Shadetree Gunsmithing: Rebarreling a Savage LRP

1. “What I found was that it was still an erratic shooter giving preference to some loads, and hating others. “

   That’s pretty much always the case. Why would this be a surprise?

   You even found some loads were better than others after the barrel change.

   Comments like this one are for sure head scratchers for me…

   • Um, yea.

     I’ve said it many times on many threads: If a shooter really wants sub-MOA accuracy, and especially sub-half-MOA accuracy off the bench or rest, they must (it is not an option) learn how to reload.

     I started reading this thread and saying “Hmmm. What, exactly, is wrong with this rifle? ‘cuz I’m not seeing it…”

     • I have entertained the idea of starting to reload but powder is still not available in my area. I have been lucky that my newest rifles (both in .300 blk) have shot very well with barnes 110 Vor-tx. The ruger American Ranch shoots well under 1/2 inch at 50 yards, 3 shot groups look like single holes, This while leaning against a truck. At 100 yards I was less than 2 inches, again, leaning on a truck, not using a bench. I would really like to see what these cheap things can do with hand loads.

       • Mail order primers and powder when one of the well-known reloading sites has a sale. Get as much as you can fit into one hazmat shipment, and that reduces your costs.

   • It shot some factory loads @ 2+ MOA. Now it shoots better than 1.4 MOA with everything. Most of the five shot groups I turned out with factory ammo were sub MOA.

     Preference is perhaps not a strong enough word. The rifle absolutely wouldn’t shoot some factory loads before and now it likes pretty much everything I throw at it.

     Adding the that, the prior rifles preferred bullets were lightweight varmint bullets. Now it shoots heavy(ish) high BC bullets very well. Everybody wins.

     • And now I’m going to tell you something that you might not have realized before:

       You can change how a rifle shoots by changing the headspace. If it had generous headspace, well, the old barrel might not have shot as well as it could have.

       One of the largest issues in rifle accuracy is the distance of the “jump” from the bullet starting to leave the case neck until it engages the lands of the rifling forward of the throat. In reloading, one of the things you can do to increase the accuracy of many rifles is to load your bullets to close up that gap a bit, or even seat the bullet into the lands. This latter issue needs corresponding reductions in powder loads. It is also a technique with a wide following in the accuracy pursuits (benchrest, f-class, etc).

       • “It is also a technique with a wide following in the accuracy pursuits “

         Indeed.

         One of the most useful tools I have for the calibers I load for accuracy is the RCBS Precision Mic, http://www.midwayusa.com/Product/574297/rcbs-precision-mic-308-winchester

         One part of the tool allows measurement for “touching the lands.” Then, with another part, one can seat the bullet back consistently (provided the seating die is worth a darn) to a desired “thousandths off lands.”

         (The third part is for measuring headspace…which I find useful when necksizing only to know when it is getting time to reset with a full length sizing operation).

         Incidentally, since we are on the topic of factory load performance, I once had a box of Remington factory ammo that the differences in seating depth were so apparent one could easily discern them…no measuring tools were needed.

         On another related story, a friend of mine was working on another guy’s hunting rifle that would not print worth a hill-of-beans with the factory ammo tried. Measurement of the throat revealed the problem was a weird cut chamber and we were able to develop a load for him that solved the problem.

         That single ‘fix’ turned a rifle shooting 6+ MOA into a 1 MOA performer and saved the dude’s elk hunt. Thing is, he had spent a good chunk of change for that hunt in MT, and for a bit there, it was looking like he would not even get to TRY to take a shot – responsibly anyway.

         There are so many variations in chamber details but this simple point is lost on too many folks. It saddens me that so many people seem to think rifles really ARE one size fits all, and all ammo should work the same.

     • ” The rifle absolutely wouldn’t shoot some factory loads before”

       But again, that’s normal. Every rifle is like that. So what?

       Especially since you are talking about factory loads.

       “and now it likes pretty much everything I throw at it. “

       By your own data presented, that is simply not so. It may have crossed some arbitrary line you have set for “likes the load” but going from 2 MOA on “some” loads to 1.4 MOA on “some” loads has not really changed much.

