Building a Bolt action F Class Rifle

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So soon I will begin building a Bolt action F-class rifle. I am going to build it around my savage 110 Long action using a Krieger barrel, sharpshootersupply trigger and F-CLASS stock.

I had a thought though, the rifle was a .300 win mag. What about rebarreling/chambering it in .30-06 rather than.300 win mag. Now I know there are some 6.5 lovers and stuff out there. I also know there are .300 win mag shooters near the top of the leaderboards.....I'm not changing actions as this one has sentimental value and it is a Long Action, not short. So I guess what I am asking is, would the lost velocity but reduced recoil of the .30-06 be decent? Or should I just go ahead with the .300 win mag?

FIFW I'm not recoil sensitive and with the original sporter barrel I regularly shot this gun 80 or 100 rounds in an afternoon no problem....it only weighed 12.8 lbs at the time.
 
F-class

I have not shot F-Class, but shot a bit of F-T/R, usually in a mixed match with F-Class guys in the same firing line. My F-T/R rifle was .308. With its long barrel, it likely reached or exceeded most '06 sporter velocities. By the way, my rifle (in .308) was built on a long Savage 110 action. I had a lot of room to seat bullets out howsoever far was necessary for good accuracy in my loads.

The F-Class guys with their .260's/6.5's, and even 284/7mm rifles generally always out shot the the .308 caliber F-T/R guys, usually by a fair margin. The heavy bullet .223 fast twist rifles did pretty good too, out to 600 yds. The higher ballistic coefficient of the sub-.30 rifles slipped the wind better, and did not require as much skill in reading the wind, which was the great enemy of newer match shooters (like me) and obtaining higher scores.

I hear the latest trend is to heavy bullets in .308 for F-T/R, and I suppose driving the same heavy .30's at even higher velocity from the big magnum cases in the open F-class would be simply more of a good thing. I've not been to a match in some time, so maybe that is the way F-class has gone. Seems to me though that a weekend of .300 magnum, even from a heavy F-class rifle, would grow pretty tiresome and effect good shooting.

Again, I am not a F-class shark, and have only a bit of experience. But I myself would build a sub .30 rifle over an '06 every time, and only go to a .300 mag if there were a demonstrable difference in scores over the smaller bores.
 
If you are staying with a long-action magnum cartridge, do the 300 win mag rather than the 30-06. Not a lot of 30-06s in F-Open. Or do a short action cartridge, which would work fine in your long action since F-Open is single feed anyway, such as 284 win or 300 wsm.
 
"...Not a lot of 30-06s in F-Open..." Yep, Think .300 Mag vs the '06. The '06 doesn't have the legs.
12.8 pounds is too light. Know a guy who regularly won 1,000 yard matches before there was such a thing an 'F Class'. His rifle, a heavy Premium Douglas SS barrel, built on a Win M70, was a .300 Win and weighed 17.5 pounds. It's about dealing with recoil for an entire day. That's also why bamaranger's .260's/6.5's, and 284/7mm rifles won too.
 
Most the guys I know that shoot .30-06 in a F-Class match are shooting Service Rifle division.

Almost sounds like you're looking at F-Open.

Most of the people I know that are shooting F-Open and are successful at it are shooting a .284 variation or a 6.5 variation. I believe weight is restricted to the 20# area and most have those heavy duty fancy rests.

I shoot F-T/R which is restricted to .308 or .223, and the setup can weigh no more than 18.18 pounds.

I don't anyone though that shoots a .300 WM or .30-06 in F-Open.


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I shot F class with a .30-06 for a while to see if I liked it well enough to set up with .223 and .308 for the less gadget intensive F TR.

Early days I saw a few .300 Win Mags in F Open, but they faded out in favor of 6.5x284.

It has gotten wild since then and you will find about any caliber you can get a high BC bullet for and any chamber you can grind a reamer for.
There are actually people out there necking up 6.5x284 back to .284 for the good 7mm bullets. Some are using larger cases but are paying for less windage with heavier recoil and shorter barrel life.

I think the smart thing to do is to go .308, keep the weight just under the 8 kg maximum, and learn the game in F TR. The barrel is good for 2500 - 4500 shots, depending on how good you are at calling your shots and a bit of luck.
When that wears out, you can decide whether to put on a new .308 and stay in F TR or screw in a 6.5 Creedmoor or something, put it all in a dedicated "belly benchrest" stock, buy micro adjustable rests, and advance into F Open.
 
