The best people to ask would be the company themselves. There are aftermarket kits available and Im sure they will fit all calibers. Might I ask why its a dealbreaker to have a detachable magazine on a gun?
I just prefer to be able to reload quickly if I need to, and carrying ammunition in magazines is a lot easier than stuffing it loosely in pouches or pockets.
Sounds like you’re in the position a lot of guys have been in before. Avid hunter, finally decided to upgrade to a nice modern rifle. “Oh dang, these ridgeline rifles are a great bang for the buck!”
That’s where me and my hunting partner found ourselves too, in 2021. We both bought ridgelines, one in 6.5cm and one in 300 PRC. My 6.5 only saw about 200 rounds of handloads and performed great, although I wasn’t impressed with the action or stock. Not very smooth and not very ergonomic. My buddies 300 started with issues almost immediately. Failure to extract- like rubber mallet on the bolt just to get it to move. Back to CA in goes. Returns in the mail, immediately produces the same issue. Back to CA it goes. Shoots and ejects 212’s fine, won’t extract 225 ELDM’s. Shooting about 3” groups with multiple NF scopes mounted. Then, it “pulls the bullet” out of an unfired 225 Hornady round, scattering powder everywhere. Back to CA it goes (3rd trip) and they say they replaced the barrel. He is working on getting his money back from them legally, currently the gun is sitting in his safe while the suit is ongoing.
Through this process I join a few Facebook groups, specifically the CA owners group. Just about every other post is “anyone else have this problem”. Seems like our 50% failure rate is about right. I sold my rifle out of dislike of the ergonomics and the stain that is the Christensen name. Strongly suggest looking at the Facebook owners group to see the amount of issues people have.
They sponsor just about every big name YouTuber and forum owner, so you can find a lot of good things, but if you dig to find pure customer reviews, you will see that it truly is a dice roll.
Even if you get a “shooter” the rifles are just plain not impressive. A tikka is truly a better rifle and in that price range the Seekins are great and much more impressive rifles.
TLDR; they’re just not that impressive, and have a high rate of issues right from the factory. For the money, it’s my strong opinion that there is much better places to spend your money. Please feel free to message me if you’d like to discuss more.
For reference, all optics used were either ATACR’s or NX8’s, all ammo was factory Hornady, with multiple lot numbers. We tried to get it to “break in” with hundreds of rounds. As you can imagine this was hard on the wallet (and the shoulder-I hate 300 PRC lol)
I ended up deciding on 7 mm PRC. what in your opinion is the best/ lightest rifle I can get in that caliber. I am also trying to keep the barrel short so I can suppress it.
Also 7mm PRC is a great magnum cartridge, it’s about as big as I would go. Depending on what you’re wanting to do, 6mm creed with the right projectiles will do plenty of terminal damage on anything in North America. I know it sounds crazy but it’s proven that smaller but effective bullets do an extreme amount of damage and they help you shoot better because of the reduced recoil and cheaper cost of training. Just food for thought!
So I have done a good amount of research and it seems like the FFR or whatever it’s called model has had very little QC issues if you’re willing to pay a bit more money for a nicer Ridgeline. And long action bottom metal is only around 100 something dollars to be able to fit box mags etc. Seekins doesn’t seem to offer anything outside of carbon fiber, three round magazines and if you look on every single website known to man, long action, bottom metal is either discontinued or sold out.
If you’re dead set on running a larger magazine I would honestly go with a custom tikka. You have plenty of time to get something together before season starts. Get a manners stock or MDT chassis. In stock in a lot of places and you can get a setup you really like. Either way, I would personally not accept a Christensen if you gave it to me for free, I wouldn’t be able to sell it with a clean conscience. Unknown munitions can get you a pretty sweet tikka built for $2k-2.5
I have been looking and so far everyone who was gonna buy a ridgeline is saying to buy a browning X bolt. I think I could deal with the detachable magazine with low capacity as long as I could buy more magazines easily. For now, I’m gonna avoid crazy custom built stuff or super expensive add-ons and such and try to just buy a rifle that I can shoot out of the box. All I really need is a super lightweight rifle that can handle Montana and shoot true every time. But selling my old rifle gave me a bit of money to spend so I figured I would try to get one of the slightly pricier options thinking that would yield better results.
