^ As par for the course, excellent advice, but I was thinking, do you have a 308? the rum makes a lot of horsepower, but the barrel life is pretty short. my 7mm AM is in need of a rebarrel as we type. become proficient at 800yards, become familiar with a method that works for you at setting up and taking the shot, get your confidance up, then get the rum out of mothballs and git-er done.
RR
by chance you have a long action 700, I have an unfired 300 Rum barrel I'll give you.

[QUOTE=Nomercy448;4226706]One thought...

If you're expecting about a year before you want to kill anything past 1,000, you might consider 2 rifles - and save this 300RUM for 8mos from now (but do buy it).

+1

As RR said, "^ As par for the course, excellent advice" !

That seems like good advice, to buy it now but not necessarily start shooting it now. I have a remmy 700 .30-06 that I've stretched to 400 well, and I've shot gongs at 500 but not any groups. I don't want to alter that rifle though as it came from my grandpa. I did take a deer at 387 yards with that '06 and reached my "goal" of 400 yards with that rifle. Do you think it makes sense then to pick up the ultra mag, but try to stretch the .30-06 out to 600-700 in the next year? Again, I don't want to alter the 700 because it came from my grandpa. So I feel a little limited on what I can do to it.
-Jake

I have an old Mauser action .30/06 that I built 20 some odd years ago. I can regularly stay in a 10 inch target at 800 yards with that old HUNTING rifle and could more than likely lay down longer shots with that old girl. But I'm getting old and long shots on game I haven't done in years. Just too many things can go wrong between time of trigger break and impact of bullet. RR and Mercy both know my opinions on longer than 300 yard shots in the field. If you want to practice long range with a hunting rifle, that old 700 would be fine to practice with at say 600-700 yards since that was probably built when Remington actually gave a crap about quality. I know you don't want to modify it any since it was your gramps rifle (I have quite a few with the same mentality attached to them) but I would recommend a trigger job or maybe a replacement trigger such as a Timney or a Jewel (keep the old trigger) as that is almost ALWAYS an issue with long range shooting. That way you can have a good trigger without any permanent changes that you couldn't just switch out.

Work with that old 06 for a year or so and if you still feel the bug for longer range you will have had a lot of practice already by getting the basics of long range feel downpat. And a heck of a lot cheaper than paying the cost for that .300RUM.

Yup - buy the RUM, stick it in the safe, range out that old '06 for a while, then pull out the RUM when you're ready.

I know you don't want to "alter" your grandpa's rifle, but I'd venture that it has a wood stock. You COULD consider that bedding it into a different stock - TEMPORARILY - is a way to conserve the stock, with a happy consequence of a more long-range friendly stock. Guys do shoot long range every day with sporter stocks. If you could get comfortable with skim bedding and free floating that old rifle, you likely wouldn't notice much difference in accuracy between it and another stock when shooting from a pod or bags. Free float it, skim bed it (pillars if you're brave enough), and have the trigger tuned up and you might be surprised how well it'll shoot.

Brass for that '06 costs about half as much (or 1/4) as the RUM brass, and burns around half as much to 70% as much powder, so you'll be able to shoot around 3 for 2 on the same price.

Shooting 1MOA at 600yrds isn't mindlessly easy like it is to shoot 1MOA at 100yrds; it does take some development to get there consistently, but keep in mind - a 1MOA group at 600yrds is 6", that'll kill any deer or elk in the world.

Well, he decided not to sell just yet. However, He's got my number and if/when he changes his mind he'll let me know.
-Jake