Quote Originally Posted by rimfirekyle View Post
I appreciate the honesty. however, I cannot afford to build multiple rifles. I will just have to compromise a little in some areas to have a multi purpose rifle.

Who says you have to compromise though? Lets look at your little project here in a little closer detail and crunch the numbers...

Hog Hunter in .223 = paid for
B&C Medalist Tactical Stock = $240.00 (Stocky's price)
Aftermarket Pre-Fit .243 Barrel = $300 and up depending on brand
CDI Bottom Metal = $210.00
AI Magazine = $75-80 each

If you don't include the price of the stock (figuring you'll want that no matter what) you're dumping a minimum of $585.00 more into the gun for the barrel, bottom metal and one 5-round magazine. You can buy an Axis and a good scope to serve as your deer rifle for that and still have a good bit of money left over.

You already have the .223 which you can use for coyote hunting and target shooting pretty much as-is. The .223 is (or should I say was) relatively cheap to shoot at the range, and with 50-60 grain bullets it makes for a fine coyote round. Throw a decent scope and your new stock on it and go to town! Now go out and buy yourself an Axis in a suitable deer cartridge for where you live (.243, 7mm-08, .308, .25-06, .270, .30-06 - whatever floats your boat) for under $300 (less than you'd spend on a quality aftermarket barrel) and spend another $100-200 to scope it with a decent 3-9x40mm (less than the cost of the CDI bottom metal). Heck, for that matter you could just buy an Axis package rifle for around $350 and save a little more coin even though the scope won't be nearly as nice, but it will get you through until you can afford to upgrade.

My point here is that people dream up these compromise builds when they really don't have to, and in doing so really handicap themselves in the long run. Usually they're compromising because money is tight and they don't think they can afford another gun when the truth is they'll end up spending two to three times as much building one gun than it would cost to buy a second. Why? Because as pk01 noted you'll end up spending a lot of money building it the first time only to find you don't quite like it, so then you spend more money changing this or that and in the end it still doesn't quite suit your needs. This madness continues until one day when you finally realize "hey, why don't I just get another rifle so I can have one dedicated for this and one dedicated for that and I won't have to screw around with trying to find a happy medium anymore."

When the budget is tight and you're trying to stretch your dollar (as it sounds you are trying to do) you have to think things through with a little common sense and logic. Use your money now to buy two complete guns - each with it's own dedicated purpose. No they're not going to be EXACTLY what you want in the beginning, but it's a much better starting point than trying to make one gun fill multiple roles that are drastically different in terms of how the gun needs to be configured. Down the road as money allows you can modify one or both as you see fit to better tailor it to how you're using it.

Trust me, I've seen it time and time and time again in the 10 years I've been running this site. And besides, what's better....one gun or two? Not trying to dissuade you from your build, just saying don't rush into it, think it through, and do it the better way as I guarantee you you'll be happier and more satisfied with the results in the end.