What .243?

Snelly

Member
If you had £800-1100 to spend on your first centrefire rifle in .243, what would you go for? This is the situation I am in and am erring towards buying a Remington 700 action that has been spruced up by a gunsmith, fitting a Rifle Basix trigger, re-crowning the Rem varmint barrel and putting it all in to a Choate Varmint stock.

I am always open to new advice though as I am absolutely not an expert in this area and a total centrefire novice.

Thanks in advance for your help. :D
 
I bought a new Ruger Hawkeye 243, screw cut and proofed for about £550. Synthetic stock and stainless barrel. I have not yet fitted a mod and the scope only cost me £85 second hand, I like it and it works for me. It's a working rifle and gets a few knocks and very wet so I didnt want to spend too much.

Ultimately, it sends a round downrange pretty sharpish to where I need it to be. It doesn'' have a detachable magazine, which I really like.

Mind you, it's the only one I have any experience of, and not much at that.
 
If I were you snelly, and being a complete novice in centrfire, I would do the following. Bearing in mind that nowadays there is not what you could call a bad gun on the market, they are all as accurate as the average hunter needs by and large. Take yourself off to your local gunsmith and try a few on for size, get the feel of them, how they mount etc. I think in your position I would find a gun that suited before I started an improvement list. Have a look at the Howa's, you can get a factory gun with a Hogue stock, that way you have started your improvements, happy shopping

John
 
i would buy a second hand blaser r93, you could get one for about the sort of money you are looking at (maybe cheaper) and that would include QD scope mounts. try Mcleods, they have a selection of pre owned r93 components. you will then have a good, reliable, accurate, consistent, stylish rifle which can be easily adapted to shoot other calibres when you decide you want more (you will :evil: )

i've had and used other centrefires, but now only have blaser r93's in .243 and .308 and in my very humble opinion, they are the mutts!

but you should also ask the question "do i really want a .243?", im sure you will get a lot of good advice..... ;) ;)
 
bucksden said:
i would buy a second hand blaser r93, you could get one for about the sort of money you are looking at (maybe cheaper) and that would include QD scope mounts. try Mcleods, they have a selection of pre owned r93 components. you will then have a good, reliable, accurate, consistent, stylish rifle which can be easily adapted to shoot other calibres when you decide you want more (you will :evil: )

i've had and used other centrefires, but now only have blaser r93's in .243 and .308 and in my very humble opinion, they are the mutts!

but you should also ask the question "do i really want a .243?", im sure you will get a lot of good advice..... ;) ;)

Sorry to hijack, but do you have any more contact details for McLeods please? I can't seem to find them with a google search.........
Mark.
 
Snelly said:
If you had £800-1100 to spend on your first centrefire rifle in .243, what would you go for?

After you have forked out for the rifle how much will you have left over for a scope - assuming you wont be shooting over iron sights? I think you need to look at the whole package. How much have you got to spend and then throw most of the available cash at the best scope you can afford.

When I started out I bought a CZ550 in .243, which was pretty much at the bottom of the price range and put a S&B 4x42 on top. IIRC the scope cost more than the rifle. The rifle may have been low cost but it hasn't ever let me down and on more than one occassion I have been grateful for the optical quality of the scope.
 
Bandit Country said:
Snelly said:
If you had £800-1100 to spend on your first centrefire rifle in .243, what would you go for?

After you have forked out for the rifle how much will you have left over for a scope - assuming you wont be shooting over iron sights? I think you need to look at the whole package. How much have you got to spend and then throw most of the available cash at the best scope you can afford.

When I started out I bought a CZ550 in .243, which was pretty much at the bottom of the price range and put a S&B 4x42 on top. IIRC the scope cost more than the rifle. The rifle may have been low cost but it hasn't ever let me down and on more than one occassion I have been grateful for the optical quality of the scope.

I will buy a S&B, Zeiss or NF I guess. Probably Zeiss as I have a couple of pairs of binos from them and I think they are great. Had one pair since I was a kid. I will try and get something secondhand too.
 
snelly

Bandit Country hit the nail on the head spend the money on the optics and binos.

all rifles shoot straight i admit some straighter than others but all will give you adiquit groups @ 100m& 200m for deer and fox.

if you dont you will have a stunnng looking rifle that you are terrified of scratching or getting wet , then when you do go out with it you cant see anything as the sun starts to go down or early morning as your binos and scope are c**p

a saying i heard once that i believe is very true "SPEND WHAT YOU CANT AFFORD ON SCOPES AND BINOS".........neil
 
In complete agreement - if you must have a new rifle, look at a Howa or a Tikka, but spend some proper money on the scope (and don't forget decent mounts - a lot of people go for cheapies and regret it)
 
Tikka T3, Optilock mounts, second-hand European scope. You'll have an accurate rifle with a decent trigger right out of the box.
 
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