Hornady announced the release of its new 338 ARC round this week. Indirectly a competitor with Q’s 8.6 Blackout, it marks the continuation of an enormous amount of energy in research and development in the world of guns and ammunition. I had never in my life felt more like a hipster hearing about the release, being the proud owner of a 338 Spectre rifle — a wildcat antecedent of the 338 ARC developed back in 2009 by Marty ter Weeme, which is basically the same round except it borrowed the 10mm magnum casing as a parent cartridge. Think of a 338 Lapua bullet crammed into a pistol casing, fired subsonic out of a suppressed, relatively short barrel, and you get the idea.

The point here isn’t to wax nerdish about weaponry, but to just point out how far and how fast firearm technology has come in recent years. While drones have taken headlines as the speculative weapon of the future (and doubtless, they will be used), they still have not “transformed the battlefield” as variously prophesized. In Ukraine, drones make for great (and terrifying) propaganda footage, as they pick off helpless individual soldiers. But the lines are still advanced by jets, artillery, tanks, and soldiers… with guns.

Our attraction to guns, however, isn’t just martial. We use them for self-defense and hunting; we collect them as historical artifacts, or accomplishments of engineering; or we just want to practice shooting accurately, to hit something at a distance.

Ed Hammon and I co-wrote a piece about shooting in this year’s Journal of Solar Culture. The title is “The Aim of Agency,” and we talked about the possible origins of the rise of morality from the sense of responsibility in its connection to shooting. There is a very strange pattern of metaphorical language tying moral failure to “missing the mark,” as though shooting was the most natural framework for understanding the distinction between morality (where we are responsible agents) and virtue (where we might be the possessors of attributes we simply inherited). This connection seems to be experiential, i.e., shooting is where the feeling of moral agency emerged, because it is in the tiny gap between the release of a bowstring and the impact (or lack of impact) on target that it is neurologically possible for a non-conscious creature to bridge the gap into awareness of his own causal relation to the outside world.

Shooting also happens to be a case where understanding one’s effect on the outcome is advantageous. In a world filled with fatalistic tribes that are somehow still successful, we find that an excessive belief in responsibility and control might actually be overrated, contributing more to anxiety and neurosis than adaptability. Perhaps this is why Stoicism has re-emerged as a kind of philosophical therapy for men in the modern hustle-culture. But with shooting, personal responsibility does not overstep the bounds of human ability or complexity, and the human who accepts responsibility becomes a better shot, with all kinds of culinary and martial benefits.

The point is that shooting is a deeply, profoundly human activity, up there with long distance running and the use of language. It is a species-defining skill. To exercise our ability to shoot is to become more at home in our own humanity, in the same way as singing a song or playing a sport like soccer.

I have written a few amateurish pieces about quick-and-dirty self-defense rifles and more serious “apocalypse” rifles (SPRs). These are both practical, both AR-pattern rifles, and more or less martial in function.

But there are non-martial reasons to own a rifle, and it might be a fun thought experiment to see what a rifle constructed for these non-martial purposes might look like. How might it differ from a rifle built for combat?

The question is akin to asking how a car built for the race-track, and not for the road, might differ from a more ordinary commuter car.

As with the car example, when one pursues this kind of purity of function, it becomes easy to find yourself spending 10x or 20x the money you would spend on a more ordinary model. While ordinary commuters can run anywhere from $4k up to $60k, an F1 race-car usually costs between $12 and $15 million. In the interest of providing some kind of entry-point to people who might be interested in shooting, let’s keep our budget under $2,000, which is still higher than self-defense AR pistol, but slightly lower than the SPR. The point here is not to build an F1-equivalent rifle (which are, amusingly, called “F-class” rifles in the competitive shooting world), but to make something that is an introduction to shooting — not for war, or even for hunting per se, but primarily for the experience of shooting which is connected to hunting and warfare, but is also something independent of its purpose, just as language can be enjoyed and cultivated as an art apart from practical communicating.

Such a rifle should be pleasant to shoot, and should maximize the experience of connection to the equipment, while providing a path to improvement beyond a mere beginner’s level.

There are 8 main components of the sort of rifle I have in mind (caliber, action, barrel, trigger, stock/chassis, optic, rings, bipod) — a number that presupposes a conclusion of sorts, as far as what kind of rifle we might build for this purpose — but I will continue as though we are deliberating on each point.

Rifle components

1. Caliber

The rifle we are considering should be pleasant, so no tremendous kick, but not something lightweight that loses effective range beyond 500y or so. The former includes most “magnum” cartridges, while the latter describes most .22 caliber rounds, including the venerable .223/5.56. Between these two are a whole host of calibers, varying in all variety of metrics. A common choice might be the classic .308. But for reduced kick, comparable affordability, and slightly better performance at distance, a better choice for many is going to be the 6.5 Creedmoor.

Sending 125 – 149 gr projectiles out at around 2,700 feet per second, the 6.5 is less powerful than many other hunting calibers, but is powerful enough for hunting (even elk, with the right expanding bullets), and even military applications, but truly shines as a long-distance precision round for honing one’s skill in shooting… without breaking the bank or requiring a complex loading system.

2. Action/Barrel

While most rifles these days are semi-automatic, our gun will be a bolt-action. To return to our car metaphor, one might say that a semi-automatic is to an automatic transmission as a bolt-action is to a manual. One is more physically and tactilely involved in the operation of the firearm while running the bolt yourself… and of course, the action is more innately suited to reaching for longer distances, since there are fewer moving parts, and less motion means more consistency, which is another word for “accuracy” in the world of shooting.

