Despite its low cost, van Zwoll's .270 Wby. Mag. turned in impressive 100-yard groups. This one measures a mere 3/4-inch.

Besides barrel installation and bluing, the company will alter bolt handles, open bolt faces, true and lap lugs, and fit brakes and sights. What sealed my vote for a Shaw barrel was the firm's pricing. Threaded, contoured and short-chambered barrels start at less than $150 (412/221-4343, (www.ershawbarrels.com).

Made of AISI-4140 steel, the .270 blank I ordered for the Legacy project had a No. 2 contour with a .600-inch muzzle. As with all E.R. Shaw barrels, it was stress-relieved before machining, so drilling, reaming, contouring, chambering and threading could be done on "finished" steel. The machinists at the company's Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, plant say this routine is hard on tools but that it yields a smoother, more uniform bore. Button rifled with the 1:10 twist standard for a .270 bore, my barrel wears a battleship-gray finish.

Rifle stocks cost more now than when I paid Herter's $7.50 for a semi-inletted blank. Thanks to modern shaping machinery, however, you needn't spend every evening for three months scraping and sanding to fit the steel. In fact, you can get fully inletted stocks like the one I chose from Boyds'.

The current Boyds' catalog (605/996-5011, (www.boydsgunstocks.com) lists replacement stocks for more than 350 rifles, shotguns and handguns. Choose semi- or fully inletted stocks in walnut or "pepper" or "nutmeg" laminates, Classic, Silhouette, Thumbhole or Varmint profile.

While you'll save about 25 percent by ordering a semi-inletted, unfinished stock, inletting from Boyds' is worth the extra cost. I chose a laminated stock over walnut for its increased strength and stability. It cost only about $20 more. The JRS Classic fit my Legacy Mauser without any woodwork whatever. Its satin nutmeg sheen was protected by multiple coats of a proprietary vinyl-base finish that repels not only water but gun cleaning chemicals as well.

Dropping a barreled action into a fully inletted stock is hardly gunmaking. On the other hand, it's a good match for my level of talent. Bedding this .270 Wby. Mag. with Brownell's Accra-glas would have been easy enough, even for me. Instead, I folded a slim brass shim into the rear of the recoil lug mortise. After snugging the screws and mounting a Zeiss 3-9x Conquest, I zeroed the Legacy Mauser at 200 yards and fired a 3/4-inch group with 100-grain factory-loaded ammo. Delightful! More shooting with heavier bullets bumped group sizes up to slightly over an inch, on average. That's fine hunting accuracy.

If you're in the market for a project rifle that looks good and shoots well and doesn't require much in the way of gunsmithing, Legacy, E.R. Shaw and Boyd's are worth a jingle. Investing less than $800 gave me a rifle that, while not custom-built, is at least custom-designed. It's no more useful than a factory-built rifle, but you won't find one in every hunting camp.