Right sonofagun, I would also need a new bolt
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You would only need a net BOLT HEAD. The Savage is a free floating head (ergo no trueing of the action needed).

I would go with 30-06 and try R17. You can get 300 WM velocities with it and it won't burnt he barrel up like a 300 WM.

That's an expensive barrel you want to cherish and keep as long as you can.
 
I don't anyone though that shoots a .300 WM or .30-06 in F-Open.
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Didn't Germain Salazar do it?

Sure if you are in top level competition the fine lines of the more accurate rounds favor them, I suspect you would do fine for any local level stuff.

I built a 30-06 Bull Barrel rifle because I like 30-06, its a great cartridge and I think overlooked due to whiz bang.

I don't see any difference at my capability level between it and the supposedly more accurate 308, and it has the velocity to reach out farther before dropping sub sonic.

You have to go a long way down the thing to find it but its there.
I don't know if his blog works, he had health issues and I don't know his status.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/tag/german-salazar/
 
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I think if I was going 308 I would rather a shorter action. I know in F-Class they are single loaded and fired so the long action would work but that is a lot of space in the mag and a lot of pull for the action....i guess the up side would be that I could seat bullets as long as I wanted in bot .30-06 and .308
 
In F class, the magazine means precisely nothing, everything is slow fire, single loaded. Better you had a solid bottom single shot. One of those feed trays that goes in the magazine over or instead of the follower is next best.
Plenty of time to pull the bolt on a long action back that extra half inch. Or not. Take out the ejector and pluck the empty out of the receiver and put it back in the cartridge box to load for next time.
 
I think if I was going 308 I would rather a shorter action. I know in F-Class they are single loaded and fired so the long action would work but that is a lot of space in the mag and a lot of pull for the action....i guess the up side would be that I could seat bullets as long as I wanted in bot .30-06 and .308
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Before I swapped over to the short action I had my 308 Bull on the long action. Worked perfectly fine.

Magfollower and spring in there though I could have just plugged it.

Not an issue, (single loading).

Blank it off and better yet. I have a bottom release Savage I did that too, need a bit more wood in it but works fine.

I probably should have just bought a single shot 308, but have had a lot of fun putting them together and satisfaction of doing it myself and getting very accurate rifles out of it.,

I want to get the release up top, I think the whole setup is sturdier (rigid) with solid wood under the magazine so that's how its going back together.
 
^^ Compared to the more "common" .30, 6.5, 6's...yes.

There will always be the "which is better" conversation between smaller, faster boolits- and heavier, slower ones with a higher BC. On any given day, one may have an advantage over the other. Me, I've always been a fan of the 7mm heavies, and use them in my 7-08. With a .625 BC, the 162 Amax I shoot (bought a ton of them when Sierra still made them) is a winner, I find they're a great compromise here.

Don't know if they've since changed, but I know a few years ago the U.S. F-Class team had switched to 7mm bullets.
 
For some reason, I'm in love with the 7.62/.30 cal cartridges. I know the advantages of 6.5's and such, especially as a hand loader who reads ballistic tables when relaxing in my recliner.
But for some reason, I just love the .30 cal....a cartridge is going to have to be far superior to get me to change my mind... plus I'm already geared up to reload most .30 cal rounds

I do have some other calibers, such as .270 win, .338 LM, .243, 22LR etc...but my favorites have been my .308's and .300 win mag. Again, I don't have a solid rational explanation.....I was debating between the .300 WM and .30-06 because, using heavier pills, the .30-06 behaves like a tweener between.300 wm and .308 because admittedly the .300 wm has quite the recoil. Though I have fired over 100 .300 wm rounds in an afternoon with no issues.
The other thing is, the faster lighter bullets tend to wear a barrel out a bit faster than slower heavier bullets. I'm sure someone will argue with me on the last statement but its true.
 
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The other thing is, the faster lighter bullets tend to wear a barrel out a bit faster than slower heavier bullets. I'm sure someone will argue with me on the last statement but its true.
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Throat erosion is a factor of gas volume and bore diameter...known science, I don't think you'll find anyone that'll dispute this :)
 
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