Stumpy Rifle Short Barreled .308 - Inside MDT

Posted by William Maxwell on 2023 Jul 13th

Stumpy Rifle Short Barreled .308 - Inside MDT

Two years ago, I was gifted a 16.5" Bartlein .30 cal straight bull barrel blank. It was a blank canvas. What to do? There was only one option: Remington 700 semi-custom-build, of course. Short[er] barrel .308s always sparked my interest, whether it was the 13" Scar H or the 18 ½" DARPA XM-3 USMC sniper rifle. I didn't, and still don't, buy into the adage that a .308 needed to be 22" -24" to be useful out past 500 yards. The cesspool that we call the YouTube comment section will swear up and down that a .308 barrel under a 20" is better off as a paperweight. Since 1 test is worth 1,000 opinions, I set out to build a "shorty" .308 and get some data.

MISSION AND BUILD: VERSION 1

Essentially, I set out to build an urban-style sniper rifle capable of sending a 175-grain Sierra MatchKing out to 1000+ yards. Consistency also mattered; it had to shoot MOA or better with match-grade factory ammunition and hand loads.

Chambering it in .308 Winchester was a foregone conclusion. Being that it began life as a straight bull blank, it needed a taper. I decided to take one out of rifleshooter.com's book and use an XM-3 taper for no other reason than it being my first go at tapering; this took the guesswork out of it. Once that and the 5/8x24 muzzle job were done, it was time to torque the barrel into a Remington 700 action.

The barreled action was bedded into a traditional composite stock during the initial build to fit the original early GWOT-esque vibe. It was topped off with Leupold Mark 6 3-18x. A Timney Elite trigger was used for no other reason than I had one on hand. I decided to use an Area 419 Hellfire to round off the barreled action.

This rifle took the Internet by storm and garnered somewhat of a cult following, adopting the moniker of Stumpy Thumper. Around this time, shorter bolt guns started gaining popularity with production offerings like the Fix by Q and the Sig Cross. I'm not saying I started the movement, but I am saying that you've never seen me and the guy who did in the same room. Take that for what it's worth.

Did Stumpy check the boxes? Yes. It shot groups that ranged from acceptable to small. It could shoot out to 1130 yards and get impacts on a 2/3 sized IPSC as long as the wind wanted to play ball. That being said, something was missing.

THE UPDATE: VERSION 5

Over the next year and some changes, the new mission was to perfect Stumpy. It went through the optic carousel; stocks were swapped for chassis' and back to stocks; it took nearly a year and a half to land where we're at today: Version 5.

Since I've gone down the chassis rabbit hole, theESS by MDT has been my favorite multi-use selection. Being that it's the Elite Sniper System, it is right at home on an urban "sniper" build. It just needed a little addition: a full rail forend and high scope base. Could I have rocked the standard NV rail forend? Sure. But the 6th Principle of Patrolling is "always look cool," and the full rail is so much cooler.

Next was to swap the muzzle device to the typically impossible-to-find Surefire MB762SSAL/RE. It's the brake used on M40A5 and A6, and it takes a little bit of lathe work to get it to fit. Since it's a bit outdated and not the most effective brake out there, this was used primarily to hurt clone-nerds feelings and look cool.

Finally, I topped it with a Schmidt & Bender PMII 5-25x in a Spuhr mount. The profile view of the PMII is almost as iconic as its glass quality—German engineering at its finest.

Realistically, in a vacuum, the performance should stay mostly the same because it's the same barreled action. However, the added modularity and adjustment make all the difference. Breaking off quality shots is far easier if your body position is naturally comfortable when getting behind the rifle. So while there's no guarantee that the rifle will be more precise, the shooter will be more precise.

THE DATA

All these words mean nothing without evidence. Let's talk numbers. We will compare the velocity of factory ammunition offerings between Stumpy and my 20".308 Sniper build that you can read more about here.

You hear anecdotes that you should expect to lose or gain 25 fps per inch of barrel. These numbers support those claims.

These numbers are a good starting point, but what do they mean at distance? I plugged the data into a bullet drop calculator to get rough numbers.

As you can see, at 500 yards, Stumpy is dropping 0.3-0.4 mils more than the 20" system and 1.2-1.3 more mils at 1000 yards. Not too bad for a shorty.

It's worth noting that Stumpy is going transonic with the 175s at 750 yards and the 168s at 650 yards. The Sniper build gets an extra 50 yards of supersonic speeds with both. While ballistic calculator numbers are good, they might not be 100% accurate and will require some trueing.

This past weekend I was able to take Stumpy out to 1000 yards with a couple of different factory loads. Unfortunately, I left my chronograph at the house, but I still have the drop data.

  • GGG 175 SMK – 12.0 mils
  • Fed GMM 175 SMK – 13.0 mils
  • Winchester 168 SMK – 13.6 mils

Side note: Stumpy shoots small groups too.

CONCLUSION

While a longer barrel might be optimal for certain applications, don't shake your finger at shortie bolt guns. They certainly have their place in the universe. To prove that point, I will shoot a match in the Tac Class later in the season and report back with a field report.

BUILD RESOURCES FROM MDT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Maxwell served in the United States Army. After returning from his first deployment in 2015, he started building firearms and focused heavily on pistol and carbine training. In 2018 he fell into the rabbit hole of precision rifle shooting. He spends his free time competing, reloading, editing digital content, and writing. He can be reached via Instagram @maddmaxxguns.

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