Christensen Arms Mesa rifle review

Christensen Arms new Mesa is their introductory rifle into their line up. It features a 416R stainless steel button rifled barrel that has been cerakoted with removable muzzle break and spot bedded carbon fiber composite stock. The rifle is available in short and long actions and include calibers of 6.5 creedmoor, 7mm-08, 308, 300 WM, and 7mm Mag.


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Rifle as packaged out of the box


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Christensen's logo on the floor plate.


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Fluted bolt and skeletonized handle


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Radial muzzle break

The short action model features a 22" barrel while the long action has a 24" barrel with specified weights of 6.5 and 7.3 pounds respectively. The bolt has been nitride treated and cycles easily and smoothly. The bolt and shroud have been fluted and the handle skeletonized. The rifle features a Trigger Tech trigger and mine was pre-set at 2.5lbs. The trigger is adjustable according to Christensen Arms down to 2.5lbs. Trigger tech says 1.5lbs and I adjusted my trigger to just under 2lbs.

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Triggertech trigger

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Trigger adjusted to just under 2lbs.

My rifle is chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. I will admit that I had some reservations about this rifle prior to receiving it, but the fit and finish are very nice for an out of the box rifle and is aesthetically pleasing. The trigger is of great quality and breaks crisp with no creep or significant over travel. I began by mounting a Vortex Viper HS-T hand lapped into a set of Talley mounts. For the first 40 shots I followed Christensen's break in procedure (included in rifle manual) of shooting and cleaning. I used a box of hornady 140 ELD match ammo and 120 ELD match ammo. The first few groups were not very impressive and velocities were irregular at best, but as more shooting, cleaning, fouling occured the groups began to shrink and velocity somewhat stabilize. The final groups with each ammo were just under Christensen's MOA guarantee with the 140's at .82 and 120's at .91 respectively. I really felt this rifle could be capable of better so it was time to do a little work and load development before stretching it out further.


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140gr factory group at .82

Groups were shot off of a bench with front and rear supports. I noticed during break in that the scope only had a couple revolutions left for dialing distance after sighting in at 100 yards. When I returned to the shop I checked the rifles free float and "spot bedding" in the stock. I found the rifle had pretty significant about 6-8 inches in front of the recoil lug. Upon further examination I noticed that the spot bedding had been over filled in the recoil lug area and had run down the barrel channel.

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This was as far as the dollar would easily slide down the barrel channel


I pulled out the dremmel tool and sand paper removing the extra compound and smoothing out the barrel channel. I decided that while I was going to that extent I may as well shape up the receiver area and do a proper bedding job.


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Compound removed, barrel channel smoothed out and roughing up the receiver.

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Filling up the voids in the receiver with some modeling clay.

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Complete bedding once receiver was removed.



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LAST EDITED ON Apr-29-17 AT 10:21AM (MST)[p] Once bedding was complete I turned my attention back to the scope. This time I installed a 20moa rail, Warne rings, and lapped back into place.

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Lapping the scope rings

This would not be my preferred setup for this rifle for a couple of reasons. One is the height of the scope and low comb of this type of rifle. It is just not as comfortable and makes repeatable positioning more difficult. The second is because of the additional weight. I see no point in a light weight hunting rifle and dropping a huge NF or one of the larger Vortex's with rail on it.

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Finished rifle ready for load development.

With these relatively minor adjustments in place I was ready to resume testing. Armed with 40 pieces of once fired brass I began load work up using Hornady 130 ELD-M bullets with two powder choices (RL15 and 4350). Starting loads were 37gr of RL15 and 40gr of 4350. I utilized the OCW method to find the best powder charge for these combinations prior to testing for seating depth.

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130gr ELD-M over 40.5gr 4350 average 2544 fps .38"

I repeated the process for the 123gr ELD-M bullets.

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123 ELD-M over 40.5gr RL15 average 2876 fps .52"

My particular rifle had an COAL of 2.845 to get to the lands of the rifle. The mag box on the short action is 2.850". The test bullets were seated .010" off the lands making it barely possible to cycle these rounds through the magazine. Of the best loads that were identified I selected the powder and bullet combinations with the lowest SD, extreme spread, and grouping to perform a seating depth test. I generally do my seating depth test similar to what Berger recommends for their VLD style bullets, Once depth is identified I will load a couple of groups .005" closer to and away from the lands to see if the groups get any better or worse.

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130 ELD-M over 43gr of 4350 seated at .010" grouping .27"


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Duplicate readings through the chronograph at 2732

I settled on the 130gr ELD-M over top of 43gr of 4350 seated .010 off the lands with average velocity of 2735 fps. I plugged the data into a ballistic calculator for starting dope chart. I dialed 300 and fired a 3 shot group.


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300 yard group

Next was a few shots on a 10" steel at 500 yards. 10" is far from precision rifle shooting, but is a good average kill zone on most deer. With minor scope adjustments the steel was easy to ring at that distance.

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500 yard steel. Group wasn't great but I was getting my wind adjustments and tweaking the drop chart a little.

Last was the 700 yard 18" steel plate. With wind data verified from just shooting the 500 yard target "kill shots" were fired with the very first round and was relatively easy to hit.

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700 Yard steel plate

Summary:

This rifle really surprised me with its accuracy, fit, and finish. I can honestly say that it exceeded my expectations. Christensen claims MOA accuracy out of the box with prescribed ammo. The rifle was capable of that, and with a little work and load development was capable of much more. The only negatives I found were that the rifle is a few ounces over spec weight and the spot bedding on my rifle was poor. The pros are an upgraded stock, upgraded trigger, muzzle break, bolt fluting, and a nice coating on the rifle. Things they could improve on would be more caliber offerings especially in the long actions, put a 24" barrel on short actions as well, and either fully bed the action or better QA/QC on the "spot bedding". I have tried to think of other alternatives with similar features as this rifle and I honestly cant come up with any. If you don't mind plastic stocks and require a few less bells and whistles then there are other options available for a few hundred bucks less. If you were to upgrade any of those other rifles though to have similar features as this one (upgraded stock, better trigger, muzzle break) you would easily be at or above the cost of this rifle. This rifle falls in between a factory "big brand rifle" and something along the lines of a Cooper. Is it a full custom? absolutely not, but with an MSRP of $1,295 it is excellent rifle that exceeded my expectations.

Thanks for the review! I am seriously looking at purchasing one of these.

I just purchased one in 7 mm Rem Mag. The first group after a 10 rnd break in was a disappointing 1.5" group with Barnes LRX. The next two loads (barnes TSX and some old trophy bonded bear claws) shot very well. Just got back from my first hunt with it and it carried and handled very well

Curious how far off the lands u got your good grouping off, just got a 7mm myself