CWT group effort Wildcat Rifle build

[Zeke-BE]

Well I pretty much blame Lance (lancetkenyon) and Chris (Douglas-gun-guy) for this but Im not that upset! Lance did his load development on Chris's new 6.5-270 AI. If you look back on this topic you can find the whole write up that Lance did. At that same time I had my tikka .270 and have been shooting out to 700 yards with it. I took a New Mexico Goat with it at 300 yards, mule deer spike at 300 yards, and a Coues at 400 yards. The gun did great and grouped well at 300-400 yards. At 500 yards the BC for a .270 is usually in the low .5s and it would widen out farther I shot. In my opinion the .270 is one of the greatest calibers for the 100-350 shots out there. It will slay deer and knock down elk no problem. But I wanted the higher BC for better groupings at 500-800 yards. Just when I started to think about a new rifle Lance came out with his thread on Chris's new wildcat 6.5-.270. Well it was a sign!!!

 

Got a hold of Chris and said he would love to build me one. Told him not till after hunting season. Well October came around and Chris had some family stuff that came up and couldn't take on anymore work but will be willing to send his reamer and suggested I talk to Clint (Stomp442) to build my gun. Stomp was great to work with and answered all my long annoying questions about it because I never built one before.

 

Specs:

Tikka .270 action

Bartlien #3 barrel 26"

Custom muzzle break

McMillian Game Scout Stock

Bolt fluted spiral from LRI

With bipod and Vortex scope 10.5# (with the Athlon it will be 11#s) (with bipod off 10#)

Athlon Cronus with seekins 34mm rings

20 Moa rail

Vortex Level

Nosler .270 brass

W760 52 grain

140 grain 6.5 HVLD Berger

 

 

It turned out Great! With lots of question and text message with Chris (douglas-gun-guy) Lance (lancetkenyon), and Clint (stomp442) with questions, muzzel breaks, how to create a false shoulder, and fire forming etc etc Im really greatful for all the help!!!

 

Custom muzzle break that Stomp did

 

Sent my bolt off to LRI to get it fluted. It took it a total of 8 days and 58 dollars.

 

I put on my PST vortex 6.5-24x50 scope just temporary. Im putting on my 4.5-29x56 Athlon Cronus but its on the Creedmoor and Im still developing a load for it so this will do.

 

Here is the difference from the .270 to a 6.5-.270 AI

 

I've had my rifle for a few weeks and this is the first day that im shooting it. Waiting my bolt to come back, bad weather, and lots of Christmas shopping that the wife put her foot down that had to be done!! Plus I was getting angry text message from Lance and Chris why I haven't shot it yet!! Well not angry I still got out today and weather was suppose to be lot clearer today but the news guys were wrong as always

 

It was fire forming at 3000 fps using W760 (beacuse I had lots of it from my .270) using Berger 140 grain. After 25 rounds I had a primer blow out and then I stopped. So Im going to undo the other 75 round and drop a grain or two. That Sucks!!!

 

But over all for just fire forming rounds and using W760 I was getting great groupings at 100 yards

 

Most of the shots were 1/2" grouping with 4 shots and the 5th one seemed to be flyers

 

And Shooting Nosler Brass

 

 

Overall the gun shoots so smoothly with the muzzle break!! It kicks less than my 11# creedmoor on and the stock fits your shoulder nicely.

After fire forming Ill be shooting 140 bergers and ELD-X 143 grain and Ill try H1000

[cohofishing]

Who did your bolt for you? Having a gun built as we speak, and the one thing we are not doing is the bolt. It looks great. The gun does too.

 

Brent

[Zeke-BE]

LRI (Long Rifle Inc) just google it. I mailed my bolt and had it back 8 days later.

[sherman]

I should do this with my Remington 700 270

[Allforelk]

Awesome!

[Saguaro]

Nice gun, one of the better builds I've seen in a while on here. I may have to copy you if you don't mind. I could call mine a 6.5-280 AI. Stomp442 I may reach out to you in the future. I don't own a Tikka, but might have to look for one now.

[Zeke-BE]

Nice gun, one of the better builds I've seen in a while on here. I may have to copy you if you don't mind. I could call mine a 6.5-280 AI. Stomp442 I may reach out to you in the future. I don't own a Tikka, but might have to look for one now.

 

I think you can get the 280AI brass and then neck it down. You don't have to fire form. The .270 you don't need to turn it down and you keep the longer neck

[Zeke-BE]

Oh Barrel is Stainless steel with Graphite Black Cerakote

[Douglas-gun-guy]

Turned out beautiful! Glad it got built! I was happy to answer questions and lend the reamer.

I'm back to taking work. I'm just running everything through my website now.

[Zeke-BE]

So I took it out to the range shooting the first fire forms. Started off shooting 200 yards. Just started a load development of 3 shot groups of H-1000 of 57 grain- 61.2 grain. I set the Coal to the length of the magazine because I knew it would be a hunting repeater so I didn't bother starting just touching the Lands. Also shooting the ELD-x 143 and I notice from my 300 win mag and Creedmoor that these ELDs love shooting away from the Lands unlike Bergers.

6.5 143 ELD-x

Nosler Brass

Fed 210 M primer (ill probably switch to mag primers on the next one)

 

 

 

Annealing brass, this is my second time and I think i got it down now.

 

Every load was shooting sub MOA except for one and I think it was shooters error

 

I was getting 3050-3150 on some of my top loads with no signs of pressure. Im going to do some fine tuning and see if i can get this to be a 0.5 MOA and less round. Also Im going to do a ladder test to check out H4831 and ImR 7828SSc to see what velocity I can get out of her.

 

 

 

[Cell4soul]

Nice rifle! Gonna be a great deer rifle.

[STOMP442]

Great write up! It looks like that is coming along nicely. In the 6.5-06 Ackley that I built I had much better accuracy after I turned about .002" off the necks and switched to Magnum primers.That seemed to fix the flyer problem for me. The load I settled on was 57.5gr of H4831 and a CCI magnum primers with 140 bergers at mag length. Velocity is right at 3175fps with this load.

[Zeke-BE]

Great write up! It looks like that is coming along nicely. In the 6.5-06 Ackley that I built I had much better accuracy after I turned about .002" off the necks and switched to Magnum primers.That seemed to fix the flyer problem for me. The load I settled on was 57.5gr of H4831 and a CCI magnum primers with 140 bergers at mag length. Velocity is right at 3175fps with this load.

 

I went ahead and picked up the H4831 and some magnum primers. Ill work that up and see. All of them were around 1.2-1.5" at 200 yards. I think I could of gotten it a little tighter to maybe 1" due to shooter. I had alleges and my eyes were watering up 80% of the time. I had to pull off the gun a few times and blink a hundred times so I can see. But with a few adjustments with the H-1000 I bet i can get it to under .75 at 200 yards. But I really want to see how it does with the H4831. Also since your bergers are at mag length that keeps me excited to try them out.

[STOMP442]

Yeah bergers can be a bit finicky but I have seen them shoot really well with lots of jump. You might also try the hybrids or the new elite hunters they just come out with with better results than the Vlds. I finished up a Ruger in 6.5-06 Ackley just before I did yours and it shot the hybrids really well with just about any powder and charge I put through it and the Ruger's have a notoriously short mag length.

[300RUM]

You can fire form with blanks if you want. I do it for a 7mm-08 AI as follows. Prime the case, put 15 gr WW-231 in it. Fill it to the neck with tumbling media, wad a piece of cleaning patch in the neck to hold it all in. Put it in the gun, pull the trigger and POP you have a Improved case. I do it in the garage and nobody has called the cops yet.