So You Want To Build A 2-Mile Rifle

So

You Want To Build A 2-Mile Rifle

by Chad Kinyon

S

So, you want to build a two-mile rifle? The first thing you need to ask yourself is a critical question. “Am I prepared to see this through to its natural and final conclusion?” If the answer isn’t a resounding yes, then spend the time and money on something that checks that box for you. For me, Extreme Long Range (ELR) shooting checked that box. Please keep in mind that what I write is my opinion, and by no means am I a professional. I have been blessed with a certain amount of success in the field and continue to strive for more. I’m certain some people will have a conflicting opinion, to a degree, and that’s fine. You do you. But if you’re intrigued, then venture down the rabbit hole with me. Let’s build a competition rifle that is capable of launching a projectile a couple of miles.

The first thing to consider with any two-mile-capable cartridge is that it will build extreme chamber pressure in order to launch a heavy bullet a long distance (usually between 300-600 grains). I will be using the Cutting Edge 377-grain solid copper bullets. They are individually turned on a Swiss lathe and are very consistent. I felt like it was a good balance between weight, performance, and economy. These heavy bullets provide what I like to call the “freight train” effect. Think about how long it takes a train to coast to stop from 60mph versus a sports car. Mass in motion wants to stay in motion, so you take something heavy and get it going as fast as possible without blowing yourself or the rifle up and let physics take over. The bullet’s weight will aid in the deterioration of the speed and deflection in its flight path as the wind tries to push it off course. Because of this, you will need to start with a robust action.

Only a handful of manufacturers make actions that can step up to the plate and become an ELR rifle. You almost have to take what you are used to, or what you consider “normal,” and at the very minimum, double it. I chose the Pierce 10X action. It is 10” long with a 1.6” diameter and weighs slightly over 34 oz. This action is stout enough to handle most Cheytec variants, which seem to be the most common in competition. The action will become the heart, soul, and backbone of your ELR rifle, so this is not a place to cut corners. Remember, we are going big—really big. Take your time and choose what is suitable for you and the application. I have seen actions out there that are 2” in diameter, which would be the choice if you planned on building something based on a 50 cal of the 416 Barret cartridges. So, in short, and I can’t stress this enough, do your research and choose the action that fits your needs. A do-over can burn up the cash that you budgeted for other components.