For higher-end builds, the barrel and action might be chosen separately. One might buy a Defiance or Impact, or a Zermatt, or even a Surgeon action, and then buy a separate PROOF or Krieger barrel and have a gunsmith put them together. Such combinations can run thousands of dollars, but we can get close to that level of performance with a pre-made barreled-action from Howa, courtesy of Brownells:

This system also includes a decent trigger.

Unfortunately, it does not include a scope base (which you will definitely need), so be sure to grab one of those as well.

3. Stock/Chassis

There are many great options for stocks and chassis for your action. A popular one is the KRG Bravo, light-weight, accurate, well-made, and often touted as a “cheap” option at $400.

But one can get a similar level of performance (with a little extra weight) from Boyds — in a variety of hardwood laminate colors –for about half the price:

One need only select “Howa” in the make, “1500” in the model, and “short action hinged floorplate bull barrel” in the action.

There are even cheaper options than the “At-One Thumbhole” configuration, but they do not have length-of-pull (butt-plate) adjustment or height (cheek-rest) adjustment, which are important for proper form, if we are to refine our shooting properly.

4. Optic

An optic for the refinement of shooting specifically opens up many options that might have been closed in hunting or military applications, where rapid adjustment and engagement are critical. In a world where quality optics usually cost thousands of dollars (often more than the rest of the rifle combined), we can get very high-quality glass and good, durable construction in a fixed magnification configuration from SWFA for — I am not kidding — $400.

A fixed magnification certainly has its drawbacks, but for the purposes of just trying to get better at shooting, quality glass and precision in adjustment are the critical features, and the rest of your money is better spent on more ammunition and trips to the range.

As a matter of fact, snipers used to (and some still do) use fixed 10x optics on their weapon systems. Fixed magnification optics are functional in what we might call “applied” contexts, even if they aren’t as fancy as a nice Leupold, or Nightforce, or a higher-end Vortex.

We can also pick up a decent set of 30mm Wheeler rings for about $45. One should never underestimate the importance of rings, and definitely don’t skimp out on the quality of rings — they are the only thing holding your optic (which is what allows you to shoot) to the rifle. Recoil, or simply just moving around, can and will move your optic if you have bad, cheap rings. Some might say that Wheeler rings are too cheap, and that one should go at least with the $150 Vortex precision rings, but as an owner of Wheeler rings myself, I haven’t had any issues with optic movement (at least on that rifle), and the 6.5 Creedmoor just doesn’t kick that much.

5. Bipod

Finally, the last item to add is a bipod. Bipods provide stability for shooting from a bench or from prone, and are a critical part of the rifle as a system.

As the owner of no fewer than 3 cheap $35 knock-off Harris bipods, go ahead and get the real one for $120. I would recommend the 9-13″ range over the 6″-9″ range.

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All told — between the barreled action, the scope mount, the laminate stock, the optic, the rings, and the bipod — we come out to about $1,300.

It happens to be similar to my own bolt-action, in many regards.

I used a Boyds At-One Thumbhole, with wheeler rings and a Harris bipod. They’re all excellent.

But there are differences too. My barreled action (which was once a complete rifle) is a Savage Axis, with a hunting-contour (thinner) barrel. Savage makes great barrels, and I have no complaints about the action (though I did have to cut the trigger spring to give it a more reasonable break weight). But Howa is unquestionably better.

I am also running a Vortex Viper 6-20x 2FP scope. It is — for lack of a nicer way of putting it — a bad scope, and I don’t recommend it. It works for my purposes, but there are hundreds of better options out there (including Vortex’s 4-16x Diamondback Tactical line). Arken and PSA also make great, affordable optics.

But for shooting — for the sake of shooting — the SWFA fixed scopes are still the best option out there for under $1,000.

You don’t need to wrap your optic and grip in medical tape, or cut off your barrel at 18.5″ for dense brush navigation and weight reduction, as I did. you don’t need to paint it goofy camo colors. Or you can. It’s your rifle. At $1,300 total, it isn’t some Christensen Arms hunting masterpiece or some priceless competition set-up. You can afford to make it your own.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what shooting is about. It’s connection with your own causality in the world around you, and sensing that, both in your impacts and in your construction of the rifle itself.

You will, doubtless, change things over time. You will under-tighten (or over-tighten) your ring screws. You’ll mount your optic wrong, too far forward or not quite level. You’ll decide you don’t like the trigger quite as much… or maybe that the Boyds really isn’t to your taste, and the KRG Bravo (or maybe a Manners) is more your style. You’ll mess around with different loads — maybe you discover your particular rifle strangely doesn’t like the Hornady 140gr Match bullets, but it loves the 147 grs and groups them nice and tight. Eventually, you will probably upgrade your optic to something with more features.

Or maybe you like it this way, but want to take your rifle hunting, and so you downgrade your optic from the SWFA 10x to their 6x, which is far more practical for the closer deer (and elk) shots that sometimes present themselves.

Regardless, shooting is rewarding and enjoyable, and a springboard of sorts into a new experience of the world, and of yourself. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

You have become a different person in the course of these years. For this is what the art of archery means: a profound and far−reaching contest of the archer with himself. Perhaps you have hardly noticed it yet, but you will feel it very strongly when you meet your friends and acquaintances again in your own country: things will no longer harmonize as before. You will see with other eyes and measure with other measures. It has happened to me too, and it happens to all who are touched by the spirit of this art.

–Eugene Herrigal, Zen and the Art of Archery, 1953