New "Cobbled" Youth Rifle

I've got a couple of boys (7 & 9 yrs old) who are getting into shooting & hunting. The latter loves shooting my 6mm-250 and can take out 12 ga hulls at 100 yds, so I thought it was time to put something more serious than their .22 lr/.410 switch-barrel NEF handi-rifle. While digging around by my workbench I had an epiphany...

I had an old Savage 110 action that'd been a .270 WCF originally but shot nicely w/ an ER Shaw 338-06 tube which I sold "just because". It came w/ a Weaver V9 scope that I'd long ago spray painted (rather poorly, I might add :( ) and I had some Burris Sig Zees in gloss as well. Using the funds from the sale of the Shaw tube I bought a Stevens 200 take-off in .243 Win from hound53 (a fine gentleman to buy from, btw...) here, a take-off tupperware stock from someone on another forum, and a SS lug from Jim at NSS.

The receiver is parkerized (dark gray) and the barrel matte-blued (basically black) and I had a SS nut lying around, so it looks kinda cool... add in the glossy rings & poorly spray painted scope, and it... uh... has... um... character? The plan is to glass bed the factory tupperware, trim it back to length for the boys, and let them decide together on an appropriate rattle-can scheme... probably get some matte rings at some point, too...

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/P1430699.jpg
http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/P1430701.jpg

Anyway, this week I took it to the range a couple of times for the first little bit of load development. I've tried 87 gr VMax & 80 gr RP-PSPs w/ IMR-4350. The former hasn't worked out well at all, though I've only tried 3 loads and had 'em crammed into the lands pretty hard. The latter, however (4 shot group):

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/r...n/P1430703.jpg

I'm happy with... I'm positive the coyotes will hate it ;D !

I'll keep updating this thread as the project goes on. I've got a few hundred 95 gr VLDs & NBTs. The former I plan to couple w/ some Nosler Custom brass I purchased on a with leftover barrel money and see how they'll do out beyond 400 yds, while the latter will be used as deer hunting bullets for the boys this fall.

Thanks for looking,

efw

Looks darn good to me. And the boys should be thrilled.Good for you thinking of the boys. All my girls (no sons) are excellent marksmen (women.) I did a stainles nut and trigger guard on my .35 Whelen build and it adds some class to an otherwise dull rifle. And the accuracy of your rifle is darn good, looks like under an inch group assuming those squares are 1x1 Minute of coyote at 400 yds for sure.

El Lobo