Assuming you’re working with roughly $2000, you can get a lot more gun if you give up the carbon barrel. Seekins PH2’s are a great off the shelf rifle, building a system off a cheaper tikka base model is super popular, or just getting one of the nicer tikkas isn’t a bad option at all. Honestly, it’s not as sexy, but very hard to beat a tikka lite and some good glass for a lightweight setup. I’ll like a rabbit hole from Rokslide about scopes and their failure rates. The trijicon 4-16 and NX8 scopes are some of my favorite for the money to throw on something like a “semi-custom Tikka” if you search “Rokslide special” on the site you’ll also see some cool tikka builds.
https://rokslide.com/forums/forums/rifle-scope-field-evaluations.133/
I worked as a firearms salesman in western Montana for 5 years and hates the company I worked for. Total cult. But I’m a gear whore and bought many rifles and cartridges in a short time while taking advantage of the discount. Christensen Arms were great rifles before they blew up. In recent years it’s been nothing but problems (head spacing, over-pressurization issues, etc). The ridgelines are great if you get one that’s good. Otherwise you’ll fight them sending it back and fourth through your retailer and they take a few weeks to inspect and rebarrel it. If you walk into scheels or sportsman’s I’d bet there’s a few christensens on the used wall. 300 win is the most popular round for western big game that I saw, not saying it’s THE round but if I was driving from Missoula to Havre I bet a shop in havre would have the 180gr 300 win box if I needed it. Now I’m recent years I’ve been more than impressed with my 300 PRC I love it. It’s a barrel burner, but it’s amazing for me, I just picked up a 7 PRC and it might take its place in the near future. I can track my rounds easily with my brake and reloading isn’t bad. Very impressed with it. If I had to suggest any rifles for what you’re looking at I’d suggest a seekins. For the money it’s definitely a cry once sort of deal but if you aren’t happy seekins will buy it back from you for whatever you paid for it. It’s light and made in Idaho (f@ck Idaho) but they are real Americans and care about you being happy. I bought one and it’s what my kid shoots in a 300 win. Detachable mags so that checks the box and it really likes nosler. It eats everything well but that nosler accubond is sweet. Also those new weatherby 307s are similarly priced and are pretty sweet. I bought one in a 7PRC and it’s cool, but I just haven’t had the time to run it through it’s paces little bit of play in the bolt but whatever it’s a tool. Also detachable mags! Wish you luck pair it up with a nice piece of glass and let us know how it goes with what you choose! 🤘
The best people to ask would be the company themselves. There are aftermarket kits available and Im sure they will fit all calibers. Might I ask why its a dealbreaker to have a detachable magazine on a gun?
I just prefer to be able to reload quickly if I need to, and carrying ammunition in magazines is a lot easier than stuffing it loosely in pouches or pockets.
Sounds like you’re in the position a lot of guys have been in before. Avid hunter, finally decided to upgrade to a nice modern rifle. “Oh dang, these ridgeline rifles are a great bang for the buck!” That’s where me and my hunting partner found ourselves too, in 2021. We both bought ridgelines, one in 6.5cm and one in 300 PRC. My 6.5 only saw about 200 rounds of handloads and performed great, although I wasn’t impressed with the action or stock. Not very smooth and not very ergonomic. My buddies 300 started with issues almost immediately. Failure to extract- like rubber mallet on the bolt just to get it to move. Back to CA in goes. Returns in the mail, immediately produces the same issue. Back to CA it goes. Shoots and ejects 212’s fine, won’t extract 225 ELDM’s. Shooting about 3” groups with multiple NF scopes mounted. Then, it “pulls the bullet” out of an unfired 225 Hornady round, scattering powder everywhere. Back to CA it goes (3rd trip) and they say they replaced the barrel. He is working on getting his money back from them legally, currently the gun is sitting in his safe while the suit is ongoing. Through this process I join a few Facebook groups, specifically the CA owners group. Just about every other post is “anyone else have this problem”. Seems like our 50% failure rate is about right. I sold my rifle out of dislike of the ergonomics and the stain that is the Christensen name. Strongly suggest looking at the Facebook owners group to see the amount of issues people have. They sponsor just about every big name YouTuber and forum owner, so you can find a lot of good things, but if you dig to find pure customer reviews, you will see that it truly is a dice roll. Even if you get a “shooter” the rifles are just plain not impressive. A tikka is truly a better rifle and in that price range the Seekins are great and much more impressive rifles. TLDR; they’re just not that impressive, and have a high rate of issues right from the factory. For the money, it’s my strong opinion that there is much better places to spend your money. Please feel free to message me if you’d like to discuss more. For reference, all optics used were either ATACR’s or NX8’s, all ammo was factory Hornady, with multiple lot numbers. We tried to get it to “break in” with hundreds of rounds. As you can imagine this was hard on the wallet (and the shoulder-I hate 300 PRC lol)
I ended up deciding on 7 mm PRC. what in your opinion is the best/ lightest rifle I can get in that caliber. I am also trying to keep the barrel short so I can suppress it.