       If you are getting 0.5 MOA out of some loads and 1.4 MOA out of others, by MY criterion, that rifle HATES the 1.4 MOA loads and I for certain would not be making the claim that it “likes pretty much everything.”

       Once you know the rifle is capable of doing 0.5 MOA (or whatever), nearly three times that spread should not really be considered an “acceptable” load. That’s my opinion, anyway.

       • I’d have to agree with that assessment. My best factory rifles will group into -.5″ at 200 yards, off the bench. Those are just off the shelf Remingtons, with some trigger tweaks. I’ve built up a couple of Mauser actions that will also do that. To me, any bolt gun that won’t do better than 1 moa at 100 yards, with almost any decent load, is probably destined for GunBroker.

         With handloads, carefully worked up using a ladder technique, my Rem 700 SS 5R milspec will put them all into one nearly-caliber-sized hole at 200 yards. Not benchrest quality groups mind you, but certainly enough to keep me happy.

2. OK, a tip here:

   When you’re checking headspace with go/no-go gages, you should strip the bolt. There should be no extractor, no ejector, no firing pin, no cocking piece, nothing but a bolt handle, the lugs and the main bolt body.

   The rifle should be held in a horizontal position.

   With the go gage in the chamber, you should be able to gently push the bolt forward into battery, and drop the handle. Don’t cam the handle downwards, just let go of the bolt handle. In a clean action, without burrs, the bolt handle should drop all the way down to the closed position.

   If the bolt handle does not drop all the way down, do not apply force to close it. This is how you ruin chambers and/or gages. If the bolt handle doesn’t drop on a Savage, you need to unscrew the barrel a bit more. On any other rifle, it means you need to ream the chamber a little more. I’m not going to discuss that here or now, as it is involved. The central point here is that the camming action on a bolt gun is able to apply a ferocious amount of pressure to ram home an object into the chamber. That’s not proper measurement technique.

   OK, now let’s check the no-go gage. Pull out (or blow out) the go gage from the chamber. Put in the no-go gage. Put the bolt back in, and once again, drop the bolt handle. It should not drop all the way down into battery.

   When I screw a new barrel onto a Savage, I don’t screw the barrel back onto the gage, and then tighten things up. I screw the barrel down onto a piece of spent brass, make some timing marks, then remove the brass and start checking the headspace per the above, making small adjustments until I end up with a result where the bolt drops without assistance onto a go gage, and will not drop onto a no-go gage.

   This helps prevent inaccurate readings, as well as damage to the chamber or the gages.

   • Great comment. Thanks.

   • That’s a publication-quality bit of advice, there. Thanks! Your advice is not unlike how to use a micrometer – you’re dealing with similar tolerances here, so it makes a lot of sense to gently use the measuring instruments (go/no-go gages) just as you don’t reef down on the micrometer thimble.

     • It is exactly like using a mic. When you’re using a mic, you should be using the ratchet on the end of the thimble, not the thimble, to close the mic onto the workpiece to be measured. You want light, but consistent, pressure.

       Here’s the thing: most people probably don’t know that steel can “crush.” When a gunsmith re-barrels a more conventional bolt gun (ie, Mauser, Winchester, Remington), we budget 0.002″ of “crush” into the headspace when we finish torquing the barrel into the receiver. This crush doesn’t happen on a Savage, because you’re just screwing the barrel into the receiver, then you’re locking it in with the barrel nut.

       Well, you can crush the go gage into the front of the chamber, and by so doing, could end up with a headspace setting that is at least 0.002″ too tight. The bolt has more than enough camming thrust to accomplish this, which is why you want to allow the bolt to drop into position on its own. To do that requires a stripped bolt – no springs pushing the bolt out of battery at all. If you’ve got the barrel set for minimum headspace, and you then cam the bolt down to crush the gage in there, you’re likely going to end up with a short chamber, which means closing the bolt on spec loaded ammo could be forcing the mouth of the case neck into the front of the throat, will will start crimping the neck into the bullet, which will in turn raise pressures in the case as well as damage the bullet jacket.

