TS Customs Rifles - KS1 300 PRC Review

When it comes to custom rifle builders, TS Customs has risen to the top in recent years due to its consistent reputation for building great rifles. It’s easy to build rifles, it’s not easy to make every rifle that leaves your shop a hammer. Travis Stevens, Owner of TS Customs, has developed a process of material selection and building that allows him to manufacture some of the best rifles available today. To further the process of consistently building great rifles, Travis designed his KS1 Stock to be a long-range shooter and hunter’s dream. This update has taken his rifles to the next level and given his customers the most valuable rifle in their collections.

I started this build with TS Customs after they built several others for me with tremendous results. When they released the new KS1 stock, I knew I needed another rifle immediately and placed the order with Travis. Travis and I selected a Lone Peak Ti Receiver, PROOF Research carbon-fiber-wrapped barrel, Hawkins Precision Hunter DBM, and a Timney HIT trigger to set in his new stock. These parts would be bedded into the new KS1 stock and chambered in 300 PRC to offer me a true do-all big game hunting rifle for the backcountry that would weigh in at less than 7 lb while being capable of taking any game at any opportunity.

The Details

Regardless of the customer’s chosen rifle stock, TS Customs inlets all their stocks in-house from flat top stock blanks to ensure their customers get a straight, true channel and pillar set in each rifle. The factory inlets from many of the big stock makers tend to be off-center at times and can cause issues with the bedding, leading to inaccuracies. I have sent several stocks to TS Customs for corrective inletting and bedding in addition to several full builds. They do a superior bedding job and offer one of the cleanest finished rifle stocks available today. The attention to detail in every aspect of stock bedding makes for an extremely consistent build to ensure each rifle shoots the absolute best for the customer.

The features of the KS1 I found to be my favorite are the vertical grip angle and grip distance from the trigger shoe. The grip is closer to the trigger shoe on the KS1 than any other stock I have shot. This stock is extremely comfortable to shoot due to the placement of the shooter’s wrist and hand in the proper position. There are a lot of vertical grip stocks available on the market today due to the booming sport of long-range shooting, but finding the stock that fits you best and allows you to control the rifle should be paramount in your rifle-building process.

In addition to the grip, zero drop and straight comb in the butt of the stock give the shooter more contact with the recoil pad in the pocket and help you manage recoil better. Plus, the forward bipod rail blended into the slim forend is a very nice feature. It has a sleek overall profile and keeps the rifle’s bore lower and closer to the bipod with a lower center of gravity. The additional screws and anchors in the center of the stock allow for direct attachment to your tripod, giving the proper balance for your rifle, just forward of the front action screw.

Action

The action I selected for this build was the Lone Peak Fuzion Ti long-action receiver. The overall concept of this rifle was to keep weight down below 7 lb, so a titanium action was the perfect fit, weighing in at 25.5 oz for the long action. Lone Peak has been a leading titanium action manufacturer and has perfected the process. Their receivers are cut from 6AI-4V titanium and are smooth – an attribute not commonly associated with titanium, as it tends to have a gritty feel in the bolt cycle. The folks at Lone Peak nitride all of their fluted bolt bodies to reduce friction and give their actions a smoother and more reliable function compared to other Ti actions I have run in the past. Known for exceptional reliability and engineering, Lone Peak is one of the top receiver manufacturers on the market.

Barrel

TS Customs threaded and chambered my PROOF Research 24” 9-twist Sendero contour carbon fiber barrel onto the Lone Peak action. PROOF Research has long been a leader in carbon-fiber-wrapped barrels, and they have been some of the most consistently accurate I have ever shot. TS Customs cuts a smooth and clean chamber in each rifle, using only the sharpest and most concentric reamers, which is the difference between a good rifle and a great rifle. Upon inspection of my 300 PRC chamber with a bore scope, it showed a beautifully cut chamber with a clean transition to the bore in the throat.

I recently saw a friend’s rifle, chambered by another smith, that was cut so off-center, only one side of the throat had grooves, while the other side has smooth and void of any sign of the grooves. As you can imagine, the rifle did not shoot well for the owner and needed a new barrel. This is just one of many reasons why selecting the right barrel and gunsmith for your rifle build is crucial to getting the right rifle built the right way the first time.

Trigger

The barreled action was tuned with a Timney HIT trigger with a straight trigger shoe set at 1.5 lb. I run this trigger setup in all of my rifles to ensure the trigger break is the same. Also, it’s a confidence builder to know that all my rifle triggers have the same reliable break. With the trigger installed, the barreled action set beautifully in the KS1 Stock. A Hawkins Precision Hunter DBM was selected for the bottom metal of this build.

DBM

Hawkins Precision has been producing some of the best hinged floor plates and DBM (Detachable Bottom Metal) bottom metals on the market. Using the highest quality steel and aluminum, they have produced the most consistent quality parts available on the market. Their new Hunter DBM is a low-profile, lightweight unit for hunters wanting a center-fed, detachable magazine for their hunting rifles instead of the big tactical DBMS most are familiar with. Hawkins Precision magazines feed excellently and have been extremely reliable for me in several rifles I have used for testing over the years.

Optics and Ammo

I ran several different Swarovski optics on this rifle during my testing. As always, all were set in Talley Manufacturing rings. I settled on the Swarovski Z8i 2-16 with a Ballistic Flex Turret and Custom Scope Turret cut for my chosen loads. I ran two different hand loads in the rifle with excellent accuracy – the 190-gr Hornady CX and the 181-gr Hammer Hunter hand loads. These loads, and several others, consistently produced sub-MOA accuracy out to 800 yards, with most groups averaging sub-½-MOA.

Even factory ammunition from Hornady produced sub-1” groups at 100 yards with both the Outfitter and Precision Hunter brands. You can’t ask for much more from any rifle than to shoot just about any quality ammunition and get sub-1” groups. It’s nice to have options when it comes to ammunition and bullet selection for hunting rifles.

The rifle has been in my truck and strapped to my pack for over a year now and is well used, holding up perfectly and holding its accuracy. Even the hand-painted stock is pristine and has aged very well. TS Customs has perfected its method of building a quality rifle that performs downrange without pause and still turns heads in the rifle rack at the local range after a season of use and abuse. If you’re looking for a new custom rifle built for your next hunt, add TS Customs to the top of your list of smiths to contact about your project. If you’re new to the long-range, precision rifle world, rest assured that TS Customs will give you the best information available and walk you through the entire build process and component selection to meet your custom rifle dreams and expectations. Check out TS Custom Rifles at tscustomsrifles.com