Some thirty-five years ago, one of my mentors advised me that one of the steps in establishing yourself as a professional is getting published. Every profession does it…doctors, attorneys, you name it. If you want to move up in a profession you need to have something of yours published, he told me.
At the time I was out of the Marine Corps and working as an executive protection agent. I took my mentor’s advice to heart and started writing and submitting my work to publishers. In 1993 I had my first piece published and the following year I think I sold four or five articles. That was way before WordPress and the advent of blogs. If you wanted people to read your words back then, an editor had to vet you and approve them. Then they were printed on paper with ink.
Ah, those were the days.
After a while, I started attending events with other writers and during one of those, I was asked a question; “What’s your favorite gun to shoot?” I had to stop and think about that for a moment. I enjoy training with and using all manner of firearms, but did I really have a favorite? After some thought, the honest answer was that I genuinely looked forward to getting behind a precision bolt-action rifle and putting well-placed rounds down range.
During the last four decades or so, I have had the good fortune to attend innumerable training programs, many of them focused on long range and precision shooting. I have launched rounds in calibers up to .50 BMG at distances out to 1.5 miles and been rewarded with the sound of bullets striking steel.
The rifle that we’ll examine here has become an old friend and most recently, I pulled it out of the safe and mounted some new, first-rate glass on it. But first, let’s consider the gun.
Tactical Rifles Chimera
For many years Tactical Rifles produced some of the highest quality, hand-built, custom precision rifles you could buy. While they’re no longer around, I had the privilege of testing and reviewing a range of rifles they built for military and law enforcement applications as well as long range competition guns. I put up my first-ever .25-inch, 100 yard, three-shot group using Federal Gold Medal match ammunition using a custom M40 sniper rifle hand-built by Tactical Rifles.
The TR Chimera seen here was built on the action of the same name and features a robust, stainless steel, match grade receiver incorporating a dual-lug, spiral-cut fluted bolt with an over-sized knob on the handle. Atop the action is an M1913 Picatinny scope rail. The bolt release is found on the left rear of the receiver.
At the base of the action you’ll find TR’s own heavy duty floor plate with trigger guard. The floor plate accepts a detachable five-round AICS magazine. There are ten-round versions that stick out of the base a few more inches. Some shooters like those, some don’t.
Inside the action, TR installed and tuned a match grade, single stage trigger. The adjustable trigger is set for 2.75 pounds from the shop. While benchrest guys like to measure their trigger pull weight in ounces, 2.75 pounds is just right for field applications. I wouldn’t want a lighter pull on a tactical/fighting rifle. On the right side of the action just above the bolt handle you will find a standard manual safety lever.
Meticulously fitted to the action is a stainless steel .30 caliber barrel with single point cut rifling in a 1-in-10 twist. Barrel length is 18 inches. The barrel is chambered or “reamed” for the M852 cartridge. Out in front of the barrel you will notice a SureFire compensator/suppressor adapter. In addition to functioning as an effective muzzle brake, the SureFire comp is designed to accept an SF noise suppressor, specifically their model FA762SS silencer.
The M852 cartridge was the U.S. Military designation for the match grade 168 grain HPBT load. If you look up some old photos on the internet, you’ll see that the brown boxes are marked “Not For Combat Use.” Some folks might think that’s due to the round’s lack of effectiveness on humanoid targets.
Actually, the M852, was developed in the 1980s by Lake City Arsenal to replace the current M118 round for precision rifle shooting. Regardless, the use of the terminology “hollow point” in describing the 168 grain Sierra HPBT bullet was a bogeyman to the military as the 1899 Hague Accords prohibited “hollow point” ammunition for land warfare. Of course, to be afforded the protections of the Hague Accords, you needed to be a signatory to the agreement. No terrorist organization or rogue state ever was.
Today, we’ve substituted the term “OTM” (open tip match) for HPBT. The OTM round is advertised as being designed for “superior ballistic stability,” not grievous wounding. Many years ago, I asked a good friend in the ammo business what the difference was between HPBT and OTM bullets, to which he replied, “The name.” And so, whether the 168 grain projectile is called OTM or HPBT, all the match grade ammunition from various makers using these projectiles perform in a similar fashion.
