A couple of months ago I decided I wanted a long range rifle. Up until now, most all of my shooting has been at 100 yards. I want to stretch that out a bit, eventually making it to 1000. I dont expect to be competing at any range, but would like to be able to hit some 3 foot diameter steel at 1k fairly consistently. After looking at some factory rifles, and some upgrades to those factory guns, I decided to take my savage 243 and rebarrel it. It started out as a package gun from wal-mart, it came with a cheap scope and an accu-trigger for around $400. I wanted to keep it a 243, but midway had some ER Shaw 308 kits clearance priced for $175. I figure that if you add up the cost of buying the wrench and gauges seperatly, this was worth a shot. I know they dont have the best reputation, but I'm a gambler. I also upgraded to a heavy-duty recoil lug from SSS while the barrel was out of the way. It still has a cheap scope, rings, and mounts until I decide what scope I want to spend my money on. I was wanting to stay under $1000 with this gun, and as it sits I have done that. But that won't last long, as an optics upgrade is necessary. The target is shots 9, 10, and 11 out of the new barrel with some cheap Prvi Partizan ammo (at 100 yards). I did the shoot-clean four times, and a 3-shot clean once. For at least the rest of this first box of ammo I will do 3 or 4 shots then clean.
