Battle of Breakneck PRS Prize Rifle
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I had the opportunity recently to put together a prize table rifle for the Battle of Breakneck PRS shoot in Broadwater, NE April 15-17.
It's awesome how the industry can come together in support for one of the fastest growing precision rifle sports!
Parts consist of a BigHorn TL2 action, J Allen Enterprises chassis, Hawk Hill 6.5mm Marksman contour barrel, Huber Concepts 2 stage trigger, and Hawkins Precision rings and muzzle brake.The last of the parts showed landed here Wednesday afternoon 4/6/16. After unboxing everything I snapped a couple pictures pre-assembly to show you what we're working with.
We prepped the barrel for coolant Wednesday evening and were ready to tear into this thing Thursday morning.Barrel dialed in at the throat with a long stem indicator to ensure a square transition for the bullet from the case to the bore.
Program for a BigHorn TL2 Standard bolt face receiver loaded in the controller, G54 Z zero established, and we're rolling!
I need a windshield wiper installed on this inside of the machine door I think....
Tenon major diameter of 1.062" verified, offsets are good to go.
45 degree chamber chamfer profiled for a smooth entry of the cartridge into the chamber.
Threads cut and incrementally stepped down .001 per pass until a snug yet smooth thread fit is achieved. Flood coolant and high RPM's result in some beautiful threads! I've found the BigHorn receiver threads to be cut extremely square with zero taper.
A custom taper body drill is used to rough the chamber out on the majority of the short action standard bolt face cartridges we do. Runs at 1200 rpm and .012" feed per rev. Sure speeds up the chambering process when the roughing cycle takes 15 seconds!!!
Sorry, you don't get to see detail on that tool at this time :)
Finish from the body drill... I've got about 150 chambers on this one and the finish looks as good as a chamber reamer.
6.5 Creedmoor TacMatch is the cartridge of choice for this one. Throated shorter than saami spec, factory ammo is still safe to use and it remains possible to use the longest 140 class bullets and have them seated inside of mag length.
Use of a hydraulic holder with a positive stop allows us to keep track of the tool length offset for all the reamers in the inventory and be able to pop them in and out, input the proper offset, and go without having to touch tools off.
Did I mention I need a windshield wiper?
The primary chambering cycle is ran leaving the chamber .010"-.020" short of proper headspace. From there, a depth to proper headspace is calculated and input into a finishing program and the remainder is cut to final headspace.
1.022" is what we're looking for at GO +.002" with this receiver.
A light polish with 600grit and oil evens up the chamber finish and gives a little bite to the brass to ease the bolt thrust.
The barrel is then torqued up to the receiver, witness mark established at top dead center, and removed again for finishing the muzzle. The muzzle end of the bore is dialed in, 11 degree crown cut, and 5/8-24 threads are spun on. After peeling a few thousandths off the shoulder to time the brake up, a small diameter carbide boring bar is used to bore the brake open to .020" over bullet diameter to assure concentric clearance around the bullet's path. I then use a program written with local macro variables to turn the muzzle brake diameter concentric to the outside diameter of the barrel and apply a decorative dished crown to the brake. A quick deburr on the ports and the brake will get spin polished to the barrel to make that seem invisible.
Over to the mill the barrel goes to receive the maker's name and caliber designation.
Beings this barreled action is going to be riding in a chassis, there is no stock fitting required and the barreled action is ready for paint.
Having a vinyl cutter and proper design software allows us to spruce stuff up now and then!
After laying down a base of Gun Metal Gray and brief cycle through the oven, the artwork was applied, and a layer of Tungsten gray was applied to the artwork and remaining pieces for some contrast. This concluded the first day's work on the rifle. Not bad for one day!
First thing Thursday morning, the metal parts were pulled from the oven and assembly commenced!
To say that I'm thrilled with how this rifle turned out would be an understatement. You better all have your rifles working and your best shootin' pants on next weekend because I wouldn't mind bringing this thing back home with me!!!
I want to thank all my industry affiliates who donated parts for this rifle. I also want to thank the crew at Battle of Breakneck for allowing TS Customs the opportunity to put them all together.
I look forward to seeing everyone next week! Good luck!
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That is one sweet looking rifle!
Looks like it will be windy and possibly rain on Friday.
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Makes my head spin. The local guy has digital a readout and that is all.
Maybe Rain X on the inside of the shields?Did you do the photography too?
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Truly impressive work.
Every TS Customs rifle I have seen exudes excellence.
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@hypo said:
Makes my head spin. The local guy has digital a readout and that is all.
Maybe Rain X on the inside of the shields?Did you do the photography too?
The Rain X might be workable. Don't bother me too much not seeing in, I know what's going on. Countless times thought I've people come and and peak in the window while it's running and "Man, you need some windshield wipers in here."
I took all the pictures.
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Those J Allen chassis look like they've got all kinds of room to get one of those triggers with an adjustable shoe to come way back to where a guy would want it. Just a pile of space behind that trigger in that picture, and with most traditional rifle trigger shoes being much too far forward for proper ergo's, I'd think there are some possibilities there.
Beautiful rifle as always @tscustoms.
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@orkan said:
Those J Allen chassis look like they've got all kinds of room to get one of those triggers with an adjustable shoe to come way back to where a guy would want it. Just a pile of space behind that trigger in that picture, and with most traditional rifle trigger shoes being much too far forward for proper ergo's, I'd think there are some possibilities there.
Beautiful rifle as always @tscustoms.
It's a little deceiving as that is a 2 stage Huber so the resting position is a little further forward than standard single stage triggers. However, there would still be plenty of room for an adjustable shoe trigger like you were saying.
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I had the opportunity to see this rifle in person, really turned out nice.
I also gave the comment to add some windshield wipers :joy:
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Well @tscustoms how did you do? If the weather was anything like up here (and by radar it looked worse) you guys were probably in some fun shooting conditions.
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@rhyno I ended up taking 4th. You are correct, we had some very much less that desirable shooting conditions. TS Customs rifles also took 1st and 2nd place. I will try to get an AAR and range report posted up this evening.
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Well congratulations, 4th isn't bad, but having your rifles take the top places like that must be awesome as well.
