The NoslerCustom cont.
The bolt handle is 3/8" to 1/2" longer than the other sporting rifle bolt handles in my safe, reflecting a bit of modern tactical rifle influence. Its knob is a rounded tetrahedron with teardrop panels of checkering on each facet and the stylized “NC” on its bottom.
According to my Lyman Digital Trigger Pull Gauge, the Timney fire-control system came to me factory set at 3 lbs., 3 ozs. A stainless-steel magazine box, again utilizing the classic Mauser staggered-feed design, completes the metal work within the stock.
The 24" stainless-steel sporter-contour barrel is hand-lapped and held to match tolerances with a breech diameter of 1.150" for the first 1 1/2", then gently tapering to 0.675" at the muzzle, bucking the more recent trend of lighter-weight barrels. This is no doubt tied to the 1/2-m.o.a. accuracy guarantee. The barrel is ceramic-coated with a matte-black finish, as is all the metal work except the magazine box. A one-piece steel Ted Blackburn bottom-metal unit features an Oberndorf-style, in-the-bow floorplate release. The floorplate itself also carries the same stylized “NC” logo.
The rifle is stocked in a fancy grade of Turkish walnut. My sample was well-figured and substantial in weight, with a slight right-hand Wundhammer swell in the pistol grip. The cheekpiece is American in style with a shadow line. Twenty-two-line-per-inch checkering in a classic point pattern provides ample purchase to the stock, and it is topped off with an ebony fore-end tip and grip cap. For the more practical or economy minded, Nosler offers a synthetic stocked version for $2,595.
The trigger is from Timney, while the bolt has dual opposed locking lugs, an M16-style pivoting extractor and a plunging ejector. The bolt release is on the receiver's left rear just below the scope quick release.
A pair of twin-screw, inletted swivel bases serve as anchors to the sling swivels. To ease what little shove is left from a .280 Ackley Improved in a 9-lb., 10-oz. rifle, the buttstock is finished with a Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad. The barreled action and bottom metal are epoxy-bedded front and rear at their stress points, and the recoil lug seats against a 1/8"-thick aluminum plate imbedded in the compound. Inletting appears to have been roughed in by machine and finished by hand—very well done, I might add. The barrel is free-floated along its entire length.
As has become the custom, this rifle wears no iron sights. Rather it comes with a Leupold VX-III 3.5-10X 40 mm riflescope sighted in for NoslerCustom ammunition with the 140-gr. AccuBond bullet. Each rifle comes with two boxes of this load. The scope is matched to each rifle and features Leupold’s Boone & Crockett reticle with stadia lines corresponding to bullet drop from 100 to 500 yds. with this load. I confess I did not put it to my normal paper test at the longer ranges. Instead, after I verified the sighting and grouping capabilities of the rifle, I went to work on some of the iron critters we have on our range. Putting the crosswire on the successive turkeys, pigs and rams from 300 to 500 yds. resulted in a satisfying clang and a tipped over target every time.
Range conditions probably prevented me from fully achieving or even exceeding the Nosler accuracy guarantee. At 94 degrees with a 15-m.p.h. wind the targets appeared as if viewed underwater without the benefit of a facemask because of the mirage. The Nosler guarantee is for three shots into 1/2" at 100 yds., and three of the five groups did that easily.