Start with Weatherby 307 action a complete rifle.

[wolfmanrogers]

I'm assuming you're doing this for the experience and fun of assembling your own rifle. Start with a common action with broad aftermarket support. There's no point in embarking on a journey that's supposed to be fun by kneecapping yourself right from the get go.

 

[ReservoirDawg10]

And there isn't much tinkering to do on a bolt gun. The tinkering comes in load development.

Get a solid action and barrel, stick it in a solid chassis or stock with a mini chassis. Rock and roll. If you have a solid core, the only tinkering is maybe found in torque specs on your action screws. 99% of the time, crank both to 65 inch pounds in the proper order. No need to tinkering there unless you have an accurate torque driver.

If you want to tinkering, get a savage. Enlarge the scope base holes and tap them so the scope doesn't fly off while shooting. Then put it in a boyds stock. Your then need to bed it. Once you bed it, you'll find out that there is still a lot of play in the stock. Then go get yourself a real chassis. After you dump thousands into your super cool budget rifle, enjoy the rattling like a bunch of nuts in an empty metal toolbox.

 

[cmshoot]

The Weatherby 307 is also a Remington 700 footprint, and takes 700 triggers without the bolt release. For whatever reason, they don’t use a 700 scope mount; they use a Savage.

 

[300_whisper]

There’s also Macbro, PTG, Aero solus, and Zermatt for “budget build” actions.