Belted Headspace

[cdherman]

TR1Hemi, you are correct. .011 is technically a very generous head space off the belt. Should be less. But, are you willing to sacrifice the Savage bolt nut to your 24" pipe wrench? All for "perfection"? Even when you know you are going to ultimately aim for headspacing off the shoulder?

And running out the pipe wrench, assuming you have one (or your dremel cut off, which is safer) both run the risk of damage to the receiver and/or barrel. With a Savage, you never know when you might have a great old shooter just as it is!

If you really care about accuracy, then this is what you need to do:
-- get 50 or 100 pieces of unfired quality brass.
-- use Hornady headspace OAL tool (really a CBTO gauge) to find rifling. (or there old fashioned methods too)
-- seat initial work up loads right at rifling.

This will now headspace the whole shebang off the rifling, negate most if not all of the case stretch and blow the case out to full capacity. Second firing you can play with seating depth of the bullets. Go conservative with first loadings.

That tiny excess "belt space" is just not going to determine what is a shooter or not.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Wheeler Barrel Nut Wrench Savage 10, 110

The double-ended Savage Barrel Nut Wrench allows easy removal of the barrel nut on both early and late model Savage 10 and 110 series rifles. Will also...

www.midwayusa.com

30 bucks and it'll crack that nut without any damage... I suggest a large rubber hammer...
If you can get everything to shoot with backed off dies I'd prolly go that route... If you are really jones'ing to crack her apart, I'd think of a fresh barrel threaded to a Savage you only have to headspace... that's a few bones $$ wise though.

 

[TR1Hemi]

TR1Hemi, you are correct. .011 is technically a very generous head space off the belt. Should be less. But, are you willing to sacrifice the Savage bolt nut to your 24" pipe wrench? All for "perfection"? Even when you know you are going to ultimately aim for headspacing off the shoulder?

And running out the pipe wrench, assuming you have one (or your dremel cut off, which is safer) both run the risk of damage to the receiver and/or barrel. With a Savage, you never know when you might have a great old shooter just as it is!

If you really care about accuracy, then this is what you need to do:
-- get 50 or 100 pieces of unfired quality brass.
-- use Hornady headspace OAL tool (really a CBTO gauge) to find rifling. (or there old fashioned methods too)
-- seat initial work up loads right at rifling.

This will now headspace the whole shebang off the rifling, negate most if not all of the case stretch and blow the case out to full capacity. Second firing you can play with seating depth of the bullets. Go conservative with first loadings.

That tiny excess "belt space" is just not going to determine what is a shooter or not.

I have some Peterson long brass and the hornady tool with 420 shoulder gauge. And what you suggest is actually the plan. I am just debating whether to go with that plan or fix a potential problem that might not be one...lol I actually have the savage wrench, but that b**ch is ON there. The Dremel thing has been done before and on a stainless I would just do it. But this one is blued, so I would have to find a blued nut. But point taken. I have a account with Brownells the pain would be that this is an old school blued action, and everything is matte black or stainless these days.

 

[TR1Hemi]

Wheeler Barrel Nut Wrench Savage 10, 110

The double-ended Savage Barrel Nut Wrench allows easy removal of the barrel nut on both early and late model Savage 10 and 110 series rifles. Will also...

www.midwayusa.com

30 bucks and it'll crack that nut without any damage... I suggest a large rubber hammer...
If you can get everything to shoot with backed off dies I'd prolly go that route... If you are really jones'ing to crack her apart, I'd think of a fresh barrel threaded to a Savage you only have to headspace... that's a few bones $$ wise though.

I have the wrench not the clamp. Padding it in the vise is no bueno, too tight.

 

[TR1Hemi]

Lefty7mmSTW, I saw your location, guess that makes me 2 states south? lol Drive across ND on a motorcycle in 1989, Seattle-Chicago-Seattle, did the SD route going there, the ND route coming back, good times.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Lefty7mmSTW, I saw your location, guess that makes me 2 states south? lol Drive across ND on a motorcycle in 1989, Seattle-Chicago-Seattle, did the SD route going there, the ND route coming back, good times.

buddy, I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska the year I turned 21... I'm 44 now

 

[lancetkenyon]

Unless you buy Peterson .300WM Long brass, all new belted mag (.300WM, 7RM, .264WM, etc.) brass will have a huge discrepancy between virgin and once fired headspace. Like .014-.021".

Firing a primed case with no powder charge will do a little to correct this, but probably not enough. So don't measure headspace off that popped brass.

I bump belted mag fired brass like any other case. .002-.003" bump.

 

[Mike Matteson]

Woa, don't worry about what you saw. Here's what happened: A factory or FL resized belted mag case spaces off the belt. You could argue there is no such thing as "headspace". That's not really true, but for folks never reloading, a belted magnum will have very generous base to shoulder dimensions. The design was for easy chambering. Not reloading.

Now, when you snap fired those primers, the firing pin drove the case the 10 thou or so forward till it was spaced off the belt. And then there was a quick pressure spike which blew the primer back till it hit the bolt face. When you fire a full loaded round, the next phase is where the case gets blown out into the chamber dimensions, and stretched rearward back to the bolt face. The primer gets "reinserted" into the pocket.

