I've been thinking about sharing this for quite a while now. I read Huntful's custom rifle journey and it inspired me to do one of my own. Mine will be more of a big-picture overview of my complete rifle, optics, and shooting journey so far, Its long & my grammar is shit, i'm aware
I started hunting in East Texas when I was around 8 years old. Coming from a lower-income family, my dad only had one hunting rifle: an old Winchester 30-06 loaded with 180-grain Core-Lokt's. In the group he hunted with, his rifle was on the smaller end—most guys were running 7mm Mag or some flavor of .300. So naturally, I grew up slapping the piss out of the trigger. That rifle would rattle my teeth every time I shot it.Around 15, Dad bought me my first real rifle: a Remington 700 in .270 Win. I used that gun until about 7 years ago when I got into "western hunting". I didn't know anyone who hunted out West, so I figured I should join a forum to learn more. I found LRO first
Talking with a couple of guys on there, and leaning on my past experiences (where I always figured bigger is better), I ended up with a .300 Win Mag shooting 215-grain Bergers. Scoped up, the whole rifle came in right at about 7.5 lbs .I sold it pretty quickly, though—it didn't shoot to my standards at the time. (Looking back, I'm sure the rifle was fine... it was probably me.)Around the same time, I started poking around on LRH (Long Range Hunting forum). That's where my next rifle came from: my first true custom build. A 7mm SAUM, loaded with some variation of Hammer Bullets
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Fast-forward to about 2 years ago when I joined Rokslide. At first, my thoughts were the same as most new guys: 'These dudes are clowns.' I honestly thought the famous .223 thread was satire and didn't even read it for several months. By that point, I'd blown through so much money on gear and rifles that just didn't work out. I had two trigger failures back-to-back: a Timney Elite Hunter one year, then a TriggerTech Special two-stage the next. I'd tried what felt like every high-end optic brand—Tangent Theta, ZCO, Swarovski, Kahles, Nightforce, Revic PMR—and had some issue or another with all of them except Nightforce. Same story with stocks: Manners, McMillan, AG Composites, MDT HNT26, Gunwerks Magnus (this one is pretty damn good).. you name it, I've probably had it. What I learned through all the trial and error (and wallet pain): You can't buy skill, and you have to be need to careful who you take advice from
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I lost a lot of pictures when i switched to an Android. Here is what i could find.
Reloading was the same story. I've spent a fortune on anything and everything: SAC dies, SuperTrickler, AMP machine—literally every gadget and tool you can think of. Then I came across Richard Simmons' write-up on Painless Load Development. I didn't realize how much money and time I'd wasted until I switched to this method. It pisses me off looking back at all the wasted cash and hours chasing perfection with overcomplicated processes that led me chasing my tail...
Taking the Shoot2Hunt course completely changed things for me. Learning real details about terminal performance, smart ways to practice, and how to properly set up my rifles, lower recoiling rifles, made all those 'weird issues' I used to chase just disappeared. I'm still battling my flinch but its 100x better than it was 2 years ago. for me recoil matters a ton. Hopefully with enough ball & dummy combined with dry fire practice I'll over some it soon. It irritates me when I hear people on here say, 'I've drank the Rokslide kool-aid' like it's some cult thing. For me, Rokslide has been the exact opposite—a full detox from all the horse shit and noise I've dealt with over the years. Here are my rifles that i took to the course. My 223 did great, ran without a hickup, My custom 22 Creed imploded, bolt knob got lost, wouldn't feed, trigger shit the bed (Mod 22). anything that could happed went wrong. Its the top rifle in the McMillan Mountain Tracker LR.
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The Journey isnt over yet but i've slowed way down & put most of my money now into ammo. Here is where i ended up. Top to bottom
20" Tikka 308 with SWFA fixed 10x - Havent landed on a dedicated suppressor yet
16" Tikka 223 soon to be a 223 Ackey. It has a SWFA fixed 6x now, Maven in the picture
16" 6GT with OG 6.5 & SWFA 3-9 HD, currently my favorite scope
Not pictured is my 18" 6UM, i stole the stock from this one while waiting on my wood stock.
i left a ton of info out of this. Hopefully it helps some guys avoid the mistakes ive made. Im sure some people wont love this & call me a shill or whatever you like. I dont have gun/scope issues anymore. Let me know if you have any questions
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. good to see the bolt knob is still attached at this point
