About 8 months ago I hatched a plan with my gunsmith to build a full custom rifle but keep the costs way down. About 6 weeks ago I took delivery of the rifle and I could not be more please with it. It is not fancy at all and has no special bells or whistle but it fits me like glove, handles very nicely, feeds smooth as can be and performs beyond what I expected.

Major components are a Husky action, Douglas 25" barrel, basic Boyt's stock and 2x7 Leupold scope all coming in at 8.5# which is about right for a rifle of this caliber and power in MHO.

My gunsmith did some magic transforming the plain Jane Boyt's stock into something very nice as you can see.










I've been working with the 9.3x66 quite bit and found R-15 to work very well. 1 or 2 grains over the book max for R-15 in the 9.3x62 produced 2450 FPS with the 286 NP and 2625 FPS for the 250 ACB in the 9.3x66. This of course is no great advantage over the 9.3x62. Both loads produce MOA or less. R-17 is what really shines in the 9.3x66. 69 grains gives 2740 FPS with the 250 ACB across the Lab Radar with sub MOA accuracy. I tested R-17 with the 286 NP just this week. It gave just about exactly 2,600 FPS with 68 grains of R-17 and a little over 1 MOA accuracy. See targets below.



Loading Components:

250 ACB and 286 NP
R-17
Fed 210 primers
Quality Cartridge cases
OACL 3.38 (this works perfectly through the Husky action)

I did not set out to build a substitute for the 338 WM or the 375 H&H but it appears I did just that. I just wanted to build something different than what I already had. The reality is though that the 250 ACB at 2740 will do anything a 338 will with the same weight bullet and the 286 NP should easily match the killing power of the 375 H&H with a 300 grain bullet.

I'm very happy with how this all turned out. Credit of course goes to the skills of my gunsmith.

Mark

Nice piece of kit there, Mark. Just in time to break it in this fall. Best of luck. Any trouble finding brass?

Bluefish,

Quality Cartridge had a bunch when I bought mine. I bought 60 sticks so I'm good for awhile. There is quite a bit of Federal factory ammo available around the Internet also and not as expensive as you might think.

Mark

I have a Husky .30-06 that I would love to restock like yours. Nice job.

John,

Like they say "I know a guy".

Mark

I built mine on a Rem 700 action. I like the extra magazine length of the 700. A little bit more than the 9.3x62 and not quite as much as the 9.3x64. Still a very effective calibre on large game.

I really like this caliber, as well as the good ole' 9.3x62. Congrats on your new custom rifle!

I had Wayne at AHR make me a #3 upgrade in 9.3x66 on one of my CZ 550 9.3x62s. I bought a ton of ammo at about $30/box by a store unloading their supply of 370 Sako. Wayne did a beautiful job and I picked out the wood.

He also did a #3 for me on my CZ 550 6.5x55. I now have a great 2-rifle battery for my next safari with Andrew in Zambia between these two. I'm sure I'll bring my Dakota 404 or 458 Lott for Buffalo however!

Show us the photos of your hunting results with your new rifle/caliber. Africa?