I finally picked up my rifle. It is a sweet handling rifle! It doesn't really seem to weigh that much either, as the balance point is perfect. I don't have a scope on it yet, so we'll see when it's installed. The barrel looks very interesting, and it does reduce the weight, we'll see how the barrel and the muzzle break perform when I get a range day with it. Even though the barrel is 22" long, the usable part is probably only about 20.5" because of the muzzle break. Even though the action is completely matte black (same with barrel and all metal parts) it's as slick as glass.

The stock definitely doesn't compare to a Bell and Carlson or a H-S Precision, but for a factory stock it's pretty doggone good (initial impression was not correct, modified 1/31/09.). The stock is light, but has internal struts to reinforce it. You really can't flex it unless you put a whole lot of pressure on it. The varmint style contour of the stock is awesome, it handles great, and it will probably fit my Caldwell Rock BR front rest great. The overmold grips are a pleasing touch, both for visual appeal and actual grip. The comb might be a little low depending on what height of scope you put on it. The recoil pad is also not one of the good ones Remington makes, I am going to get the Remington SuperCell to replace it. The only other gripe that I may have with the stock is the fact that the barrel is not free-floated. There are two small pressure points that the barrel rests on at the front of the forend. These may have to be taken off with a dremel tool if the rifle doesn't shoot how I want it too. At worst, I may purchase a Bell and Carlson or H-S stock with the aluminum bedding block (Bell and Carlson is only supposed to be 32 oz.). The barrel channel has the same contour as the standard Remington varmint barrel.

I installed the Leupold Mark 4 1-piece Rem 700 SA Picatinny rail (60677) on the action, all screws were tightened to 35 in/lbs. with the Wheeler F.A.T. Wrench. Uncle Mike's GunTite was used to help keep the base from moving. The base is matte black also, and matches the receiver and the barrel perfectly.

In all, this gun seems like a great buy. It handles wonderfully, the stock is fine, and the action couldn't be any better. I like it a lot. We'll see how actual performance is on the range, but we'll have to wait a little for that.

I checked both the overall length of the 178 gr. A-MAX and the 168 gr. HPBT Matchking. The throat length does seem to be a little long, but we'll see what difference it makes when it is shot. Both the A-MAX and the Matchking are reported to make the jump to the lands well, but Bergers may not work well, as they are supposed to be seated into the rifling.

I used the Hornady O.A.L. Gauge along with their Bullet Comparator to get these measurements. The Hornady 178 gr. A-MAX is 2.343" to the rifling when measured with the Bullet Comparator, and the Sierra 168 gr. HPBT Matchking is 2.382" to the rifling. The total overall length of the A-MAX would be 2.967" to the rifling if measured with standard methods. The recommended O.A.L. is only 2.800" in the Hornady reloading manual. It's going to be hard to get the recommended 0.020-0.040" jump to the rifling and still have enough of the bullet in the neck of the casing, but they probably wouldn't fit in the hinged floorplate either though. We'll see...

I ordered the scope today also.

My Burris TAC30 came in today, and I mounted it on the rifle immediately. The quality of the scope seems to be excellent, no real clarity degradation through the power range. The turret adjustments are nice, with the clicks solid enough to be felt but very smooth. The scope is an adjustable objective and seems to eliminate parallax fairly well at the specified ranges. When using the bore-sighting collimator, the adjustments took place immediately, and the scope did not have to be tapped in order to settle the crosshairs. I will have to evaluate the accuracy of the 1/4 MOA clicks once I get the rifle to the range.

With the picatinny rail installed, the medium height Burris XTR rings were installed with 65 in/lbs applied to the hex bolts that attach to the rail, and the upper ring halves were installed with 20 in/lbs applied to each screw. The only downside to the picatinny rail is the fact that medium height rings are too high. I ordered low rings to be installed when I receive them.

I also ordered and installed the Remington SuperCell recoil pad today, it is a very nice recoil pad, and should eliminate a lot of recoil. It is every bit as nice as the R3 recoil pads Remington makes. The surface is slick though, and shoulders beautifully, it will not hang on your clothing as will the R3 pads. If you drop the rifle on its butt from about 6" - 7", the rifle will bounce about the same height you dropped it from.

