Who’s your preferred Hawkins bottom metal seller/dealer?

Go West Old Man

WKR
Classified Approved
Joined
Sep 30, 2020
Location
Georgia
Ready to buy the Hawkins Oberndorf M5 bottom metal for a build that is slowly coming together. Will also need a Wyatt’s MBE-5 box, spring, & follower. Hawkins has multiple dealers listed on their website. Which dealer/ seller do you recommend? Would prefer to get all of it from one vendor if possible. All advice appreciated. Thanks.
 
Looks like Unknown Munitions has SA M5 Oberndorfs and Wyatt's MBE-5 kits ready to roll if you're trying to one-stop it. Don't hesitate to do business with anyone on our Dealers page, they're all there for a reason ;)


 
Looks like Unknown Munitions has SA M5 Oberndorfs and Wyatt's MBE-5 kits ready to roll if you're trying to one-stop it. Don't hesitate to do business with anyone on our Dealers page, they're all there for a reason ;)
Thanks! Good to know. Sourcing rifle components and shooting supplies these days requires most of us to hastily choose one from many dealers in the hopes that they’re a reputable vendor with great customer service. Sometimes it’s a roll of the dice.
 
Looks like Unknown Munitions has SA M5 Oberndorfs and Wyatt's MBE-5 kits ready to roll if you're trying to one-stop it. Don't hesitate to do business with anyone on our Dealers page, they're all there for a reason ;)


Got to give them a thumbs up. Emailed them with a question and got a response within hours. On previous occasions many months ago I bought brass from them. Good and easy online buying experience and it shipped quickly. They’ll get more business from me for certain .
 
If your assembling the parts yourself, I highly recommend picking up Wyatt's small book on how to tune his magazines properly. A lot of good info on how to diagnose feed issues as well.
 
@Go West Old Man , yes it is. That book helped me tune two of his boxes.
Thanks. I’m still waiting on an action & barrel for my build but I’ve gathered all other components. I almost naively hoped it’ll be good to go when all parts eventually are assembled, but I’ve picked up on a few hints & comments here and there all suggesting that the Wyatt’s box will take some tweaking. I’ll get booklet. Any help is a plus.
 
Absolutely. I was niave with my first. I received my action and barrel back from the smith, bedded the action and bottom metal and assembled. It didn't feed. I did a little more research and got Wyatts book. It helped me a lot.
 
Another idea to avoid the pesky box tune all together would be Hawkins Hunter dbm. I see you chose the M5 orberndorf so you could go that route as well. I just received mine yesterday for a current build and I'm pretty impressed.
 
Another idea to avoid the pesky box tune all together would be Hawkins Hunter dbm. I see you chose the M5 orberndorf so you could go that route as well. I just received mine yesterday for a current build and I'm pretty impressed.
I’ve acquired the M5 Oberndorf & Wyatt’s box components so I’m committed for now. Barreled action is being done by a recommended smith/custom builder out of state. This is my first build so I guess tinkering with the box & all of it will be a learning experience! I’ll get the book and won’t hesitate to contact Wyatt’s with questions if needed.

The one thought that I’m struggling with a bit now is that I want to put it all together myself as I enjoy that kind of thing. However, I seem to hear more “you better have a smith build it” , but I’ll likely ignore that & try to assemble it myself just to have had the satisfaction of doing so.
 
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It's kind of an intimidating process at first, but if you enjoy tinkering and enjoy fine details it's very enjoyable. I scoured the internet for tuning as well, watched the couple videos he had on YouTube at the time, contacted a custom build shop that had videos of how well their Wyatt boxes cycled they told me to pound sand since I didn't have them chamber and fit. I picked up Wyatts book, and a couple dummy rounds. I built two almost identical rifles, a 6.5x47 and a 300 win mag with Hawkins bld orbenrdorf bottom metal. The 6.5 was the difficult one to get tuned. I needed more heel pressure, the spring needed to be far back, but running the bolt would eventually move the spring and follower forward. I cut a sized square of tin from a copenhagen can that fit well and solved the problem. The 300 win was actually pretty simple to tune. I used 2 small crescent wrenches to make the small adjustments on the box.
 
……. contacted a custom build shop that had videos of how well their Wyatt boxes cycled they told me to pound sand since I didn't have them chamber and fit.
Now that wasn’t nice of them!😆 If they were smart then they would’ve helped you a little & likely gained a potential future customer!
 
This is another article I found super helpful if you plan on bedding your action.
 
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