Preview – Surgeon Rifles CSR

Photography by Henry Z. De Kuyper

Brain Surgeon
500-Yard Head-box Shots Prove Boringly Easy With the CSR

Any time you can pick up a brand-new rifle and whack a 6-inch square piece of steel five football fields away with every shot out of your first magazine, you know you’ve got something just a little bit special. Surgeon’s CSR belies the notion that you need a long barrel to achieve long-range performance — with an overall length of just 28 inches with the stock folded, it’s shorter than a collapsed M4 and can be tucked inside a tool bag for discrete deployment.

I first saw an example of this weapon this past July, and my initial reaction was along the lines of, “Aww, cute. It’s just like a real rifle.” I was then informed that it had originally been developed for the U.S. Special Forces as a complete package of rifle, optic, bipod, suppressor, and magazines and was currently operational, having been used to make shots out to 1,000 yards. I was pretty skeptical, but wanted to get hands on with one anyway, only to discover that they weren’t available to the public. That situation has since changed, so you too can now have your very own CSR — provided you’ve got the scratch.

In on the Action
Surgeon 591 actions are highly regarded in the long-range shooting community, and for good reason. Based loosely on the Remington 700 design, several shortcomings of the original have been addressed. Remington’s first priority with the 700 was ease of manufacture, with accuracy being a fortunate byproduct — with more than 5-million rifles in circulation, this isn’t a dig at Big Green, which has a hugely successful lineup often used as a base for accurized custom builds. Surgeon, on the other hand, took the outline of the Remington action and transformed it into what it could have been, if the objective were to make a small number of extremely accurate rifles rather than to completely dominate the market.

To this end, the 700’s separate recoil lug has been eliminated, instead being machined as an integral part. This ensures the lug is completely square to the action body and concentric with the bolt face. Also integral is the scope mount, which comprises a 1919 rail with a built-in 20-MOA angle, running the entire length of the action. This removes any possibility of mounting screws loosening up or stripping under recoil and also increases the action’s stiffness. Instead of heat-treating action components after machining operations are completed, Surgeon uses the more difficult and expensive technique of partially machining the actions, heat treating, and then sending them back through the shop for machining to their final, finished dimensions — thus eliminating any potential warping as the parts heat and cool.

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