Just a dude in BC
AH senior member
I will snap some more pics when next I am out on the range.. Which will be soon! As I am loading up all the rounds for the hunt this weekend +20%. So I can then shoot the 20% as a final zero confirmation and to verify that everything is good to go.
But here are the details on the rifles:
1. The 500 Nitro Express is based on a ruger no.1 action that I bought when I was 16 (Many moons ago). It was originally in .458win mag, but the previous owner had removed the quarter rib, and put on a smaller iron sight. I suppose this would have worked fine for the trip, but I wanted a 500ne for its classic pedigree. Also, because I am friends with the general manager of IBI barrels, and shortly after they were setup to start making 50 bmg barrels, (which use the same .510 bore and 1-15 twist) the Trudeau government banned them. This left him with a few of the already competed blanks. So wanting to support my friend I asked him to spin one into a 500ne. He agreed if I would buy the reamer. I ordered a custom reamer from Manson reamers, that allows me to seat the bullet out 100 thou farther out of the case. This was because it would still allow it to shoot factory 500ne, but if I did some hot loads owing to the strength of the ruger, I would have more powder capacity, and it would be to long to fit in a double. Thus protecting any future double that found any of my hot rounds. I could not fathom being responsible for destroying a double. As it sits now I am not sure I will ever do that, as the recoil is enough as it is! The barrel is 26" long and stainless, I had it cerecoated to give it a traditional look. The rear sight is a standard Ruger quarter rib and Ruger single leaf sight and the front sight is a NECG sight (R-170 with the with the R-140 fiber). Due to the thickness of the barrel the sling ring is custom by the smith.
The wood is grade V New Zealand walnut that I bought from Prophet River gun up here in Canada. I bought the raw blank about 9 months ago, and it was originally intended for the Krieghoff, but it was not quite thick enough to have a check rest, so I opted to put it on the Ruger as I wanted to keep it a true ambidextrous gun. And the pommel cap and front of the fore grip are Gabon Ebony. The butt took a weekend to make, and the fore grip about a day an a half. The finish on the wood is using a CCL traditional gunstock oil finishing kit.
The optic is a Leica Amplus 1-6, and so far I like this optic a lot, good eye relief and it is illuminated
Overall the gun weighs 12.5ish lbs, and has a mercury recoil reducer in the butt. The muzzle break does not do as much as I like, as I could not find an actual 50 break. So that is a 338 break that I reamed out to .590, to give about 40thou clearance on each side.
The load I have now settled on for this rifle is a 600gr north fork cup point solid at 2160 fps over 94gr of N540 and 3.750" COL. It is currently shooting this just under 1" for 3 shot groups. But I will admit it is hard to sit at a bench and fire this rifle. Off of sticks its not to bad, and when the time comes for the buff, you know you will never hear or feel the shot!
2. The Krieghoff is a double rifle Optima. Two barrels of 9.3x74r and one 20ga shotgun. The rifle was a project gun that someone else had abandoned and was in the white at Martini Gunmakers here in Canada. I arranged the sale with Martini and he also introduced me to Jakob Strasser who is a Krieghoff master gunsmith who does all the krieghoff warranty work in Canada. Luckily he had several nice pieces of Turkish walnut that were thick enough for a cheek rest and was able to outline and inlet the stock to the action, allowing me to finish to final shape. It is also finished with the CCL oil kit. It has a nice butterfly rear sight and a 3/32 red fiber front sight. It also has a neat feature for adjusting the front barrels closer or farther apart allowing me to adjust its regulation. Though even at max regulation it seems to like fast rounds. My current load for it are 285gr Northfork SS bullets over 55gr of Varget, for 2340fps. And the regulation with this load is sitting at about 1.5" at 100. This load came from Northfork, and although I would never have thought to use Varget, it seems to be the best powder with just about every bullet for this rifle. It has a discontinued Leica 2.5-10 on it, which I like a lot, but I am not a fan of the turrets so much.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
