Copyright 2019 – Stephen Redgwell
Two things were unusual about this rifle a few years ago. The first was why anyone would want a rifle chambered 225 Winchester. The second was that it had an odd, new stock. An adjustable, laminated wood stock made by Boyds. It’s called the AT-ONE.
AT-ONE stocks cost $199 USD. I have two. The one pictured above holds a rebarreled Savage Model 10 chambered in 225 Winchester. I have another on a 6×45mm, and will be getting a third for a 243 Win. They have performed well for me the past two years. Boyds offers 18 different colours. My 225 Win is fitted with a Pepperwood stock.
You can see that their inletting is well done. There are no gaps or sloppy cuts on either of my rifles.
Comfort and fit are relative things, but like a tailored suit, the AT-One has a range of adjustments that can be made, so that the rifle fits you. The length of pull (LOP) can be adjusted up to 1.5 inches. The cheek rest has 9/16th inch of travel. It also has a 1/2 inch recoil pad, but the two rifles I have don’t require one. I just like the fact that the buttpad remains where I put it on my shoulder without sliding around.
About 10 years ago, I bought a few plain Jane Savage rifles that were marketed as Stevens 200s. They were simply pre-AccuTrigger Savage Model 10s. For those of you with basic mechanical skills, the Savages can be reworked to whatever you want. It’s very easy to change the barrel, trigger and stock. The Boyds stock was one of the improvements.
The barrel is made by a new company called Preferred Barrel Blanks (PBB), a subsidiary of Match Grade Machine. It is what they call a No 1 Sporter contour with 0.630 inch muzzle diameter. That simply means the shape of the barrel is similar to the factory contour – but not quite. The original factory barrel tapered to 0.585 inches at the muzzle. I expected the slightly larger diameter would mean hogging out some channel wood. Luckily, that was not the case.
More information on the AT-ONE is available at the Boyds Gunstocks site.
This is a hunting rifle with a 1 in 9 twist, 24 inch barrel. Since I’ve owned it, the 225 has been on a couple dozen hikes here in Central Ontario. It’s managed to take several coyotes with an old timey load of IMR 4064 and a 55 gr. Hornady bullet.
When I put everything together, there was a little fitting required in the magazine well. It looked to be a little ridge of wood left by the bit when it was being inletted. I removed it easily with a Dremel tool. The front screw needed to be shortened one thread as well. Neither was the fault of the stock.
Sir John A MacDonald, the fellow on the ten dollar bill, told me that the barrel was free floated. The price in USD for this and other prefits from Preferred Barrel Blanks is $325. It was about $550 CDN. That’s the cost of the barrel, imported into Canada by Nine35.ca, with shipping and 13% HST.