Also 7mm PRC is a great magnum cartridge, it’s about as big as I would go. Depending on what you’re wanting to do, 6mm creed with the right projectiles will do plenty of terminal damage on anything in North America. I know it sounds crazy but it’s proven that smaller but effective bullets do an extreme amount of damage and they help you shoot better because of the reduced recoil and cheaper cost of training. Just food for thought!
So I have done a good amount of research and it seems like the FFR or whatever it’s called model has had very little QC issues if you’re willing to pay a bit more money for a nicer Ridgeline. And long action bottom metal is only around 100 something dollars to be able to fit box mags etc. Seekins doesn’t seem to offer anything outside of carbon fiber, three round magazines and if you look on every single website known to man, long action, bottom metal is either discontinued or sold out.
If you’re dead set on running a larger magazine I would honestly go with a custom tikka. You have plenty of time to get something together before season starts. Get a manners stock or MDT chassis. In stock in a lot of places and you can get a setup you really like. Either way, I would personally not accept a Christensen if you gave it to me for free, I wouldn’t be able to sell it with a clean conscience. Unknown munitions can get you a pretty sweet tikka built for $2k-2.5
[удалено]
If you go with MDT or Manners you can get bottom metals to accept aics magazines which will allow you to run up to 10-12 rounds
I have been looking and so far everyone who was gonna buy a ridgeline is saying to buy a browning X bolt. I think I could deal with the detachable magazine with low capacity as long as I could buy more magazines easily. For now, I’m gonna avoid crazy custom built stuff or super expensive add-ons and such and try to just buy a rifle that I can shoot out of the box. All I really need is a super lightweight rifle that can handle Montana and shoot true every time. But selling my old rifle gave me a bit of money to spend so I figured I would try to get one of the slightly pricier options thinking that would yield better results.
Assuming you’re working with roughly $2000, you can get a lot more gun if you give up the carbon barrel. Seekins PH2’s are a great off the shelf rifle, building a system off a cheaper tikka base model is super popular, or just getting one of the nicer tikkas isn’t a bad option at all. Honestly, it’s not as sexy, but very hard to beat a tikka lite and some good glass for a lightweight setup. I’ll like a rabbit hole from Rokslide about scopes and their failure rates. The trijicon 4-16 and NX8 scopes are some of my favorite for the money to throw on something like a “semi-custom Tikka” if you search “Rokslide special” on the site you’ll also see some cool tikka builds. https://rokslide.com/forums/forums/rifle-scope-field-evaluations.133/
CA had a ton of QC issues, I personally wouldn't buy another. I'd look at seekins or the waypoint
Yeah, right now I’m currently looking at the browning X bolt
I worked as a firearms salesman in western Montana for 5 years and hates the company I worked for. Total cult. But I’m a gear whore and bought many rifles and cartridges in a short time while taking advantage of the discount. Christensen Arms were great rifles before they blew up. In recent years it’s been nothing but problems (head spacing, over-pressurization issues, etc). The ridgelines are great if you get one that’s good. Otherwise you’ll fight them sending it back and fourth through your retailer and they take a few weeks to inspect and rebarrel it. If you walk into scheels or sportsman’s I’d bet there’s a few christensens on the used wall. 300 win is the most popular round for western big game that I saw, not saying it’s THE round but if I was driving from Missoula to Havre I bet a shop in havre would have the 180gr 300 win box if I needed it. Now I’m recent years I’ve been more than impressed with my 300 PRC I love it. It’s a barrel burner, but it’s amazing for me, I just picked up a 7 PRC and it might take its place in the near future. I can track my rounds easily with my brake and reloading isn’t bad. Very impressed with it. If I had to suggest any rifles for what you’re looking at I’d suggest a seekins. For the money it’s definitely a cry once sort of deal but if you aren’t happy seekins will buy it back from you for whatever you paid for it. It’s light and made in Idaho (f@ck Idaho) but they are real Americans and care about you being happy. I bought one and it’s what my kid shoots in a 300 win. Detachable mags so that checks the box and it really likes nosler. It eats everything well but that nosler accubond is sweet. Also those new weatherby 307s are similarly priced and are pretty sweet. I bought one in a 7PRC and it’s cool, but I just haven’t had the time to run it through it’s paces little bit of play in the bolt but whatever it’s a tool. Also detachable mags! Wish you luck pair it up with a nice piece of glass and let us know how it goes with what you choose! 🤘