Review: Voere Victor 3 precision rifle

The Voere Victor 3 is an Austrian precision rifle that may look strange but wow, does it ever deliver downrange!

Voere is a well-established Austrian rifle maker, operating since 1948. It produces a number of high-quality hunting and precision rifle models.

Voere Victor 3 precision rifle review — These two five-shot groups, shot with factory match ammunition, demonstrate the Voere’s potential for extreme accuracy

I am a real fan of Austrian firearms, and I am no stranger to different-looking guns, since my favourite hunting rifle is a Steyr Scout and I have several other Steyr rifles for both hunting and competition. As a firearms instructor I use Glock handguns all the time in training and they just work and keep on working. There must be something in the water of little Austria and its population of only nine million for it to have some of the world’s leading arms companies.

The Victor 3 is designed from the ground up as a precision rifle for competition use and so we tested this on the bench and on the ground, shooting prone, as you would most likely use it in competition matches or precision long-range plinking. It is, after all, heaps of fun to ring steel at a distance.

The very unconventional appearance of this version of the Victor 3 comes courtesy of the German-made Hera H7 chassis, and to some degree it hides the fact that the Victor 3 is actually a very high-quality Remington 700 clone, taking the best from that well-proven design but using far higher manufacturing standards to match the best Rem-style actions ever produced.

It also has an integral pic rail so you will never have to be concerned with your scope mount coming loose from the action.

As soon as I began to operate the rifle I realised how tight the tolerances were. You can feel it — and even see it — as soon as you use the bolt. At first I thought it was too tight, but soon realised that there was excess grease on the bolt from shipping protection and once I wiped it down, it ran like the proverbial Swiss watch — smooth and precise.

Because it is based on the Remington 700 action, the Voere is able to accept lots of aftermarket accessories as desired. It uses AICS-pattern magazines so it also means it should take any of the many brands produced in various sizes at reasonable cost.

The Hera H7 chassis might look unusual but it works very well in use and helps the rifle recoil straight back rather than lifting up, which if you are shooting at longer ranges is vital to achieving repeatable accuracy. Once I shouldered the Victor I realised that the ergonomics were excellent; this rifle is very comfortable for me to shoot.

The downside is that it is not particularity adjustable, although I am informed there are spacers and cheekpieces available. The butt’s raised cheek piece also makes it challenging to remove the bolt quickly for storage or cleaning. Of course, if this one does not suit your needs, you can always bolt on one of the many other great chassis designs out there made to fit the Rem 700 footprint.

The rifle’s very heavy-profile barrel measured a substantial 29mm at the muzzle, which is threaded for accessories. The 60cm match-grade barrel is hammer-forged steel with an outer carbon-fibre wrap that seems to work amazingly well in keeping heat down and stability high during extended range sessions. I never noticed an increase in group sizes even when we did get it pretty hot. This is an excellent barrel — bloody heavy but excellent.

It contributes greatly to the 4.7kg un-scoped and unloaded weight of the Victor and makes it muzzle-heavy, which for its intended use is actually a benefit in many ways as it causes a very straight-back kind of recoil impulse, and it is unlikely you will be shooting this offhand a lot. The Voere does not recoil hard at all, and there is way less muzzle rise that on most .308 rifles, which really helps you stay on target.

The trigger is a two-stage type with a smooth, light take up leading to the second stage, when it breaks very cleanly. The trigger is fully adjustable; just remove the rifle from the chassis and then it is completely adjustable for weight etc. The rifle was set with a 1.3kg (3lb) trigger weight and I did not adjust it as I wanted to see how it would perform without modification. It is a great trigger that just needs adjusting for the best performance.

Now, the safety is another thing altogether, located inside the trigger guard. When I first saw it I thought it would be in the way of good trigger control, but I was completely wrong. While it is different, the safety works like a dream when you are behind the gun. Within minutes it becomes completely intuitive and I found it great to use.

The rifle came from Pro-Tactical fitted with a Pecar Optics Australia 5-25×56 scope with illuminated reticle in the first focal plane. These are a 30mm tube scope and I was very impressed by its performance during the nearly 200 rounds we went through in testing. The scope is exceptionally clear for the price point ($1199) and the clicks are precise and give a tangible feel when adjusting point of impact. It adjusted precisely to the 0.1 mil graduations on the dial. We will look at doing a separate full review on this scope in another article in the future but suffice it to say it is eminently suitable for this type of rifle and precision shooting.

As the 1930s gun writer and firearms authority Townsend Whelan famously said, “Only accurate rifles are interesting.” When I set out to find out how it shoots, suddenly the Voere Victor 3 became a very interesting rifle.

We only used factory ammunition and it is safe to say that any serious precision reloader will improve on our results. Besides, I am certainly not a great bench shooter and we had windy conditions the whole time we were testing. We tried four brands of ammunition and shot five groups of five shots of each brand to give us the averages. Results are in the table and I will let you be the judge but we were seriously impressed.

The Victor seems to prefer 168- and 155-grain projectiles. The only groups that exceeded an inch were with the 175gn Remingtons, which have shot very well in other rifles. It is quite exceptional to have a brand-new factory rifle shoot so consistently right out of the box with no adjustment, using factory ammo. Have a look at the photo of the two near-identical ADI groups on the same target. This thing is a hammer!

We did try it on steel plates set from 300 out to 600 metres, and basically we never missed once. It was lots of fun hearing that wonderful ‘thunk’ sound every time.

Obviously, this rifle is a specialist tool, ideal for long-range plinking, competition and other precision uses. I would encourage you to take a good look at the Voere Victor 3 and see if it suits you.