The first "custom" I did was a 788 Rem. It was a factory 223 I bought from a Pawn Shop and it had seen better days. I sent the barreled action to Van Horn Custom rifles to have the action trued up and an Olympic barrel installed. The barrel is chambered in 17 Rem. and finished at 20" using the same contour as the original 223 barrel. The trigger is the factory Remington that I reworked and breaks at 2.5lbs. The wood stock (camo painted) is the original 788 stock with a bunch of wood removed. This sucker still weighs a ton. It would probably bring more money at the scrapeyard than its rifle value!
It is a very good shooter with H3223 and 25gr. Genco's.
The next custom I did was a 22lr. rimfire and it was based on a 581S action. The action was trued up, lugs were lapped, firing pin shortened and reshaped, and the action threaded. A Remington 541T barrel was lapped, threaded, chambered to a Win. 52D, recrowned to 11degrees, finished at 21". A Remington 3 screw trigger was reworked and breaks at 9 oz. Then it was all pillared bedded into an old Bishop stock by yours truely. The picture shows it with a Leupold 2-7 rimfire scope, but a Burris Mini 6X AO scope in Leupold low rings is its actual setup. I call it the "wannebe" 541 Rem., but it is my idea of the perfect Squirrel rifle. Its consistent under .5" groups at 50yds. with many different brands of 22lr. is totally amazing. Most of the work was done by Bryan Voelker.
I've done several rimfire customs through the years, most of them based on the Rem. rimfire actions. Customizing a sporter weight rimfire has been a favorite hobby of mine.
The latest custom I've done was a long thought out lightweight Predator rifle. I always found it frustrating that manufacturers considered an ultralight rifle to weigh around 7lbs (before rings,bases, and scope) and they had to shorten the barrels to 20" or less to achieve it.
So I started pricing lightweight parts and stocks wanting to build a 22" barreled rifle in a fur friendly caliber that weighed under 7lbs. ready to hunt. Holy Smokes, diet plans are very expensive!!
I had planned on using a model 7 as a donor to this cause, but man, to get it under my desired weight would require a carbon fiber stock and my gosh those things are over priced. Sooooo, the first thing I did was buy a Kimber Montana in 204. Oh boy, oh boy was that a good move. These things will shoot. All setup ready to hunt at 6lbs. 3oz. Perfect........well not quite.......I'm a 17 cal. lover and they don't make it in that caliber. Not a problem, I ordered another one, had the action squared, the lugs lapped, a titanium bolt handle installed and a Lilja #1 barrel chambered in 17 Rem. installed. The #1 is the same contour as the original Kimber barrel and I had it finished at 22", same as the factory barrel. I wanted this whole package to weigh the same as the 204 I have. We missed it by 1oz. The factory Montana stock is Carbon Fiber and pillarbedded from the factory, but I had it skim bedded to make sure the new barrel and reworked action bedded perfectly. I'm using a Talley Lightweight mounting system with a Leupold VX3 2.5-8X36 scope, finished it with a vero vellini sling. 6lbs. 4oz total weight.
Perfect.