Ultimatum Black Hole XLR Timney Ultimate Precision Rifle BuildThis incredible daydream worthy precision rifle build, in theory, should not have been very challenging. After all, it was more or less a custom Remington 700 style receiver but with all custom components.
The U300 billet ordnance steel action from Ultimatum was paired with a full custom 6.5 CM Black Hole Weaponry Barrel, Timney Tactical Trigger, XLR Carbon Chassis, YHM Ti Phantom suppressor, and a top-tier Bushnell optic. In my previous Rem 700 based builds, all that is required for installation was to properly headspace the barrel, tighten the barrel lock nut, and maybe let out the chassis is one minor area. Tweaks are always expected on custom build, but this build went very ugly fast. Luckily it turned around and everyone learned a lot in a painful lesson that netted something cool at the project’s end.
EVERY NEW MANUFACTURE HAS BEEN THERE...As a writer and editor, as would be expected sometimes we are presented with products which are not quite refined, however I experienced significant challenges with Ultimatum beyond the normal expectation. I am going to share the experience of what may be my most expensive, feature-loaded, and most accurate bolt action precision rifle build I own. This is not to rant about the biggest pain in the ass build I have ever...EVER completed, but because I want you to understand that something really special can be created from a boatload of problems. This was a tale of a writer discovering issues hopefully staving off a huge customer service problem waiting to happen for a new manufacturer. The problem was the early V1 & V2 Ultimatum Actions verged on incompatible with typical barrels and stocks and they provided me with the wrong barrel specs. As you can imagine things spiraled down quickly.
The Remington 700 and Savage bolt actions look simple, but they have been designed to allow a lot of tolerance slop to assure assembly in a production environment. The extremely high precision bolt action receivers such as Stiller, Defiance, Big Horn, and others are deceivingly complex with a multitude of dimensional requirements which are difficult to create. These high tolerance receivers strike the balance of super high tolerance while still delivering parts compatibility though relationships with stock manufacturers and well published barrel specifications. In most cases these premium tier receivers allow barrels to be easily installed and swapped and re-headspaced without a gunsmith. For this build it seemed nothing was remotely compatible and the result was that nearly every major part had to be hand fitted. Some of the points that Ultimatum has struggled with are the same areas the other competing companies were challenged with in their early production cycle and most of those pain stem from parts interoperability and publicizing dimensional/fitment specs on their V1 and V2 U300 actions.
This is a stunning build to handle and shoot, but about half way through this build, it would have just been sold as parts if I had not already made editorial commitments to get this done. Black Hole Weaponry stepped in to provide a level of service which was simply exemplary.
The positive outcomes of this project was that Black Hole now has specs for a number of new ready to install Remington and Savage action barrel offerings and Ultimatum proactively pulled an entire model offering from their inventory to completely re-tool for a new late 2017 version #3 model based on all the significant problems I and others had with the receiver.
Hopefully my pain and agony just saved numerous Ultimatum precision receiver buyers from some infuriating vulgarity spewing weeks attempting to put together this precision rifle build. I would have hated to see Ultimatum really tick off everyone before they even get started as a company. Their new U300 Gen 2.1/V3 receiver promises to work out many of these noted issues.
UPCOMING ULTIMATUM U300 GEN 2.1/V3 RECEIVER CHANGES
As noted by Ultimatum, the Gen 2.1/V3 changes will be:
1. The mag port will accept the heavier lipped magpul magazines, and properly seat others.
4. The Gen 2. rear tang was reshaped and the Gen2.1 was yet again re-shaped to provide a strong but aesthetically pleasing all around fit.
5. The mounting screw locations has been toleranced against Remington specs so they will align to Remington chassis bolt patterns.
6. The actions will be ready for a 20-tpi savage pre-fit style barrels
7. Proactive work with chassis manufactures to assure they have an inlet specifically for the Ultimatum Gen 2.1 action.
8. Published specs for the receiver and barrel installation and other inlet points.
ULTIMATUM QUALITY & CUSTOMER SERVICE
Ultimatum delivers on the features and machining quality that precision shooters have been begging for complete with a beefier action, thicker integrated recoil lug, 20-MOA rail, integrated sunshade hook, Tri-lug bolt, and many other little tweaks all in a premium R700 style receiver priced almost $1000 less than comparable models. That is a sizable savings, but there were also some big mis-steps in their first receiver releases.First I must note that Ultimatum was extremely responsive through this entire process. That noted, the answers I received back on my Gen 1 receiver were either mostly incomplete or in one case catastrophically wrong. Though they were super responsive, Ultimatum did not publish receiver specs, barrel specs, installation expectations, and “known issues” of their Gen 1 and Gen 2 models as they were reported by customers. They also did not note spec chances between the Gen 1 and Gen 2 models. A support blog would have gone a long way to remedy problems before they occurred. If there are known issues, especially at this level of product, the expectation was that this potentially critical information would have been provided in a more active manner. This entire build and article would have gone wildly different had I just had the ability to download specs and understand up-front the chassis/stock fitment requirements.
