The Predator Pack

I was sitting around thinking about all of my "inventory" this weekend, and ended up putting some orphaned parts together. I had traded for an Interarms mark X in a 7x57 it had not been cared for and I was not excited to get it, but it did even out a lopsided trade. I tried to clean it up, and sell it but had no luck, and opened the chamber up to a 280AI. It shot fairly good ( 3 inch groups at 300 - 400 yards, but still it just sat in the gun rack. I had ordered a Bell & Carlson stock for it but just could not get excited about this gun. I found a 27 inch 1-12 twist lilja #3 contour I had on an action for a short time, but moved into long range shooting and forgot I had it. I fit the barrel to the action, chambered and head spaced it to a 6mm Rem as that was a reamer I had it also is one of my all time favorite chambers. Next I fit it to the stock, and started handling the rifle. the stock fit me well, but the gun just did not point well. I started running some calculations through quick load and decided to cut the barrel down to 20 inches. I checked and rechecked  several loads and powders I have on hand, and cut the barrel off @ 20 inches. as soon as I layer it on the table I regretted cutting it off!!. I put it back on the action and in the stock and mounted it a few times. I was really liking this little set up. I dug around in the closet and found a beat up old vari X II 3-9 x 40 scope and mounted it. things were starting to come together, but the stainless barrel, poorly kept action and abused scope were not very appealing to the eye. I had a duracoat kit I bought to try and thought what better to try on tha this homely rig. I duracoated the whole rig, and while it turned out ok (I learned a lot about what not to do with duracoat) I am pleased with the look and feel of the gun. the real test would be velocity or how much was missing from this hang short barrel. well today I set up the chronograph @ 10 feet from the muzzle and started playing with some powders. I started with a min load published on Hodgon's site for superformance and it was slower than they listed, but about where I was expecting to see it 3425 fps at their published max load I was getting 3775 fps!!! That is 152 fps short of the speed advertised at that load, but they used a longer barrel, and I am right where my calculations suggested I would be SUCCESS!!! Needless to say I a happy camper, and look forward to putting this accumulation of unwanted parts to use!! now a trip to the range to se if it will actually shoot. I am so happy with the performance, I am thinking of putting a similar rifle together but with lighter parts for a total weight under 7 pounds this one is about 8.5 pounds, but it was pretty low cost as I had everything laying around and put it together out of boredom. here are a few pictures for those interested.