Years ago, I read an article from a big game hunter who stated that “match ammo should never be used for game.” While I appreciated his sentiment, I also dropped a 275 pound Texas hog with a single round of 168 grain OTM. I put the bullet in the correct place and he fell like an invisible sledge-hammer came out of nowhere and whacked him.
But back to the rifle. The action and barrel are bedded into a carbon fiber/fiberglass blend stock. This stock has a deep pistol grip, a raised comb, and is flat under the forearm and at the stock belly for enhanced stability.
A single sling stud is installed up front for the addition of a bipod. On the left side are QD sling mount points fore and aft built into the stock. A rubber butt pad is a nice addition. The stock is built like a tank and designed to take field abuse and keep on going. Length of pull is 13.75 inches. The metal parts on the rifle are coated with Extreme Environment Dark Earth finish. A digital desert pattern adorns the stock.
As I mentioned, this rifle isn’t new to me. Sub-MOA was promised from the manufacturer and my experience shooting 168 grain matchgrade ammunition from a half-dozen different makers proved that the claim wasn’t hyperbole. If the shooter does their part, three-round clusters average between 0.25 and 0.50 inches at 100 yards. My oldest son, Jarrad, took the rifle and a suppressor through a long range precision training course from Rifles Only and got it out to 900 yards.
The New Glass: Vudu 3.5-18x50mm FFP
I swapped out the existing glass and installed a new Vudu 3.5-18x50mm FFP professional grade riflescope from EOTech Inc. This Vudu scope uses a 34mm tube and the adjustments are Milliradian or MRAD. The external adjustment knobs move in precise “clicks” as you would expect and they have an excellent cap system that does not require any tools for you to remove and reset after zero has been established. As you would expect, the optic comes with an extended scope shade.
As for controls, the focal lens can be adjusted for the shooter’s vision and magnification is adjusted from 3x all the way up to 18x by rotating the focal lens in the common fashion. EOTech includes a removable throw lever to aid you in this endeavor.
The parallax knob is found on the left side of the scope where you would expect it to be. The reticle is illuminated and the illumination controls (rubberized buttons) are found on the parallax knob. A single CR2032 battery powers the reticle.
A fact that I learned over the decades that I have been involved with the firearms industry is that the companies making the absolute highest quality glass are few and far between. If you want professional grade optics you either go to Europe or Japan. EOTech decided to go with Japan. Their product sheet describes the lenses as “XCHigh-Density glass.” The body is naturally high-strength aluminum. All of the optics in the Vudu line are fog, water, and shock resistant.
Being a serious scope, designed for serious use, the total weight is 33.6 ounces and the overall length is 15.13 inches and it comes in basic black. Each scope comes with a ten year manufacturer’s warranty
It took me about four rounds to get the new optic zeroed for 100 yards. Once dialed in, I slow-fired three rounds of the 168 grain Federal Gold Medal Match. Measuring center to center the group turned out to be 0.30 inches on my digital caliper. Suffice it to say, the rifle still had it with the new Vudu optic in place.
When it comes to precision rifle shooting, the key word is consistency. Every aspect needs to be consistently correct from the rifle to the optic to the ammunition to the shooter’s performance.
I once asked my friend at Federal Cartridge what qualifies ammunition to be called “match grade,” to which he replied, “We obviously use the highest quality components; brass, powder, primers and bullets. Also, the standard deviation for velocity can’t exceed twenty-five feet per second.”
That means that every round from that manufacturing lot has to be within 25 FPS of every other one. For decades, when writing for the dead tree magazines, I would habitually chronograph every load I tested for a gun review. I can tell you that Gold Medal Match ammunition generally averaged 9 to 10 FPS standard deviation.
I have used the rifle featured here to take numerous wild hogs and whitetail deer. However, when I attached the Vudu optic, it was May and no traditional game animals were available. In order to use the rifle in field conditions, away from the sterile range, I drove out to the wild BLM land of Wyoming to engage the Cynomys ludovicianus (prairie dog). Standing about the height of a 20 ounce soda bottle, these western pests offer a good substitute for reactive targets.
If you can reliably pop one of these rodents in field hunting conditions you can certainly hit the preferred zone of a traditional North American game animal. I might go so far as to say the preferred zone on a deer or a hog is larger than the entire body of a prairie dog. Either way, it’s always a good idea to get off of the shooting bench and take your rifle out into the real world whenever you get a chance.
Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.