       All of which are Not Good.

   • Even if you don’t have time to write stuff for TTAG, we should at least aggregate your comments and the wealth of knowledge therein into a single post that grows when you post info like this.

     Maybe Ted Nugent can start something like Jay Leno’s Garage, but for guns! His mechanics are basically a dream team who know every nut, bold and oddball part, then know how to do it correctly.

     Not like most of TV gun shows where the characters and the antics between them make the show, but the beautiful and extraordinary machines that are perfected and corrected are the stars. With some witty and insightful commentary, like the Forgotten Weapons youtube channel guy, this would be amazing.

3. I’m curious, Tyler, are there any recommended methods to blueprint a Savage before rebarreling? I’m pretty familiar with working on Remy 700 actions, where you true the action, true the bolt lugs, square the bolt face, etc. I also know the Savage has that floating bolt face, which presumably eliminates some of those Remington necessities. But, other than just screwing a new barrel in, what else do folks do to a Savage action for accurizing?

   • You could, it you wanted, re-cut the face of the action while it’s on a mandrel in a lathe. You could, if you wanted, then re-cut the threads while in an action fixture on a lathe. Then you might lap in the lugs on the bolt.

     Blueprinting isn’t the cure-all for accuracy that some people think it is. I’d put it down the list of “where to spend money for accuracy in a rifle,” well after “reloading, examining the barrel you have, checking the stock you have, checking the bolt you have (and possible firing pin work)”, etc.

     All that assumes a modern factory action, like a Savage or Rem700. If we’re talking of building up a milsurp rifle into a shooter, well then, printing might well yield some real improvements.

     All said and done, if you want to pay someone to blueprint an action, you might come out ahead by simply buying a quality custom rifle action and building off that, rather than trying to get there whilst paying a ‘smith to re-machine a low-dollar action. People are amazed when I recommend this, but I try to be honest with people. Add up the hours you can sink into the “blueprinting” game and $1200 to $1400 for a custom action doesn’t look so expensive after all.

     • What’s a firing pin work? To reduce lock time? Or to prevent pierced primers or what?

       • The consistency with which the FP hits the primer, and the circular error with which the primer hits the primer (ie, away from being dead-center on the typical Boxer primer) all can result in changes in muzzle velocity, which result in at least vertical stringing.

         The objective of this game is threefold:

         1. Achieve the lowest possible standard deviations in MV of the bullet leaving the barrel. This is where the FP work comes in, as well as trickling powder by the grain into the case consistently, weights of powder charges down to 0.1 grain or less, trying to choose a load with powder that has very consistent results, high load densities, weighing your brass, checking your brass for volumetric consistency, etc.

         2. Getting the bullet presented into the bore of a high-quality barrel in the most consistent and co-axial manner possible. This is where chambers with tight necks, neck-turning on your cases, etc comes in.

         3. Everything else.

         If the firing pin hits the primer inconsistently, you will get inconsistent results before you do anything else to the gun.

       • Thank you!

       • “2. Getting the bullet presented into the bore of a high-quality barrel in the most consistent and co-axial manner possible. This is where chambers with tight necks, neck-turning on your cases, etc comes in.”

         Very, very important.

         I’d add to that list a good run-out gage to measure concentricity of both the neck itself and the bullet when seated.

     • Great advice – and thanks! The reason I ask is that I do have a nice lathe and mill out in the workshop, and am slowly but surely learning what I can about the deeper aspects of rifle accuracy. Since (to me) time in the shop is hobby time well-spent, I have a lot of fun taking a few hours to set up for lathe work, etc. I also get a kick out of building fairly low-budget rifles that compete very favorably with some high-dollar customs that my friends have commissioned.

       • When you’re working on bolt actions, there’s a bunch of tools that are handy to have.