I fired 12 shots through the barrel today to get in on paper. The process was done at 25 yds. and then extended to 50 yds. No group sizes worth mentioning, but the ammo used was 28+ years old. The 1/4 MOA clicks on the scope are extremely accurate though. The only downside is the fact that the parallax adjustment only goes to 50 yds. on the low end, so parallax was visible at 25 yds. The barrel was then cleaned as part of the break-in process.

The Hornady full-length resizing die was set so that it only pushes the shoulder back 0.0005" - 0.001" from the dimensions of the fired cases. Hornady's headspace measurement tools were used for this purpose.

I decided to try to free-float the barrel tonight. I took my Dremel tool and smoothed out the pressure point in the front of the stock that the barrel rests on. It looked perfect, until I re-installed the barrel and action into the stock. The stock must have been warped and it was applying major pressure on the left side of the barrel, because when I re-installed the "free-floated" stock, the stock contacts the whole left side of the barrel. So much for a free-floated barrel...

I guess I kinda needed an excuse to buy a good stock for it anyway... Bell and Carlson, here I come.

Well, here are some hindsights and opinions I gathered a while back about things I did that I didn't put in the review at that time.

1/11/09 - First of all, let's consider the trigger. It's not horrible for a hunting gun, hovering at around 5 lbs. and relatively crisp and creep-free. But... Here's something else, the trigger adjustment. The trigger adjustment is fairly simple and easy to accomplish, here are instructions on How to Adjust the New Remington X-Mark Pro Trigger that I posted on LongRangeHunting.com. The only downside to this trigger is that they are all individuals, one trigger can be adjusted this much, and the next trigger can be adjusted that much. One of the Remington technicians said that the minimum trigger pull can vary as much as from 2 to 5 lbs. minimum safely. Safely is the key word, I had my trigger adjusted down to 2.5 lbs. and it wouldn't slam-fire either using the bolt or dropping the gun on its butt from 6-7". So, I thought I was safe, but the instant I toggled the safety, the gun slam-fired. Not something that you want to happen on a gun, especially when that feature is supposed to provide you with a "safe" way of keeping your rifle from firing accidentally. I ended up readjusting it, and it hit about 4.5-5 lbs. before it wouldn't slam-fire. Wouldn't you know that I ended up getting one of the triggers on the heavy end of the spectrum. So... It looks like I'll be getting a Rifle Basix 8 oz. to 1.5 lbs. K-Kit trigger to replace this one eventually. The X-Mark Pro trigger may be fine for a hunting gun, but not for extremely long range, or target shooting.

Next, I finally received a new Remington VTR stock I had ordered last Wednesday to replace the one I "Dremelled". I guess it's an OK stock, I need some kind of stock so I can shoot the VTR, and eventually it will replace the walnut stock on my .222 Rem. 700 BDL Varmint. I also ordered a Bell and Carlson Medallist Light Tactical stock in olive drab with black web from my gunsmith friend. So, once that comes in, the "VTR" stock is getting replaced. I'll post some new pics as soon as it comes in.

3-shot group @ 100 yds: 0.301"

First time shooting the rifle with the new stock. 168 gr. Sierra Matchkings showed impressive groupings for a random load. The best 3-shot group was 0.301" with these bullets and 39.4 gr. of Varget over CCI BR2 primers and a BC C.O.L. of 2.204". (BC C.O.L. stands for the measurement taken with the Hornady Bullet Comparator caliper attachment.) The temperature was 26.3 degrees F and it was slightly breezy. The groups were shot @ 100 yds. Reinforced the use of Varget, as it has proved to be the only powder that consistently groups out of this gun with any bullet. IMR 4895 and IMR 4320 have also been tested.

Time to start experimenting with this load.

Cold bore shot is on right of group.

