FE Gun, 101

  • Join our community of outdoor enthusiasts! Subscribe to Field Ethos Magazine to unlock full forum access and connect with fellow adventurers sharing their stories, tips, and experiences.

    If you are already a subscriber, log in here.
Finally got her to the range for a short sighting-in session.

Initial impressions. She’s light and handy. Wood is nicely figured and I love the old school red recoil pad. I had a shotgun made to my measurements recently and chose a red recoil pad for her as well. The bolt moves like it’s sliding on graphite…smooth and the short bolt throw and checkered bolt handle are practical aids. I’m not a fan of magazines on bolt action rifles, because I just know I’ll misplace one — good thing the rifle comes with two of them. Iron sights are a good backup should a scope fail, but I’d prefer a shallow-V or peep and small bead rather that the square notch and square front post. Kudos for the witness marks on the drift adjustable front sight. Much better than me scratching them onto a rifle.

When I bought the rifle I also bought a Swarovski Z5+ 2-10x42 scope and ordered Talley low mount bases/rings. Total rifle weight with scope came to 8.5 lbs.

I really didn’t put the rifle through her paces. It was in high 20’s at the range and my blood’s thinned, I swear, since I settled down in Upstate SC. I bought a box of Buffalo Bore 286 grain Spitzer soft points. Rather than shoot prone on the platform at 100 yds, I set up my Bog Pod and shot standing. The rifle was moving more than I wanted, even resting my arm on my truck for support. Even so, once sighted in, I managed two 3-shot groups right at 1”. I can hardly wait to see what she’ll do prone. Even better, the recoil is remarkably tame. It’s certainly far less sharp than my .338 Win Mag or .300 WSM, but a bit more than my .308 Win. I guess I’d attribute that to good stock design and a low-mount scope, but what a sweet shooter.

Time to find somewhere to shoot some hogs.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1759.jpeg
    IMG_1759.jpeg
    7.6 MB · Views: 11
  • IMG_1760.jpeg
    IMG_1760.jpeg
    4.3 MB · Views: 11
  • IMG_1761.jpeg
    IMG_1761.jpeg
    3.1 MB · Views: 11
Last edited:
Nice write up- I have one as well and recently was able to get out to the range with it. Mine looks a little more "blonde" on the wood stock than yours, which Im jealous of. None the less I think the rifle itself is very nice, and the iron sites etc are all nice touches. I'm waiting for hexalock scope mount to come in from R&G, I had ordered one at the beginning of Jan but I guess R&G were waiting for a shipment to arrive.. I should check back with them.

The iron sites @50y were dialed and I was able to make tight sub-moa (just shy of an inch) groupings from the bench off some sand bags. Was pretty impressed by the repeatability.

The only "issue" I've ran into is using the BB 250g rounds sometimes had an issues closing the bolt fully. The bolt works flawlessly w/o loading a round in- so I'm chalking it up to a few of the BB 250g rounds perhaps being seated a little high, or the rifle just needs a proper workout.

Either way, I just wanted something different to hunt Whitetail + in TX and out yonder.
 
I was too impatient to wait for the Hexalock mounts and my eyes really don’t make iron sights practical anyway so the Talleys work for me.

I was fortunate to visit the Rivers & Glen store where they allowed me to look over the in stock rifles and pick the stock I liked best. All, including mine, were lighter colored than I prefer, but all also had nice figure to them.
 
Last edited:
Just one more thing. If you, like me, get a little caught up in the history and romance of a cartridge like the 9.3x62, you owe it to yourself to buy a copy of “9.3x62 Mauser Journal.” It’s 600+ pages of articles and info on the cartridge, its use, history, and hunting stories.
 
Finally got her to the range for a short sighting-in session.

Initial impressions. She’s light and handy. Wood is nicely figured and I love the old school red recoil pad. I had a shotgun made to my measurements recently and chose a red recoil pad for her as well. The bolt moves like it’s sliding on graphite…smooth and the short bolt throw and checkered bolt handle are practical aids. I’m not a fan of magazines on bolt action rifles, because I just know I’ll misplace one — good thing the rifle comes with two of them. Iron sights are a good backup should a scope fail, but I’d prefer a shallow-V or peep and small bead rather that the square notch and square front post. Kudos for the witness marks on the drift adjustable front sight. Much better than me scratching them onto a rifle.

When I bought the rifle I also bought a Swarovski Z5+ 2-10x42 scope and ordered Talley low mount bases/rings. Total rifle weight with scope came to 8.5 lbs.

I really didn’t put the rifle through her paces. It was in high 20’s at the range and my blood’s thinned, I swear, since I settled down in Upstate SC. I bought a box of Buffalo Bore 286 grain Spitzer soft points. Rather than shoot prone on the platform at 100 yds, I set up my Bog Pod and shot standing. The rifle was moving more than I wanted, even resting my arm on my truck for support. Even so, once sighted in, I managed two 3-shot groups right at 1”. I can hardly wait to see what she’ll do prone. Even better, the recoil is remarkably tame. It’s certainly far less sharp than my .338 Win Mag or .300 WSM, but a bit more than my .308 Win. I guess I’d attribute that to good stock design and a low-mount scope, but what a sweet shooter.

Time to find somewhere to shoot some hogs.
Great write up. The tame recoil impulse was the biggest surprise to us on this project. 9.3 isn’t brutal but we didn’t expect it to be damn near pleasant.
 
The only "issue" I've ran into is using the BB 250g rounds sometimes had an issues closing the bolt fully. The bolt works flawlessly w/o loading a round in- so I'm chalking it up to a few of the BB 250g rounds perhaps being seated a little high, or the rifle just needs a proper workout.
Try cleaning/ re-greasing the locking lugs on the bolt?
 
Back
Top