More than likely, when ordering your action, you will need to consider two things. First, determine the bolt face size. Your choice of cartridge will dictate this number. I’ll address cartridges later. Second, decide whether the rifle will be a single shot and side-loaded, or a magazine-fed repeater. This decision will narrow your choices for a stock or chassis later on. I chose a repeater for a couple of reasons, mainly, they time all the ELR competitions. You have a certain amount of time—usually five to seven minutes—to get your shots off, and that’s it. Another reason I chose a repeater is I don’t have to lift my head off the rifle to chamber the next round. Keeping your head down on the scope increases your chances of seeing the impact several seconds after pulling the trigger, allowing for the appropriate correction. Now it’s time to find a gunsmith. The best way to find “your guy” who will fit your new rifle together is to ask trusted friends for recommendations. You will invest several thousand dollars into components, and if the gunsmith puts them together incorrectly, it’s just money wasted. Look at samples of the gunsmith’s work. Talk to people. Make sure the person you choose is comfortable with what you are asking them to build. People in the shooting community are, as a general rule, some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Most are willing to help anyone who asks for information or guidance. I have contacted people that I have never even met and received top-notch advice in return. Usually, they will say something like “let me know how this turns out” or “happy to help, good luck.” Some of these people will become those trusted friends I mentioned. At this point, you aren’t committed to any specific cartridge, just a family of cartridges. You have several other decisions to make before the final commitment to cartridge size. Be sure to keep in mind that quality components have delivery lead times, sometimes as long as six months and maybe even longer in some cases. Ordering something and having it in stock and ready to ship is an oddity, not the norm. The sooner you commit to a specific cartridge and bullet, the easier some of your other decisions will be. Plan ahead and know that barrels tend to have the longest lead time. When choosing a barrel, you will have to commit to a caliber and cartridge. The barrel blank will arrive at the gunsmith with the rifling already cut. It will just need to be chambered and fit into the action. I selected the .375 EnABELR for a bullet and cartridge combination. I briefly considered .338” to save some money on bullets, but when I looked at who was winning and what they were shooting, it appeared that the .375” was more popular and successful in competition. Your gunsmith will need to get a ream to cut the chamber and a “go gauge” to check the chamber headspace. Let him take care of those items, he knows what works for him. You will have to decide on a twist rate, contour, and length for the barrel. Make sure you pick a twist rate that will stabilize the bullet you want to run. Heavier bullets like spinning a little faster, so a 1:7 or 1:8 seem to be quite common. The Berger Bullets website has a calculator that will give you a better idea of what twist rate will stabilize your selected bullet. The barrel length will make a huge difference in how your rifle performs. Consider a 377-grain bullet you are trying to get to a speed of 3000+/- fps. If you choose a 20” barrel, the pressure you will need to build in a blink of an eye will most likely blow up your rifle. If you take that same bullet with a 36” barrel, you can use a much slower burning powder and give the barrel almost double the amount of time and space to build pressure. Barrel length also plays into OBT (Optimum Barrel Time). I know we are talking milliseconds, but it matters. Barrel harmonics are a tricky detail that we can cover another time. Slower burning powder and longer barrels tend to be easier on the brass, which you’ll reload and use again. The brass and barrel will last much longer if you don’t abuse the heck out of them, although you’ll have to replace these two things at some point. If you’re competing, have an extra barrel on hand. The 36” barrel for my build had a six-month lead time. Barrel manufacturers are businesses, and they pander to demand. These big-bore rifles aren’t their bread and butter, so they will take longer to get. If you have a good relationship with your gunsmith, and he can fit you in, he should be able to get it installed in a couple of weeks and get you up and running again if you have the barrel. You’ll also want extra brass—keep at least 100 pieces of new brass tucked away. These large-caliber rifles use brass made in specific runs, and you may experience a couple of months where it simply doesn’t exist anywhere at any price.

Regardless of what cartridge you end up going with, you’re going to need a trigger. Triggers are funny little things. Get the right one, and you’re in love, the wrong one, not so much. These oversized actions create some problems for triggers. An oversimplified explanation is that they are a scaled-up version of a Remington 700 action. The problem comes from the width. They tend to be so wide that a regular Rem 700 trigger won’t work because the safety can’t get around the girth of the action. So, you either run without a safety (which may be a problem at some matches) or go with a bottom safety. The bottom safety is the better choice. These triggers—and there are only a couple of manufactures—place the safety lever just ahead of the trigger. You will need to engage and disengage it with your index finger instead of your thumb. It will take some practice. You want the trigger to be crisp with no creep and brake clean. Competition triggers have notoriously light pulls and can be adjustable or factory set at a certain pull weight. Most hunting rifles have a pull weight between five and seven pounds. A competition trigger can be less than 1 pound and as light as .25 (4oz) pound. The first time you dry fire one, you’ll swear a stiff breeze would set it off. It takes some time to get used to it. For starters, don’t even touch the trigger unless you are ready for the bang. As you get used to the pull weight, you will get more comfortable just lightly resting your fingerprint on the end of the trigger lever. Breathe and squeeze, soft and steady. The recoil will come as more of a forceful shove to the whole body than a sharp pop to the shoulder. Since we are on the subject of recoil, you are going to want a muzzle brake. They help reduce the recoil by venting the hot compressed gas to the side and rear of the shooter. Awesome for the shooter trying to keep his sight on the target, but, trust me on this, it sucks to be the guy in the backblast area. It will literally blow your hair back, and I have VERY short hair. You will need a high-quality optic to see your target a couple of miles away. If you read my first article, you know I’m a huge fan of Nightforce, not just because they are local to my hometown area but also because they are top-tier. The Zero Compromise Optics caught my attention on a recommendation from a friend, and I have to admit, I’m intrigued.