         You will need to make mandrels to hold your action between centers to do some of the work. To make a mandrel that fits your action as closely as possible, you’ll need some gage pins to gage the front and rear bolt support holes. If you get gage pins from, oh, 0.697 up to 0.706 in half-thou increments, you should be OK. Gage your front and rear supports for the bolt, and machine your mandrel to fit precisely. Drill a hole through the mandrel in the region of the mandrel that lines up with the mag well. You’ll thread that for a 1/4-20 bolt, and bolt on a flat piece of stock across the bottom of the mag well to keep the action from turning on the mandrel.

         Next, you will need a tube of some sort with set screws fore and aft to hold the action.

         And you’ll need to make or buy a Labounty bolt fixture for working on the bolt itself.

         If you want to jewel a bolt, you would be well served to make a widget that allows you to hold the lugs of the bolt in a super-spacer on a mill, and then an insert where the firing pin goes for support by the footstock of a spacer set.

         There’s more tooling to make all the time, but that could get you going pretty well.

   • Sharpshootersupply will time and true your action, and make it much, much smoother to operate.

     It sounds like I’ve been headspacing Savages, uh, “savagely”, and probably ought to follow those detailed steps listed here! Mine are probably on too far…

4. What, didn’t like the 6.8 SPC?

   • Although I am a big fan of the 6.8SPC, the 6.5Creedmore has about twice the energy at 300 yards, with a similarly weighted round. There’s really no comparison.

5. Most stock 243 barrels don’t have enough twist for 1k yard use. 243 and 6.5 creedmoor are two of the best factory 1k target rounds, but 243 u will need to reload. With the creedmoor you can buy sub moa ammo from Hornady for about a buck a round, shoot some, and then have the brass to start reloading. Win win win

6. Perhaps I am ill-informed, but I have never heard that a .243 can be a 1000 yard gun. I would think that those itty bitty little pills would be subject to any puff of air that came along, and past 200 yards it is dropping pretty hard.

   • .243 Win is well known in the long range community.

     Some nice reading on the topic:

     http://www.6mmbr.com/243Win.html

   • The .243 would be a 1,000 yard gun, if you reload. Again, the .243 isn’t loaded by the factory with the sorts of VLD bullets you need to keep the pill supersonic all the way downrange.

     Berger makes some very nice 6mm (.243) pills, as does Lapua. The 1,000 yard group record was set by a 6BR cartridge (last I looked) and it is shoving less powder behind the bullet than a .243 can.

     • The wind call experience required to accomplish that with such a light round is impressive.

       • Well, from my noodling around with ballistics math, the #1 factor that improves a rifle’s ability to shoot in the wind is not the mass of the bullet, which I had assumed years ago would be the biggest factor.

         Mass is a secondary issue to “bucking the wind.” What most improves a bullet’s performance in the wind the most is having a high Bc. If you have a high Bc bullet, you retain more of your starting velocity, which means that your bullet is exposed to the wind for less time, which means you drift less.

         Now, as it so happens, higher Bc bullets are also higher mass, as a general rule, BUT… they’re mass+bullet form, meaning that just launching some heavy bullet with a flat or classic hunting rounded nose and low Bc isn’t going to buck the wind as well as a smooth, high-Bc bullet with a tangent or secant ogive and a tapered base.

         There are 90 grain .224, and 105 to 115 grain .243 pills available with the required Bc’s to do long range shooting. Look at Berger’s web site for more info to start, then Lapua’s and you can branch out from there.

         There are several cartridges that have been developed specifically to push the 6mm bullets to their best performance, starting with the 6mm PPC, then the 6BR, improved versions of the 6BR, then the 6XC. The 6XC is a very interesting wildcat, which is basically developed from a .243 chamber, with the reamer stopped short. There has been so much benchrest development around the 6mm projectiles for years, that it is one of the standards of accuracy shooting out to 600 yards since, oh, the 1970’s.

         I keep telling people here on TTAG to check out what’s been going on in the benchrest community for decades past. That’s where the accuracy ‘smiths and shooters have been chasing the ultimate limits of accuracy for decades – and achieving stunning results. Most everything everyone really knows, not “thinks might work,” but stuff known to work, has been developed by the benchrest guys (OFWG’s shooting expensive custom rifles with loving hand-loaded ammo) for decades.

