I overhauled my old 700 SA. New 25" Shilen short chambered prefit barrel in 308Win, Triggertech Diamond trigger from my Nucleus, got rid of the old Leupold dovetail mounting system, even a new scope. Legit overhaul. Even put (putting) a fresh coat of paint on the whole thing. Objective here wasn't ever true "target grade" quality, but usable, "deer grade" quality.

Finally swapped the barrel thanks to a good friend over at his parents' shop and finish reamed the chamber by hand (4D reamer rentals for the win).

Picked up a Leupold Mark AR 1 piece scope mount yesterday for the cheap Cabela's 5-35x56mm scope I got stuck with when I tried to return it to buy the Vortex 5-25x56 I'd wanted for the Nucleus (that's a rant for another time), and....as it turns out, the scope base I have is, in fact, Weaver patterned, not Picatinny like I need/thought. So now that's another cost.

Still, I suppose it could have been worse. The chamber could have gotten cut too deep, or the reamer could have been damaged, or any one of a thousand other issues. But it is something that has to be addressed if I want to shoot the rifle tomorrow as planned.

Sounds like a fun project.

It's been great fun; I'm honestly surprised I got that far into the project before issues arose, especially given the current climate. I thought for sure I was going to have more availability problems.

I got to shoot it some yesterday. I had some sticky bolt issues due to chips in the shoulder. That, the lack of stabilization (need a bipod still), and the cold cut my range session short. I only fired 2 of my hand loads and 10 Hornady factory loads.

Luckily I still haven't returned the reamer, so I just slotted it back in and hand cranked it in reverse a couple of turns, and I'm going to get a .338 bore mop today so I can polish it up. It would be really nice if I could figure out what happened to that flex hone I bought to fix the factory chamber.

Don't feel bad, finally got a nice scope for my Bergara Ridgeback. Turns out the Sphur mount will not work with the 20MOA Bergara rail I installed. Of course I used red loctite installing it...

So close to having a really nice package. $3500 Steiner M5Xi Scope, $2100 Ridgeback, $400 Sphur Mount.

Now I have to find another rail. All because Bergara felt the need to stamp a large "B" in the middle of their one piece picatinny rail, making it incompatible with high quality one piece mounts.

I don't have anywhere near that in mine. $300 Cabela's scope, $80 Leupold Mark AR one piece mount, and I went for the Warne 0 MOA rail since A) I wasn't sure if there was anything added by the mount (not 100% sure but since it's not mentioned it probably doesn't), and B) Sportsman's just across the state line keeps them in stock.

As it turns out the bipod wasn't as "optional" as I hoped, too. Need to decide if I want to do a picatinny rail down there. A buddy grabbed a bootleg Atlas clone on his and added a cheap Arca mount. Tempting to do that on the 6.5 and toss the current bipod back on the 308 (back from whence it came).