Looking to buy my first bolt action rifle

[ruger35]

If that doesn’t include the scope price you could come pretty close to putting together a custom yourself. My advice being this is your first bolt action, buy something that has prefits available. I’m a dedicated Straight Jacket Armory customer, check with them on prefits they may have on shelf and running a sale on. Sometimes they run decent sales on guns they have in-stock and ready to go too.

 

[JohnJohnson]

Does that budget include the scope? If so, what scope do you have in mind? And if not, what is the scope budget?

 

[TaperPin]

You can invest $3k in a rifle with all the cool stuff that shoots like crap, or use the basic/plain action of your choice, have a top barrel installed by a gunsmith ($1k) and shoot little groups. Either way is ok.

I think of any rifle as just a box of parts to be changed and swapped out to fit your interests. More parts are made to fit a Remington 700 pattern than any other, but Tikka, Savage, Ruger, Christensen, Mosberg, Winchester, Browning, Weatherby, or any major brand with a top quality $1k barrel will shoot well under MOA.