   • I don’t have near the expertise or experience with precision rifle shooting as most of the commenters in this thread.

     But I see the .243 as a 2 stage round. For guys like me that need a multipurpose deer/coyote/medium game gun the .243 in factory loadings is near perfect. Mass produced rifles with moderate priced scopes give us a very decent “meat” rifle.

     Go to the level that guys like DG are at and the .243 is still a very viable round. Quality actions, barrels, loadings and experienced shooters take the round into a whole other region.

   • You are ill-informed.

     But as others have said, the factory barrels don’t have the right twist rate, and the factory ammo doesn’t use the best 6mm bullets for long range. As is almost universally the case, you gotta handload.

     With that one major exception– 6.5 Creedmoor. You may be able to get away without handloading on that one. Maybe.

7. Fast twist 243 barrel with a 95 to 115 grain berger or amax, and the gun will shoot flatter than the 6.5 creedmoor out to 1k. In some competition they put a velocity cap ( i think 3100 fps)on the 243, now people are using the 6mm creedmoor….

8. Wish more people used 260 REM

   • Well, the reason why it really didn’t go anywhere with the accuracy crowd was that the quality of the factory .260 Rem brass was short of what was required. And, until recent bullet developments in the 6.5/.264 caliber products, the accuracy guys were focused like a laser on 6mm rounds. As more and more people started shooting 1K ranges, then people started fishing around for more Bc, and the 6.5 and 7mm bullet products started popping up.

     The lack of quality brass in the .260 left the market open for both the 6.5×47 Lapua and the 6.5 Creedmoor.

     • Sadly true. That being said I love my 260. Lapua brass, 140 gr Amax or ELD, and some H4350 and steel plates are dinged out to 1,250 yds. As you have stated previously the key is to load your own. Especially with 260 as there is no decent factory load.

       • I love Lapua brass and bullets. Sadly, they’re often in limited supply. When I find good prices on Lapua brass or bullets, I snap them up, even if I might not get around to using them for quite some while.

         The .260 could have been so much more than it was. If the .260 had been brought into the market as a wildcat with a large following (like the .22-250), then it could have been so much more than it became – which is now nothing but a footnote to the 6.5 Creedmoor, the 6.5×47, etc. Sadly, the 6.5-08 didn’t have a huge following – it was bracketed by the 6mm benchrest rounds below it, and the 6.5-284 above it. So it had to stand or fall based on Remington’s development and marketing, and we know what comes of that.

         The rapid acceptance of the 6.5 Creedmoor shows that a manufacture can still introduce a new cartridge into the veritable blizzard of cartridges available in the US, and still gain ground. The 6.5 Creedmoor also shows that it takes quality ammo, quality rifles, etc to gain that ground, neither of which are Remington’s strong suit.

9. Where does the 22-250 fall in with this long range shooting.

   • In guns with properly fast twist rates to accommodate the necessarily heavy and long bullets required, it’s a blast out to a bit over 1000m but a little hard on barrels.

     • Too hard to get such a small caliber heavy enough. Drop is not an issue. The laser range finder makes everything KD. Wind is the enemy.

       • sorry( KD?)

     • Sorry, Known Distance. Too much time on .mil ranges for me.

   • You’d need to load it with VLD bullets. Most .224 bullets have pretty poor Bc’s until you get to the heavier weights – 75 grains and up. Many .22-250’s would need a new barrel to spin up the longer bullets – like 1 in 8 twists. Many .22-250’s I’ve seen have slower twists of like 1 in 12″ for light varmint-grenade pills of 40 grains to 50 grains.

10. Good article Tyler. The 12LRP has been the hidden gem of the Savage Target rifle line since it was introduced around 2010. They now come in less of a Sporter style stock and more of a Tac/Mil LR stock. Make sure you get your FiL some Dark Eagle 10 round mags and keep feeding it Hornady Match Ammo. 6.5 creedmore is hard to beat as an economical LR plinker and critter getter!

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