The President of Ultimatum has personally noted that the void of information will be remedied going forward with the release of the new fall 2017 model - I do hope this happens becuase the receiver is excellent quality. Custom builders can be a forgiving bunch if they know what they are getting into first hand. At one point after noting issues I was having, the company actually pointed me to another writer's article who had documented all the same issues, but infuriatingly this was not provided beforehand. I noted that it is not the responsibility of another editor to become your technical support and specification writer.
After receiving the initial Gen1 receiver, about a month later I received a replacement bolt group assembly which reduced cocking tension and then also a separate new tighter tolerance version trigger hanger though no information was included as to why I received these items. Ultimatum was and is trying, but they are also learning painfully along the way.
OHH NO - THE BARREL SPECS WERE WRONG
In the case of this build, everything really spiraled downhill quick when Ultimatum provided the wrong barrel specs which led to ordering an incorrectly spec’ed barrel. This caused a rather ugly set of catastrophic events to the barrel which “Lord thank you”... Black Hole Weaponry stepped in and fixed the giant mess I created while attempting to install an incorrectly spec’ed barrel into the receiver.
Typically a custom precision rifle receiver follows a barrel and thread pattern of a Remington 700, or a Savage, or a Remage pattern barrel spec with Remington 700 threads and breech face and a Savage style barrel nut. This Gen1 U300 receiver required a more unusual Rem700 longer barrel threading, a Savage style barrel nut and also a Savage breech face, but those were not the specs I was given.
Despite meticulous cleaning and applied anti-sieze there was also an unseen tolerance stacking problem which in literally an eighth of a turn seized the threads. Both threads technically matched up, but the breech face specs were wrong as were the length of threading on the barrel. Let’s just say the barrel seized into the receiver and I trashed the first inch of the barrel threads and bleed everywhere getting the barrel off. BHW stepped in, washed off the blood, recut and extended all the threads to the un-typically tightly toleranced threading of the receiver, recut and corrected the breach to the correct profile which effectively shortened the barrel to a 17.5-inch barrel instead of the original 18.5-inch length. Black Hole returned to me via a very quick turnaround of a re-tooled, mounted, headspaced, and installed barrel into the Ultimatum action. I felt like an incompetent idiot during this stage of the build, but it is good to have friends to bail you out. Ultimatum noted that they are moving to an all Savage thread, breech face and barrel nut format receiver so this should not be an issue going forward.
UMMM...HOW MUCH DO I NEED TO MILL OFF THE $1200 STOCK?
The next challenge was fitting the receiver to the chassis. Ultimatum sells the chassis noting right on the front page and the receiver page that it is a Remington 700 footprint, but that is totally inaccurate. The more accurate statement is that it is “sort of a R700 footprint”. There was no stock in the world which would readily accept the oversized beefy footprint of the Ultimatum U300 action. Neither the front or rear receiver bolts are spec’ed to R700 spacing (or any stock supporting R700), and the size and profile of the rear tang and front oversized recoil lug are too large as well for any chassis - for the record, I tried six different top tier precision rifle chassis. So now I was forced to start milling away on a $1200 XLR Carbon Stock.
The extent of the milling required was not prefaced by Ultimatum at any point until I noted what I had to do for fitment… then they offered up another editor’s article. The front lug and rear tang areas of the stock received extensive milling and the receiver bolt holes had to both be elongated on the stock for the receiver to mount up. Everything did mount up well after these modifications, but this level of modification is the last thing you want to do to a stunning $1200 XLR Carbon chassis. In order to fit the receiver into the Carbon chassis, the sunshade hook on the U300 top rail also had to be milled off. Ultimatum has noted that the bolt spacing was off and will correct that on the next model release. They have also contacted several stock/chassis manufacturers including XLR to assure they will offer factory inlets specifically for the new Ultimatum receiver profiles. I have recommended to Ultimatum that they offer a separate model option which would provide a drop-in fit replacement into any existing R700 spec chassis such as Big Horn offers, however this concept was not on the drawing board at this point.
Another issue which was noted was magazine fitment. This is a typical tweak on custom precision rifle builds. The Ultimatum action sits in the chassis lower which means that not all AICS format magazines will not seat fully without modification to the magazine catch. I did have to trim a bit from the top of the magazine catch on the XLR chassis allow engagement of the various AICS magazines on hand.
