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My (modified) M40A1 clone projects finished


SPEEDY
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Ok so after almost 7 months and many thousands of dollars my M40A1 (modified) project is finished (well almost finished anyway) I was oroganly going to make a spec M40A1 clone but while IMO the M40A1 is one if not the best 308win sniper rifle of all time for use in a hunting situation I felt that there are some improvements that I would like to make so that it would suit my needs and style more

 

Anyway it started life out as a regular off the shelf Remington SPS Varmint in 308win, I topped it off with an old set of 30mm Leuopld rings and one piece base that originally came with my 260rem, I mounted in them a Leupold Mark 4 M3 in 3.5-10X40 with the TMR reticle.

 

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The 1st range test produced 1†3 shot groups , that was a great starting point but I was sure that things should improve by the time I was finished playing with it.

 

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The next upgrade came when my Badger ordnance 20moa rail and rings arrived.

 

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I started hunting with it at this point and it was soon rolling Goats out to 680m and scored some real beauties in the process, not a ad way to pass the time while waiting for the other parts to arrive.

 

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Then finally after many months of waiting my McMillan M40A1 (HTG) stock arrived, it was love at 1st sight well it was until I found out that due to my getting the inletting made to fit a Badger ordnance M5 bottom metal and that the Remington factory bottom metal would not fit as it was too small, damn more waiting.

 

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I then while waiting for the M5 to arrive I bought a set of Harris swivel bi pods for it and had a removable break fitted; the break is from an Accuracy International AW.

 

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Finally the M5 bottom metal arrived, I fitted it Glass bedded the recoil lug, Pillar bedded the stock and replaced the X mark pro trigger that I'm not very fond of with a matte black older style standard M700 trigger. I touched it up and polished all bearing surfaces myself and set it at 2.5lbs, I then removed the break as I'm not fond of the noise and and it has very little recoil and took it to the range to see what it really can do now that it's finished (or close enough to it anyway)

 

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The best group of the day, 165gn Nosler BT pushed by 46.5gn of AR2208 in Lapua cases at 2735fps, the group was only 10mm!!!. Now that’s what I call an improvement, seeing as it’s exactly the same batch of ammo that I loaded when I 1st took it to the range it really goes to show what a little bedding, a 1st rate stock and a trigger job can do.

 

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All that’s left for me to do now is to have a Badger Ordnance Tactical bolt **** fitted and then I will get it re-barreled to 260rem and permanently fit the AW break to it and have the lot dura coated, I will get round to that next year when I have time for that sort of thing again, but for right now I'm one happy camper.

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Good read there speedy :mad:

 

For those long shots 680m are you dialing the scope in or just allowing for bullet drop .

 

Oh they get dialed in after I run the range, elevation, wind speed and even altitude through a program, you then do the same thing to all other open areas that the mob might try and escape through and draw up a range card with adjustments using the hash marks on the scope.

Tat way as the rest of the mob runs off you can still pick them off as they stop to look at where the rest of the mob is (they always do)

 

 

Very nice write up, the leupold mk4 is an excellent scope, :mad:

what does the finished rifle weigh in at ?

 

I don't know but I am going to find out ASAP

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