Oddly, they both have a connection to North Idaho and would be appropriate for this type of build. My personal choice for my build is the Nightforce ATACR 7-35x56 with the TrEMOR3 reticle. When you first look through it, it will seem busy in there. There are markings for elevation and wind holds that can get confusing at times, but let’s make it simple. You dial in your yardage and wind using your collected data and your best guess. Now, take your shot. You have several seconds to get the reticle back on your aim point. Now, watch for the hit or miss. If you hit, keep sending them with possibly a slight aim point adjustment to get into the center of the target. If you miss, chances are one of these dots or marks in the reticle is on top of that miss. Now, move that dot onto the target and send it. Let that very expensive tape measure do the brain work for you. Every optic has its limitations on adjustment capabilities. Most high-end optics will have roughly 25-30mils +/- of internal elevation adjustment, which would be adequate for roughly 2500 yards with a big-bore rifle. But remember, you need to get another 1000 yards worth of elevation to hit that two-mile target. After all, the bullet will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 580+/- feet of drop. Take a moment and think about that last sentence; read it again. The drop is measured from the line of sight to the target to the apex of the bullet flight path. It’s a lot like lobbing an artillery shell in more ways than one. There are two ways to get the extra elevation. First, is a prism that attaches in front of the scope, takes the line of sight, and lifts it up. The prism changes the sightline and angle, thereby your optics capabilities, much like a periscope. TacomHQ manufactures the most popular prism; it can add as much as 250 mils of elevation. The second way to get more elevation is to use an adjustable scope base, like an Ivey, which was the direction I chose. These are precisely machined mechanisms that physically change the scope angle in relation to the rifle bore. They dial much like a micrometer and can add another 60 mils of elevation by precisely lifting up the rear or ocular lens. In this particular case, it fills another need, scope rings. With an Ivey, it’s all one piece. As you might imagine, neither option is cheap, but refer to the first line of this article as fair warning.

Time to choose the packaging that will hold all of this equipment together and make it usable. The first thing to consider when ordering a stock is, “Will it fit the action and hold the weight?” These rifles get heavy, usually somewhere between 25 and 40 pounds. If you choose a single-shot action, you have a few more choices. You can get a fiberglass or wood laminate stock, or an aluminum chassis. To a degree, fiberglass is probably the most common. I’m guessing that is because they tend to be less expensive, offer many action options, and have shorter lead times. Personally, not a big fan, but that’s just me. Wood laminate stocks provide many of the same amenities as a fiberglass stock; with a bonus, they can be beautiful -to the point of being works of art. A fellow in the Boise area runs Cerus Rifleworks and makes the most beautiful wood stocks I have ever seen. believe he uses instrument-grade exotic hardwoods reinforced with carbon fiber and aluminum for the most part. They tend to be popular with the F-Class crowd.

The final choice would be a chassis. These are more popular with repeater actions that need to hold a magazine. They are machined from solid blocks of aluminum and tend to be modular by design. You can choose the buttstock, the main body, and the fore-end that fit your needs in the color of your choice. I have a buddy that runs a Tiffany Blue chassis. I think he likes the way it stands out on the firing line in pictures. A chassis will usually have places to mount all kinds of do-dads that you may need (or think you need). I went with a Cadex chassis out of Canada because it was the best option I could find that would do everything I needed. It checked all the boxes for me.

Now, for the most part, we have constructed a 30-pound piece of artillery. Get used to laying on the ground because it is simply too much weight to shoot standing. Admittedly, it is entertaining to watch people try. I digress. But to shoot on the ground, you have to get stable on the ground. A good bipod is a must. Oddly, this is the piece of equipment with the most restrictive rules around it. It has to be like everything else in the build, stout. I like the ACCU-TAC HD50. It’s sturdy and fits within the KO2M rules. Rear bags are simple; whatever works for the shooter. I have this dandy homemade bag that supports my chest and shoulder, which takes the muscle tension out of my upper body while also providing the elevation support for the rear of the rifle. Betty The Bag is her name; she holds 25 pounds of rice and fits me like a well-worn work glove.

The final item, and it’s no small detail, is that you have to get used to loading your ammunition. For the most, part there isn’t a supply of factory ammo for these rifles, and even if there were, it wouldn’t meet the quality standard required. There are a few loading services out there, but if you expect to compete, you’ll need to step up and start loading your own. Let’s address that next time when we attempt to get our new rifle shooting correctly.