By Terry Houin
When Gunwerks reached out to us about doing a rifle collaboration, we of course said yes, but we wanted to add our own personal flair. With the high-end rifle market focusing on carbon fiber stocks and barrels, we decided, in true Field Ethos fashion, to throw a curve ball and give a nod to the OG sniper rifles that started it all. What we came up with is the new Gunwerks Krylon.
Way back in the olden days—the mid 90’s—as a young fired-up Petty Officer Second Class, I made my way into arguably the best sniper school in the land. This wasn’t the easy preschool days of the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School where the curriculum included nibbling on crayons between range sessions. This was the tip-of-the-spear Navy Special Warfare Sniper School where you not only had to work hard, shoot hard, and drink hard, but also math hard because we insisted on shooting a scope with a Mil-Dot reticle but MOA adjustments because using one system was way too easy for us.
While preparing for sniper school, I was issued my very own sniper rifle which was most likely a M86 variant chambered in 7.62×51 NATO (.308) riding in a heavy fiberglass stock with a Leupold Mark 4 10×40 Scope. Upon graduating and returning to the team, my .308 was upgraded to the .300 Win. Mag. MK 13 which was our standard for long-range sniper rifles. Whether you had an M86, MK 13, M24, M40, or a SWAT version, sniper rifles of the time were all essentially the same rifle setup; cleaned up bolt action, quality barrel, glass-bedded stock, and crisp trigger. That is what we wanted to replicate with Gunwerks collab, a sort of nod to the OGs doing the sniper job before range finders and ballistic computers made 1000-yard shots easy.
When Jason Vincent and I jumped on a call with the Gunwerks’ owner Aaron Davidson and his team to discuss this throwback-style rifle, everyone was excited. This rifle is a departure from the company’s current offerings, and it gives everyone a chance to reflect on the fun days of shooting. The team quickly came up with the build plan and the name Krylon—directly calling out the rattle-can paint scheme harkening back to the pre-Cerekote days.
BUILDING THE KRYLON
The foundation of the rifle is the Gen 1 Magnus stock which features a negative comb. For those not familiar with this comb style, it raises the recoil pad up more inline with the muzzle helping reduce felt recoil and providing a more consistent follow through for quicker follow-up shots if needed. The AICS-compatible bottom metal holds a five-round detachable magazine that flows into the barricade stop and a large ARCA plate giving the shooter multiple options for tripod, barricade, or bagged shooting positions.
Sitting on top of the buttery smooth Gunwerks action is a full-length picatinny rail and Revic hinged rings nestling the Revic RS25i 5-25x50mm scope with illuminated reticle and custom BDR turret. What I really like about the Revic BDR turret is it has two different rings, one with custom ballistics to dial directly to a specific yardage and the other with standard MOA adjustments—the custom ballistic rings can be easily swapped out for different loads. There’s a list of other features I can go over, but it’s a Gunwerks rifle so it shoots like you’d expect it to thanks in part to the package weighing in at about 12 pounds. That might sound heavy, but when you spend time sending rounds downrange behind the recoil pad, you’ll learn to appreciate the smooth-shooting magnum. Lest we forget the super cool throwback rattle-can paint job that honors the look of the sniper rifles I used back in the day.
Of course no rifle build would be complete without some field testing. For this, we just happened to have a whitetail hunt setup at one of the premier Texas deer outfits where Aaron and myself finalized the color scheme and got some live-tissue testing completed. After confirming zero, which is pretty easy when the rifle posts ½-MOA or better groups with the Gunwerks custom 215 Berger loads, we stretched her out to 1124 yards to confirm our ballistic data on the BDR turret. Then, just for fun, we busted some rocks at 1491 yards to complete the range test.
The next morning I had Prototype 01 in the blind with me. Just like the script was written, the buck I was after—which hadn’t been seen for a couple weeks—walked out and offered a classic broadside shot just over 300 yards. I easily slid the BDR to 300 and made the shot. Meanwhile, Scott was escorting Prototype 02 around and killed a hammer with 13-inch G2’s, although he made an excellent shot, I’m not sure 60 yards breaks into the long-range category.
Cost: $7,500
Pros: Incredible value for a Gunwerks build; OG styling with some modern technology mixed in for a smooth-shooting rifle; classic .300 Win. Mag. chambering; sweet throwback paintjob.
Cons: Only making 50 total rifles, 48 right hand and two wrong handed for the weirdos; prototype 01/02 will not be available to the public.
