CST project rifle reciever

[jedelman07]

I'm a beginning student at the Colorado School of Trades, and for my project rifle I'm building a 338 Win Mag. I'm building off of a Remington 700 action I need to supply myself so I need to order online... so the question lies in do I order a regular long action receiver or do I order a LA magnum. I feel stupid for asking, but it would sure make a difference money-wise if I get a second opinion.

[thedave1164]

Standard Long Action will work

[BPTactical]

I would go with an aftermarket like Stiller, Defiance or similar.
By the time you true up the Remmy action the way they teach your removing a lot of metal.
And then you still have to deal with the fucked up primary extraction a factory Remington typically has.
Otherwise build a 6.5, 308 or 300WM if your going to stick with a Remmy action.
Trust me.

[CS1983]

I would go with an aftermarket like Stiller, Defiance or similar.
By the time you true up the Remmy action the way they teach your removing a lot of metal.
And then you still have to deal with the fucked up primary extraction a factory Remington typically has.
Otherwise build a 6.5, 308 or 300WM if your going to stick with a Remmy action.
Trust me.

Jedelman07, you should listen to this guy.

[longrange2]

I’d use a bighorn origin action

[FireMoth]

I'm a beginning student at the Colorado School of Trades, and for my project rifle I'm building a 338 Win Mag. I'm building off of a Remington 700 action I need to supply myself so I need to order online... so the question lies in do I order a regular long action receiver or do I order a LA magnum. I feel stupid for asking, but it would sure make a difference money-wise if I get a second opinion.

As a graduate, let me try to answer more realistically.
An aftermarket action will cost big money you probably don't have, and not teach you how to blueprint an action, which is the point of the project.
A Remington 700 long action can work, but you'll have to open the bolt face and modify the magazine box yourself.
A magnum action will have the correct mag box (which is the biggest pain in the ass to change), and have a magnum cut bolt face with installed extractor.
I agree with Bert that the Rem 700 extractor sucks, but buying a Sako or AR308 style extractor and milling the bolt for it after the fact is pretty cheap (while you're using the schools tools), and youd get another school credit for the work.
You wont need to turn the front ring so much as to compromise the receiver strength, and a thicker recoil lug is an easy upgrade to deal with it.
If a 700 long action is significantly cheaper, magpul long action magnum bottom metal and mags are pretty cheap, and possibly the better way to go.
Though I wont try to talk you out of the belted magnum in favor of a short action (you cant fake momentum when it comes to terminal ballistics), if you haven't bought your barrel yet (which I know you probably have), a .300wm is a lot more common for ammo, and bullet selection in .30cal.
That said, I've never been disappointed in my .338wm performance wise, but I do shoot my .300wm more due to projectile availability and cost.

[Delfuego]

Since your labor is free you might want to listen to Firemoth. You might also combine what BP said too. If you could learn about primary extraction, trueing/blueprinting, trigger timing, opening/aligning scope-base holes, installing boltknobs, pinning recoil lugs, etc, etc you will know a hell of a lot about what makes an accurate rifle. If you're just chambering a barrel for a grade and then keeping the rifle, I would just get a better action from the get-go.

I think a Bighorn Origin is a great action at a very reasonable cost :) With a Hunt's Long Range recoil lug, it will headspace identical to a Bighorn TL3.

I also would never chamber a 338 WinMag. So so many better calibers out there.

At the end of the day,what do you wan't do with this rifle? Hunt? Target? Fun?

[FireMoth]

To clarify on that, BP's response is right on.
...if you were building a retail rifle.
No way would it be worth your time, or your customers money, to do all that labor when there are much better 700 pattern actions out there.
However, as DelFeugo mentioned, your labor is "free" here (or at least paid with your tuition), and you'll be learning all of these processes.
And, ultimately, learning why BP is right where retail gun smithing is concerned.
But though as a complete project it's a little impractical, you need to look at it from the perspective of combining individual skills.
You probably wont ever want to build a custom on a 700 action on your own, but if you get LE/MiL contracts you'll be stuck working with what you've got in the M24/M40.
And learning to mill 700 bolts for better extractors is a worthwhile upgrade to learn how to do.
...
You're school rifle may be constrained by curriculum to the point of never truly being the rifle you want.
But the skills you learn in building it can be applied later to a custom action and barrel of your choice to build something you'll really like.