in a barrel vise and a tweak, but I don't have a barrel vise so it will have to wait until after Saturday.

Next, I discovered that I could not adjust the X-Mark Pro trigger bellow 4.5lbs. On previous rifles with this trigger I have had no problem getting them down to 2.5lbs, which is my preferred trigger tension on all of my bolt action rifles. Upon calling Remington I was told that their triggers are now designed so they cannot be adjusted any lower than 4.5lbs unless it's done by a gunsmith. I guess they finally got tired of getting sued by idiots that don't know what they're doing, so now we all have to pay for it. However, after doing a little research I found a quick and easy way to adjust it to 2.5lbs. (YouTube is your friend). Of course, this voids any warranty on the trigger, but it was either this or replace it. 4.5lbs is way too heavy for precision shooting.

Of course, the fireformed brass I have would not fit the new chamber, so I had to pull all the loads and do a full length resize...again...before reloading to fireform to this chamber.

Tomorrow and part of Thursday are supposed to be dedicated to breaking in the barrel, fireforming my brass, working up a load and then get all the brass loaded for the shoot on Saturday. Cutting it close, but possible as long as nothing else goes wrong. Which of course it did.

I went to mount the scope and found that some of the screws for the Nightforce rail are too long. The rail takes four 8-40 screws and it came with five. Unfortunately, only two of them are short enough to seat properly and not interfere with the bolt. I've had rails that took two different length screws before, but this isn't one of them.

Unless I can get ahold of two more of the correct screws first thing tomorrow morning, this rifle simply will not make it to Legion.

DJD

None of us can(or would) say that you haven't given it 100% brother. Obsessed MIGHT come close. I sure hope the Remington delivers for you.

 

[Bear44]

None of us can(or would) say that you haven't given it 100% brother. Obsessed MIGHT come close. I sure hope the Remington delivers for you.

Obsessed? Hmm, about right. LOL!

Well, even though I couldn't find the right screw cutter and mangled the extra screw I had trying to use the wrong one, Rusty at David's had the right tools and took care of it in short order. I managed to get to my indoor range and got the break in done along with a total of 60 cases fireformed. I have those cases in the tumbler now and in a few hours I'll load up some experimental ammo to use at the outside range tomorrow. If I find the right load, I'll go ahead and fireform the rest of the brass.

I'm going to load for the Berger 300 grain OTM. Period. If I can't find a good enough load with that bullet the rifle will go in for accurization and I'll shoot some other toys at Legion. The high BC of that bullet will give me the maximum range possible and that's what this rifle is all about.

 

[CBeck]

I couldn't imagine shooting that indoors lol.

 

[Twitch2120]

I couldn't imagine shooting that indoors lol.

I've been party to a bmg fired indoors. It's like a hit to the head...from Tyson in his heyday. Terrible idea

 

[Bear44]

I couldn't imagine shooting that indoors lol.

Plugs and muffs, brother. Plugs and muffs.

I also warned everyone else on the line everytime just before I fired. Needles to say, it got a lot of attention. I even let a couple of guys fire a string. They loved it.

 

[Bear44]

I've been party to a bmg fired indoors. It's like a hit to the head...from Tyson in his heyday. Terrible idea

It does blow your hair back a bit, but the actual recoil isn't that bad. There was a guy shooting 12ga slugs and we fired for comparison. The blast from the 338 was horrendous, but the actual recoil was less than the shotgun.

 

[TattooedGunner]

I just read this entire thread. Holy crap what a story.

 

[Bear44]

I just read this entire thread. Holy crap what a story.

And it ain't over yet. Because I had to deal with the screw issue yesterday before anything else, I didn't get to work up a load yesterday as planed. Yesterday would have been a great day to do that. Today sucks for it. Way too windy, but I've got to give it a try.

 

[CBeck]

You gotta shoot when you can when time is short.

 

[SlowMotion]

Glad you got the new rifle in. Good luck getting the load tested and setup.