Affordable starter/donor rifle

[ntsqd]

I have run into limited stock choices for Savage Long Actions. Manners told me that they won't make a stock for these actions due to the location of the rear action screw. I see that as a solvable problem, but they don't see enough market to justify solving it. Fair enough, they're the stock makers and not I. So far the Boyd's that I put that rifle in so that it would have some kind of stock seems to be working.

 

[3chester]

Think if was gonna get, a 10 year old kid, a Savage, it'd be an old Model 99 with a cool suffix letter. Then dig up, big box of Speer bullets to learn about marksmanship. Later, might add the scope when he heading out beyond 200 yards, good luck.

 

[justinp61]

I'd a Savage short action, plenty of pre fit barrels and there are decent trigger options. I built left handed rifles on Savage actions last year and am very pleased with both.

 

[M1A1ABRAMS]

Look at Preferred Barrel Blanks also, TT Bryce. I've used 3 of their prefits and all shoot 1/2 MOA with very little load work up. Their 750 straight taper contour with straight or spiral twist fluting is what I've used on 2 of mine. One other is not fluted at all. Here's the 308 18" 750 straight taper. Super accurate.

New 2023 Home Page

American Made Prefit Gun BarrelsSpecialized Barrel Blanks For Precision FirearmsAt Preferred Barrel Blanks, we come to work every day to provide top-quality barrels in a respectable time frame at a fair price. In-Stock BarrelsFull ShopRemage, 280 Remington, 27 Inch, Custom Varm, 8 TwistRuger...

preferredbarrelblanks.com

I was going to PM you to pick your brain on the builds you showed earlier. But it was 6am eastern time. And I wasn't sure what time it was there. And how you have your phone settings. I would not want to wake anyone, if they didn't need to be. But you have answered a few questions I had. Your builds are a work of art, IMO. Thanks

 

[JAYgs8163]

I was going to PM you to pick your brain on the builds you showed earlier. But it was 6am eastern time. And I wasn't sure what time it was there. And how you have your phone settings. I would not want to wake anyone, if they didn't need to be. But you have answered a few questions I had. Your builds are a work of art, IMO. Thanks

You can PM me anytime. No alerts set so I'll get back to you usually within the day.

 

[Outlaw6.0]

No Remington's, the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore (& I have several). You can run a remage style prefit barrel, they work fine but you're still stuck with an out of spec 700. If you ever decide to have it trued up, no more prefits & you're into if for the cost of a quality custom action.

Coming from a guy that owns a half dozen Savage's, I won't recommend them anymore either. Too many changes make it an absolute PITA to find correct parts, i.e. stocks. Out of the six I own, i've had to fart around to make 3-4 of them feed "good'nuff", some had extraction/ejection issues.... only one of them is smooth feeding.

Here's one 230+ page link to custom Tikka builds (still looking for the other):

Tikka T3 Thread

Tikka T3 Information

www.snipershide.com

As much as I resisted over the years, do yourself a favor and buy a Tikka. They operate as smooth as butter, the always extract, they always feed... When you change stocks, you can upgrade to AICS magazines. They run shouldered prefits instead of the nut system, don't have to buy go- no go gauges or special spanner wrenches.

Right now, Tikka is the best bang for the DIY buck. This is coming from a guy who just finished up a $2k Savage





t

 

[VinceMule]

My NON trued Remington shoots tiny, tiny groups! We started truing Rem actions around 1987 when a guy in Ohio won the State NBRSA benchrest match with a Trued Rem 700.

From that time on, gunsmiths have made extra bucks truing Rem actions.

My Rem 700's and 40x's that are NOT trued would shock anyone in how accurate they are.

 

[asd9055]

No Remington's, the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore (& I have several). You can run a remage style prefit barrel, they work fine but you're still stuck with an out of spec 700. If you ever decide to have it trued up, no more prefits & you're into if for the cost of a quality custom action.

Coming from a guy that owns a half dozen Savage's, I won't recommend them anymore either. Too many changes make it an absolute PITA to find correct parts, i.e. stocks. Out of the six I own, i've had to fart around to make 3-4 of them feed "good'nuff", some had extraction/ejection issues.... only one of them is smooth feeding.

