Back when the mountains weren�t so tall, so steep or the air so thin I packed my .300 Weatherby Mark V Deluxe. Personally I find the heavier rifle much easier to hold steady than a light weight one. Light weight rifles tend to bounce with every beat of your heart. After climbing up a half a mile of mountain side it gets hard for me to shoot between the heart beats. Lawdog

Mine is a custom 284 made by Bill Leeper. We used a M70 classic stainless short action that Bill trued and massaged, mated with a #1 contour Pac-Nor stainless super match barrel cut at 23" and throated for the 3.05" mag length. Pillar bedded in a Bansner stock, with a M8-6X42 matte in Leupold QR low rings, it weighs just over 7 pounds all-up. As set up it balances just in front of the front guard screw empty, and just behind it with a full mag.



140 grain partitions at 3050 fps group around .6" at 100 yards, and 139 SST's group into about half that. It's a perfect backpack rifle, I wouldn't change a thing.

I built mine with hunting in Alaska in mind. Everything I heard was that it rained a lot up there and I must say Alaska didn't disappoint in that regard. Given the likelihood of rain, I knew that I should go with a synthetic stock to remove the possibility of a shift in point of impact if it all got wet. My sheep hunt was also an exclusive backpacking affair which would have been hell on one of my wood stocked rifles. At sure enough at the end, the synthetic stock looked like hell, but nothing a new coat of paint didn't fix.

So I built what I wanted. I started with a 700 long action because that's what I had on hand. It's a blued action and did just fine in the wet with a good coating of SC Rust Prevent. This stuff ranked very high in Saeed's tests and I believe in it. I had a Pac-nor #2 barrel installed chambered for 6.5x55 and finished at 24". It was all bedded in a Banser stock. Topped with a Leupold fixed 4x in Conetrol rings. Loaded with sling it weighs right at 8 lbs. Could have gone with a slightly lighter barrel contour, but it handles so nice as is, I wouldn't change it. The guide was a little skeptical of the 6.5 caliber as he sees mostly 300 Magnums. But one shot with a 140 Partition was all that was needed.

And yes, I'm now hooked on sheep hunting. Just love being up there in that kind of country. Spot and stalk hunting is really what I've found I enjoy. Damn shame it's so expensive. Maybe someday I'll get to do it again.

Rick, your rifle strikes me as nearly ideal... the 284 is a vastly underrated cartridge... I've been thinking of a Kimber 84 "Montana" in 7-08 punched to 284... would be in the 6.75 lb range ready to go!

Tikka T3 300 winmag,burris FF2 3X9X40.Pachmayr Pad.Shoots 165gr Baltips into little groups @ 300yds and smaller ones at 100yds.loaded&slinged it weighs 8.25lbs.
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