Who makes the best .338 Lapua sniper rifle?

sniper is not a rifle type

sniper is a roll. Anyone who fills the roll of a sniper is a sniper. Any rifle a sniper is using becomes a sniper rifle. Any rifle NOT being used by a sniper therefore cannot be a sniper rifle.

Your basic premise is flawed.

I am a retired military long range competition shooter. You need to start at 200, 300 and 600 yards the first year or two of spending every weekend at the rifle range before you can even consider moving to 1,000. Most shooting of this nature is done in NRA Highpower Rifle Competition where you are shooting 200,300 and 600 with AR-15's, M1a's and M1 Garrands in 'as issued' condition with open sights - no scope. The day comes you can keep all 20 slow fire rounds from 600 inside the 9 ring with most of them 10's and lots of X's - then you can move to 1,000. You need a match rifle that still has a match barrel with less than 2,000 rounds fired in it, and nice HPBT Match ammo - and lots of experience reading the wind to do well at 600. You cannot use a Rem 700 or Hawkey in NRA Highpower Rifle - only the three mentioned above. I have a Rem 700 in 308 and a 1 year old Hawkeye in 223. I was totally blown away how well bedded the Hawkeye was from the factory - the stock matched the receiver like a glove - it only took a few drops of AccraGlass to bed it. I tapped the muzzle 1/2-28tpi for a TLG Suppressor and added a nice Millet 4-16x tactical scope........ I paid less than $500 for the Hawkeye and this is my winter varmint rifle so I don't have to beat up a nice AR-15. At 200 yards with the suppressor on the Hawkey makes little .30" cloverleaf groups of five. Mind you - I paid almost $200 for a trigger job on my other Ruger 77 back in 1992 ....... and this new Hawkeye trigger was just as nice from the factory. All that - and you are not gonna be getting many X's and 10's at 600 yard shooting ammo off your local store shelf - unless theys stock Federal Gold Medal Match and you have lots and lots of $$$ to burn. Nearly every long distance shooter I know - if they are military they shoot 308 and get match ammo from the military - or they handload. For the AR-15 and long distance - 600 is hard enough with hot loaded match 69gr ammo or 77gr ammo. For anything beyond 600 - you should be looking at the 308, 300 Win Mag, or 338 Win Mag. The 338 Lapua is over rated - nothing the Lapua does you can't duplicate with a 338 Win Mag and handloads.

The only difference between a "hunting" rifle and a "sniper" rifle, is the "hunter" behind the hunting rifle, and the "sniper" behind the sniper rifle. Aside from that I don't think many people would hunt with .338 lapua unless they're going to Africa.

That being said, I think it would be hard to beat a custom built rifle based on a surgeon remington 700 action. Unless you're an instant gratification kind of person custom builds are the way to go.

Barrett 98 bravo is a good factory rifle.

FYI, I hope you have DEEP pockets. .338 lapua magnum costs a couple bucks per shot even if you reload. Rifles are expensive and ammo is expensive.

My favourite .338 LM is the PGW Timberwolf but I may be a bit biased as I'm Canadian.

Sniper = job

.338 rifle = tool

Get the picture?

This weapon is a .300 Winchester Magnum. But, the Tactical Operations Alpha 66 in the .300 Winchester Magnum should be enough since it's good out to 1500 meters.

Think someone all ready called this! When would the .338 Lapua questions start.

A very nice long distance scoped rifle is the Sako TRG-42.

I wish we could have a 'sticky thread' like on a forum for all people about to ask 'Sniper Rifle' questions...but they'd probably ignore it anyway.

not sure about the name but i know some guys in del rio tx make them i have had the chance to try 1 out not built for me as they are custom fit and shoot very nice, hope that helps.