Because there was no powder, your cases never stretched back to the bolt face. The force of the primer (and the fact that the firing pin sprang back into the bolt) popped the primer out a bit. And there it stayed.

Its darn unlikely that Savage shipped a gun with bad headspacing. Could be a tad generous. If you reload, you can transition to headspacing your belted magnum off the shoulder. Less case stretch, better accuracy. Learn to set the dies to just bump the shoulder back .002 or so. Problem with belted magnums is that over time the shoulder approach will result in inadequately sized cases right distal to the belt. Someone makes a collet die to fix this. I have one. Name blanks me.

You will end the stretch at the belt. I came across this a great many years ago. I shoot a 308 NM rifle. I would lose case in about 3 firing to case stretch. I changed over the a 300 WN neck sizing die and end the case stretch problem. I resized 264,7mm and 300, 338 brass to conform to my rifle. Those case were in Win, PMC, Rem, and few other manufactures brass. It work out that I would get about 10 firing before loosing the primer pockets. Now the better format is just bump the shoulder back a .002 of so. You need to anneal those case too. What was started above is right on.

 

[dennisinaz]

You can buy headspace gauges of Amazon as cheap as anywhere. It will give you a peace of mind to know what it is

 

[Buckys]

Woa, don't worry about what you saw. Here's what happened: A factory or FL resized belted mag case spaces off the belt. You could argue there is no such thing as "headspace". That's not really true, but for folks never reloading, a belted magnum will have very generous base to shoulder dimensions. The design was for easy chambering. Not reloading.

Now, when you snap fired those primers, the firing pin drove the case the 10 thou or so forward till it was spaced off the belt. And then there was a quick pressure spike which blew the primer back till it hit the bolt face. When you fire a full loaded round, the next phase is where the case gets blown out into the chamber dimensions, and stretched rearward back to the bolt face. The primer gets "reinserted" into the pocket.

Because there was no powder, your cases never stretched back to the bolt face. The force of the primer (and the fact that the firing pin sprang back into the bolt) popped the primer out a bit. And there it stayed.

Its darn unlikely that Savage shipped a gun with bad headspacing. Could be a tad generous. If you reload, you can transition to headspacing your belted magnum off the shoulder. Less case stretch, better accuracy. Learn to set the dies to just bump the shoulder back .002 or so. Problem with belted magnums is that over time the shoulder approach will result in inadequately sized cases right distal to the belt. Someone makes a collet die to fix this. I have one. Name blanks me.

Nice explanation. Perhaps you're thinking of the Larry Willis belted magnum dies? https://www.larrywillis.com/

 

[chav0_12]

So I picked up some 300 Win brass, it came with 7 loaded rounds. One of which was a 7mm brass that was apparently fire formed and loaded as a 300, talk about a SHORT neck, lol. Anyway I used my mistake hammer and unloaded them. They were 150gr bullets, the seven rounds held 435gr of extruded powder, or 62gr per round, no idea what that could be. So in the campfire it goes. Now what to do with the 6 primed cases? I decided since I did not trust any aspect of these loads I would just pop them out the back door. Gotta love living in the country...lol. Did you know a LR primer will shoot a 2" flame out of a 24" barrel! LOL. When I looked at the brass the primers were sticking out 10-11 thou! I have overthought this, read, overthought it some more. The only thing that makes sense is that, THAT is the headspace of this factory Savage 111, 24" light Sporter, .550" at the muzzle. I though well I'll set it back a bit. I have a Savage barrel wrench, but that sucker is on there tighter than "putting the receiver in a padded vice" can handle. Any one in west central Nebraska want to take a crack at loosening it, or can someone advise on a barrel vise that will work on a barrel with that much taper?

I've used a pipe wrench to take off factory Savage barrel nuts. Just putting the action in a bench vise with padded jaws. I have one of the Wheeler Savage barrel wrenches with the clamp. It didn't work for ****. I never cared too much about saving those barrel nuts though.

 

[cdherman]

I tried to take apart a stainless savage years ago, with just a padded vice, and I was worried I was going to warp or twist the action. A proper action wrench surrounds the action with equal pressure, AND allows a threaded bolt to secure the action at the location of the front action screw. THEN, you put all that in a good vice and you can WAIL on that nut. Mine came loose with the Wheeler nut tool --- and a 36" cheater. I bought an action wrench before wasting a $300 action. You can twist or warp a Savage action. Lots of guys have succeeded.

 

[chav0_12]

I've used a pipe wrench to take off factory Savage barrel nuts. Just putting the action in a bench vise with padded jaws. I have one of the Wheeler Savage barrel wrenches with the clamp. It didn't work for ****. I never cared too much about saving those barrel nuts though.

I guess I do have one of the Northland Shooting Supply action wrenches too. I was trying to remember how I got those nuts off. I definitely needed an extra hand with one since I didn't have it in a vise.

 

[Far North Hunter]

I guess I do have one of the Northland Shooting Supply action wrenches too. I was trying to remember how I got those nuts off. I definitely needed an extra hand with one since I didn't have it in a vise.

I've always used a heat gun on the stainless nut. Get it hot to touch and the nut releases much easier.