I successfully built a quarter of the program counter on perfboard. the bread boarded one and the perfboarded one have been connected and I have a (partially breadboarded) 2-bit program counter, it counts from 0 to 3 and then rolls over to zero again, and can be reloaded with any new address.

for reference the above circuit is 15 perfboard holes tall (1.5 inches)

the above picture is of a completed 2-bit program counter (half of what I will eventually build entirely on the perfboard)

underneath the words 'program counter' over the bread board is some additional logic, specifically an inverter and an AND gate, this is for the reload logic.