3-shot group @ 100 yds: 0.417"

Accuracy testing was continued today, after initial sight-in with new stock and new powder lot. The temperature stayed around 40 degrees F and it was breezy during the range session. The 178 gr. A-MAXs were loaded to a COL of 2.882” and a jump of 0.076" to the rifling. Varget (42.5 grs.) was loaded over CCI BR2 primers. This produced a 0.417" 3-shot group, this was the smallest group of the day. One-half of a grain variance above and below this weight opened up to about an inch, so 42.5 gr. it is. I may test in 0.2 gr. increments to see what I find, but I am going to stay @ 42.5 gr. of Varget for now. The velocity will almost assuredly be higher than my previous load, as I am 0.7 gr. below "max". This is a compressed load. When I looked back at my log I didn't like what I saw, I had forgotten to clean it after last range session. Before the "small" group, the gun had been fired 31 times without cleaning. The windage on the group was perfect, being strung out along the vertical axis. This could be a sign of carbon fouling or high standard deviation. I didn't have the chrony set up, so I'm not sure. I cleaned the gun extremely well after the range session, and was surprised what I found. There was literally almost no copper after 51 rounds, but the powder fouling was ridiculous. I will duplicate this load and retest with a clean gun. Not too bad...

See the Ballistics page for the ballistics of the current 2516 fps Varget load with 178 gr. A-MAXs.

Will post some pics when I get a chance.

Here's some pics. I know they're not that great, but it's raining out and I'll have to wait for better light to get better pics. Anyway...

I finally ordered a replacement trigger the other day, and I just received it. I had ordered a Timney 1-1/2 to 4 lb. blued trigger assembly with the safety. It looks like quality, but we'll see once it's installed.

Installation was extremely easy, I would recommend this to anyone. The only issue that I ran into was the fact that I had to sand down part of the B&C stock near the tang in order to enable the safety to move back and forth freely. That wasn't too bad either, as I knew I would have to anyway. I also, at this time, sanded out the bolt handle notch on the stock also. This was to eliminate any contact whatsoever between the stock and the bolt handle. With both of the sanding jobs, I took my time and worked from coarse to fine.

The ring tops were previously replaced with the Burris XTR Picatinny Rail Tops. I guess this rifle is going to turn into a tactical configuration (I also bought a 7mm Rem. Mag. in a sporter-weight for the type of hunting I originally bought the .308 VTR for LOL). The next thing I am going to add will be a detachable magazine.

I was looking at two different brands of detachable magazines, either CDI Precision or Wyatt's. I settled on the Wyatt's even though it doesn't have a large mag release, because of the max COL the magazines impose. The CDI (Accuracy International mags) has a max COL of 2.850" the Wyatt's max COL is 2.880" (for short action, i.e. .308 Win.). My accuracy load to date has a COL measurement of 2.882". Therefore Wyatt's is the DBM of choice. The Wyatt's is also a drop-in, the CDI needs to have the stock inletted in order to fit.

Once I have the mag, and install it, I am going to have the stock professionally painted by Renegade Armory (semi-local DuraCoat certified gunsmith).

I also will be load testing with 168 gr. A-MAXes, as during the summer I shot the 178 gr. A-MAXes @ 450 yds. and the group opened up to about 7". I guess the 1:12" twist in the VTR isn't enough to stabilize them properly at extended ranges ( 1:10" recommended by Hornady).

This is the date that I chose to test the 168 gr. A-MAXes. Before loading though, I had come to the conclusion that barrel harmonics have greatly to do with the theory (and practice) of rifle accuracy. So, using a series of graphs, I settled on two different loads to test: one that would theoretically match the velocity of the previously used 178 gr. A-MAXes, and another that would theoretically match the pressure of the 178s. After one group of each, I realized that PRESSURE, NOT VELOCITY (as much), makes a difference in rifle accuracy. THIS ONLY HOLDS TRUE WHEN TRYING TO DUPLICATE THE ACCURACY OF A KNOWN LOAD, WITH A DIFFERENT (lighter/heavier) BULLET (all other factors being held constant)!

The load that matched the velocity of the 178 gr. A-MAXes grouped about 1" @ 100 yds. The load that matched the pressure grouped 0.440" @ 100 yds (see below).

1st 3-shot group @ 100 yds: 0.440" (0.696" including cold bore) Dime included for reference.

Compare to group size on March 17, 2009 (previously on page, scroll up).