IT IS TOGETHER...AND IT IS GLORIOUS
After several fit inducing moments, days, and weeks, the build was together and it looked and performed gloriously. The XLR chassis cradling the beautifully made Ultimatum action and BHW hex fluted barrel is an amazing which shoots as good as it looks. The Bushnell Elite optic mounted up perfectly without incident to provide a crystal clear mil-dot First Focal Plane view at the target. The Timney Tactical Remington 700 4-ounce trigger is insanely light which allows all the accuracy from the BHW barrel to connect with precision. This is a ¼” 100-yard accurate gun and with handloads it may be even better.
After a lot of input from many competitive shooters who recommended and were running a 18” barrel for suppressed, I elected for a shorter barrel with the express intent to run suppressed. This delivers a mangable 26-ish-inch barrel with the suppressor attached to the 17.5-inch barrel. With a longer standard 20 or 22-inch barrel and a suppressor the gun would feel like a two man crew served gun. Currently with a QD YHM mount and Titanium Phantom .30 suppressor, it delivers a realistic usable length and the QD suppressor can be removed and the XLR chassis stock folded for a very compact transportable package.FINAL THOUGHTS - WOULD I BUILD THIS AGAIN?
Black Hole Weaponry - The BHW barrel is stunning and they are one of the most consistent (and underrated) barrel manufacturers I have worked with over the years. I have .223 AR15s with BHW barrels which will easily deliver ½ MOA groups all the way to 300 yards. They are very accurate. In this case, the rigid bolt action receiver allows the 6.5 CM to continually hammer very tightly clustered bugholes downrange. The hex fluting drops about 20% of the weight of a bull barrel allegedly without loosing any accuracy all while looking jaw dropping. Of course they have one of the best customer services departments I have experienced yet.
XLR Industries - XLR makes one of the most comfortable chassis on the market to shoot behind. There are a lot of really great chassis, however they are delivering the Ducati level of design sexiness to the sniper chassis. The XLR Carbon is a skeletonized based chassis with carbon fiber handguard to dissipate the heat from high rate shooting during precision rifle matches. There is nothing that comes close to the look of this chassis for precision rifles. I do just wish I had not had to mill out custom modifications to this chassis which means it will never see use on any other builds.
Timney - The Timney 4-ounce flat Tactical trigger is fully adjustable for fore and aft, trigger position, trigger cant, and omits the safety which can on occasion flub a shot. The 4-ounce trigger is amazing for the precision shooter, however it would not be a trigger weight I would recommend for a field gun. For most other builds, I would definitely add a trigger, however this trigger is specifically designed for the type of shooting this rifle configuration is set up for which means there will never be a round left in the chamber unless a shot is immediately pending.
Bushnell Elite - Over the years Bushnell has continued to deliver a broad range of optics from affordable to a level which competes with the high dollar German optics. This Elite series represent the best that Bushnell offers with hand assembled optics, premium tier optics coating and quality control, and an optic clarity which makes you feel like you have super human vision. The Bushnell Elite line is extremely well regarded in precision competition shooting events and each year it appears Bushnell is continuing to step up the quality.
Ultimatum - Would I buy another Ultimatum Action? If the 2.1 model releasing fall of 2017 addresses the updates as Ultimatum president noted below, I would certainly buy another one in a heartbeat for a switch barrel setup if the receivers featured a prefit Savage style barrel and breech action without the tolerance stacking barrel fitment problems. Even if I did have to modify a chassis/stock, the U300 are very well made actions. They have recognized the problems and are addressing them which is the responsible thing to do. Would I buy another of these Gen 1 Models? No way - in this case I think this model was released too early before a lot of in-house testing could have worked out the problems. Contrary to what occurred in this build, Ultimatum makes a gorgeous precision rifle action and did stand behind their product. They have also committed to correcting the problems I and others commented on. 
Really, I am a very accommodating guy, however when you start to cost me double money out of my pocket to support an editorial review, I become a little more… and more blunt. I cannot thank Black Hole Weaponry enough for saving this build, the detail and precision of their barrels and after sale repair turned this build from a nightmare into a blessing. This was far from my first custom bolt action. Hopefully I will be reviewing the new 2017 V3 U300 Ultimatum action very soon which I am confident will be quite a different and much happier article.
SPECS
Ultimatum U300 Gen 1 Action - $1000
Black Hole Weaponry - Custom 6.5 CM, Hex Fluted, stainless hand tuned match barrel - $900
XLR Industries - Carbon Chassis - $1200
Timney Triggers - Tactical 4-ounce R700 Match Trigger (no-safety) $250
Bushnell Elite -
SOURCES
Ultimatum - https://www.ultimatumprecision.com
Bushnell - http://bushnell.com
Black Hole Weaponry - https://columbiariverarms.com
Timney - https://www.timneytriggers.com