Here's one 230+ page link to custom Tikka builds (still looking for the other):

Tikka T3 Thread

Tikka T3 Information

www.snipershide.com

As much as I resisted over the years, do yourself a favor and buy a Tikka. They operate as smooth as butter, the always extract, they always feed... When you change stocks, you can upgrade to AICS magazines. They run shouldered prefits instead of the nut system, don't have to buy go- no go gauges or special spanner wrenches.

Right now, Tikka is the best bang for the DIY buck. This is coming from a guy who just finished up a $2k Savage





t

Just curious, and for my education, why would you want to build on a Tikka with a known weak bolt design?

 

[Outlaw6.0]

Just curious, and for my education, why would you want to build on a Tikka with a known weak bolt design?

No worries at all, that's why we're all here. To cuss & discuss, right?

I chose Tikka out of the alternatives provided. Personally, I'd buy an Origin or something similar & rock on.

Another reason I chose Tikka, is from my contacts in the PRS/NRL world. If Tikka's really do have weak bolts, the dudes shooting out a couple barrels a year aren't seeing it. Of course, I have seen a couple threads where dudes broke their bolt handles off; few and far in between. Plus, LRI makes stronger replacements.

There's no free lunch. Tikka's are relatively cheap, accept prefit barrels, will drop in almost any MFG of stock, are as smooth as silk & with a $10 spring, have surprisingly good triggers. unless you're going full tilt & money isn't an object, they are VERY hard to beat.




t

 

[asd9055]

No worries at all, that's why we're all here. To cuss & discuss, right?

I chose Tikka out of the alternatives provided. Personally, I'd buy an Origin or something similar & rock on.

Another reason I chose Tikka, is from my contacts in the PRS/NRL world. If Tikka's really do have weak bolts, the dudes shooting out a couple barrels a year aren't seeing it. Of course, I have seen a couple threads where dudes broke their bolt handles off; few and far in between. Plus, LRI makes stronger replacements.

There's no free lunch. Tikka's are relatively cheap, accept prefit barrels, will drop in almost any MFG of stock, are as smooth as silk & with a $10 spring, have surprisingly good triggers. unless you're going full tilt & money isn't an object, they are VERY hard to beat.




t

 

[JAYgs8163]

So if you true a Remington action you're saying you can't use a Remage Prefit style barrel? I've never done one before and want some clarity here. If someone spent the time and money to square a Remmy action and lug they then couldn't use a Remage barrel nut setup?

 

[ntsqd]

If the barrel tenon threads in the action are re-cut they end up a bit bigger and a pre-fit barrel won't thread in correctly.

The tools that I've acquired & made for small shank Savages use the tenon threads rather than the bolt raceway as the baseline so everything ends up square to them.

 

[VinceMule]

JAY is correct. In reverse, the purchase of a used barrel made for a trued action may not work on a NON trued action. When they true an action, they should stamp on the outside of the action the pitch dia. This is a tricky business, some actions may take .010 clean up, while other may take .003. I will NOT use another gunsmith that HAS to true an action to do the barrel job.



This is why I have two trued Rems and many that are not trued with custom barrels on them. I have three Pre Fits just to learn the process of a Pre fit, the rest are Shouldered barrels on non-trued actions other than the two trued actions, both 40x's.

If you think that you absolutely have to have an action trued to get it to shoot 1/4" groups, you would be wrong. I have tested the trued vs non-trued for years.

Truing Rem 700s plays on our fears that we may get a build that won't shoot, We are easy suckers in this regard.

Some custom actions need some truing, I prefer Borden, Bat, and Panda actions.

I would true Ruger 77, Mark II's and ALL Winchesters. Rem 783's are perhaps the truest factory action ever made, and their lock time is incredible. Savages are a collage of un-squareness, and just look how well they shoot with a good barrel.

 

[ntsqd]

The comments made along the way in this thread, including my own, have just now lead me to think that maybe selecting the raceways as the base center-line to square everything else to might be wrong. Perhaps better would be to use the center-line of the barrel tenon threads. If we only care about everything being true and square at lock-up and not anywhere else, then this could have merit.

I can see how the Savage design could be a "collage of un-squareness", but in my huge data sample of two (2) actions* I haven't found this to be true. That it could be true more often than not and my data set are all outliers would not surprise me. In the next year or so I expect my data sample to double in size. It will be interesting to see what happens.

*Note the extreme sarcasm that doesn't easily come across in print.