New shooter F class

[TOM]

Expect to pay upwards of $700 for your barrel after chambering and fitting. What are you planning to shoot? FS or FO?

[macguru]

Quinney, how are you going with the savage? I made the mistake of getting the savage palma as my first rifle and the barrel was a bit light for good f class groups. It was very fussy with regard to loads, although 1/3 moa when in tune ! , unlike the lrpv 223 which has been a dream to shoot across a wide range. i have just had the 308 palma rebarrelled with a shilen 28" heavy varmint match barrel and will begin testing tomorrow. The ftr savage has a heavier barrel than the stock savge palma and should be a great rifle....

[Quinny]

I threw the Nikon Buckmaster scope on it and took it out last weekend to do some load testing. I am a little surprised how quickly the barrel heats up when stringing shots together - by about shot 12 it starts throwing the shots wide, so getting the temperature window right seems quite critical. Best group of the day was 0.83" at 100m, I did have one group which put the first 3 shots into 0.3", but the next two went a little wide and blew it out to 1". That was using brand new, unfired brass too.

I have got the Nightforce on it now, and loaded up some fireformed brass and heading out to the range tomorrow to see how it goes.

I reckon that once I get the load sorted, it will shoot 1/4 MOA if I am up to the job, but I need to find the right load.

[Tman]

With regard to the Omark you have acquired, a new barrel 28" or thereabouts should do the trick, the one that I have is a Maddco, cost me $750 or thereabouts, I actually sent the action up to Qld and they did it for me.

With Omarks being made here and sort of the ugly duckling as it were, the closest sight base would be a Savage. I found details on this forum of which one, that I actually ordered from the US, from Ken Farrell, and to get the most of the elevation out of the Nightforce, the sight base was a picatinny rail with 20moa. You might wish to use something else, but this is what I have done with my Omark, which is the 44D model as compared to the 44B.

The other problem you might have is a suitable stock, you could use the one that it comes with, which I have done, having been a TR shooter for 30 yrs, I had a rail put into the bottom so that I could use a single point sling, which now the davies bipod slides into.

Wild Dog do make a varmint stock for Omarks, of which I was tempted to try, but my stock has a devcon bedding and the cutout for the Neilsen adapter, and this might not suit the Wild Dog stock in the bedding.

I cannot think of any other company that makes stocks to suit Omark, there probably are if you look hard enough or ask around, or make a stock yourself.

The other thing with those Wild Dog stocks is that they have a stud that looks to suit a harris bipod, as compared to a proper Fclass bipod and a rail to slide into.

This is just an insight into Omarks that you might not be aware of. They are a great rifle, especially to start with. Just a couple of things for you to think about

[macguru]

Why would you bother with an OMARK when there are so many new rifles around ? I bought one in 1970 and shot it with Scots for a couple of years ( a school in Sydney) but surely there are better rifles around now.... If you are going to spend money getting the thing rebarrelled etc, why not just order a savage FTR and be patient ?

[Tman]

If you have a budget of 2-2.5k, go the new rifle and a new scope and see how it goes, the choice is up to you, it is your money.