No Lathe Required: Ultradyne Aero SOLUS Rifle Build

Most of my rifle builds require a complete machine shop. In this video, I’ll show you how to build a custom rifle around an Aero SOLUS action without a lathe!

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Bill of Materials

Ultradyne has continued to expand their UD chassis line — now offering a version with enhanced geometry for the Aero SOLUS action.

I paired this action with a straight taper 6.5 Creedmoor McGowen Precision ECM Barrel and a UD7 and Ultradyne adjustable buttstock both in Sniper Grey Cerakote.

I added a two-pound weighted bag rider and four pounds in forearm weights to make the rifle heavier for a more precision-oriented and bench-friendly rifle.

Seeking to test ammunition performance with this gun, a quality trigger was also important. A two-stage Bix’n Andy competition trigger from Bullet Central fit the bill.

About the Aero SOLUS Action

The Aero SOLUS is available in both short action and long action with a variety of bolt face options. Each comes with a receiver body, bolt assembly, trigger hanger and hardware, barrel nut, and barrel nut wrench.

The last two come in handy if you are working with a pre-fit non-shouldered barrel. I always prefer a shouldered barrel for more repeatable headspace and rigidity.

From Aero Precision:

The heart of the Solus product line is the Solus Short Action. This product serves as the keystone in an ecosystem that provides shooters with an open-source, user-configurable, and quality-manufactured foundation for their precision bolt action build. Compatible with industry standard pre-fits and drop-in components the Solus removes many barriers to entry often associated with custom rifle builds, allowing the shooter to build a system that is specific to their needs. When manufacturing a custom bolt action, quality and consistency are essential. To ensure the most precise tolerances are being held each Solus Action gets inspected by CMM (coordinate measuring machine) in our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

Action Features:

- Remington 700 Short Action Footprint
- Integral 20 MOA biased top rail
- Integral recoil lug
- Magnum-sized ejection port
- Sized to feed and eject cartridges with up to 3.00″ OAL
- Compatible with AICS and AIAW detachable box magazines
- Trigger installed via hanger

Bolt Features:

- 60-degree bolt throw
- 3-lug interchangeable bolt head
- Dual ejectors
- “Cock on lift” bolt design

Materials:

- Receiver body- 416 stainless steel
- Firing pin- S7 tool steel

Compatibility:

- Barrel: Savage Small Shank W/ Barrel nut and Shouldered Zermatt Origin Pattern Pre-Fit Barrels
- Trigger: Remington 700 (no bolt release)
- Footprint: Remington 700 short action

Includes:

- Solus Short Action (Barrel Tenon & Chambering Specs)
- Bolt Assembly
- Trigger Hanger

Assembly

I started by securing the UD7 chassis in the Arrow Products Rock Vise.

Aero SOLUS with UD7 Chassis and Nexus Gen 2 Scope Installed

This tool makes it easy to manipulate whatever is being held in the most convenient location without compromising workholding. I turned the chassis vertically and added the UD adjustable buttstock.

It is important to install the buttstock before the grip! Once I had the grip in place, I swapped the lightweight bag rider for the two-pound weighted version.

With the chassis all together, it was time to install the barrel. I used the SAC Bravo Barrel Vise to put the barreled action together, using a piece of drywall tape around the barrel shank to help it grip the bushings.

I also added some grease to the threads. Remember not to tighten the barrel too much, it should be able to slightly spin in the vise. I clocked the barrel accordingly and threaded on the SOLUS action, twisting the barrel until the action’s ejection port was properly oriented.

Now it was time to torque the action with a special Aero Precision SOLUS Action Wrench.

Though I didn’t chamber the barrel this time, I still needed to check headspace with no and no-go gauges. It passed all of my tests.

Flipping the barreled action over, I installed the trigger hanger, Bix’n Andy trigger, and hardware.

I tested trigger functionality and mounted the Element Nexus Gen 2 4-25 x 50 FFP scope.

I selected the SilencerCo Omega 300 suppressor as my muzzle device of choice as it has seen the most consistent group results.

Shooting

I started with Berger 6.5 Creedmoor 140 Grain Hybrid Target ammunition, but the rifle didn’t like it very much.

I dug through my stash, located some Hornady 140 Grain ELD-M handloads with 40.0 grains of H4350, and headed back out. Captured with Longshot, my first three-shot group measured 0.246” at 100 yards. This is a very important demonstration of how critical ammo selection can be!

Shooting a 3-Shot Group with the 140 Grain ELD-M Load

I sent five bullets down range—to my delight, all of them were nearly in the same hole (0.423” at 100 yards).

The last flier may have been a different load as I was using mixed, unsorted ammunition. This is supported by the 246 fps extreme spread recorded by the Athlon Rangecraft.

The clean, predictable break of the Bix’n Andy two-stage competition trigger was a huge asset in my ability to shoot these small groups.

Conclusion

The finished rifle weighed approximately 21 pounds with good balance and I look forward to doing more shooting with it on steel.

Right now our ability to shoot steel is hindered by fire hazards, but I still really enjoyed putting this together, even without any machining work!

Hopefully you can benefit from this project and it is more accessible to everyone out there who enjoys DIY but doesn’t have access to or knowledge of machining equipment.