HELP: Out of Windage - Scope Base Screw Hole Alignment Check?

[Trickymissfit]

obvious that you've never trued an action

Is it really that obvious
The action may start out life straight but getting that factory nut loose has bent as many actions then it has fixed! Maybe buying cheap actions off the net has found me more problem childs then starting off with new units?
At any rate I was not really bashing Savage as they outnumber all other actions in the safe 5 to 1. They are not however without thier little issues.

Savage makes several versions of the 10/110 action, and some are rather stiff and some not so stiff. The 110 being the least. The solid topped actions are very stiff, and a 110/112 with a good rail mount is also fairly stiff. I've never had an issue breaking the nut loose. Tobe exact I've never really had any problem removing most barrels unless somebody Loctited them
gary

 

[SidecarFlip]

Gary..

I still maintain contacting Savage and sending it back. It's a new rifle with very few down the tube. Let Savage sort out the issue on their dime.

I sure have better luck than you. I have 3 and all are straight and true shooters.

 

[Farmerbeau]

Bringing the post back from the dead: I always run searches and find that the OP usually doesn't follow up on the outcome of the issue. I'd like to follow up and let whoever may be in my shoes in the future know what happened.

I ended up sending the rifle back to Savage with a pretty lengthy letter outlining the steps I had taken to come to my conclusion that either the barrel was not relatively square to the receiver or the mounting holes weren't drilled parallel to the rifle bore. I got the rifle back last week (about 4-5 weeks after sending it).

They sent me a brand new rifle (different serial numbers) complete with new magazine and picatinny base. In the box there was a 12" target with a hole in the top, bottom, left, right and center showing full range of windage and elevation adjustment as well as a target with a 1.2ish" 3 shot group at 100 yards. I wasn't all that impressed with the group but thought "whatever." I removed the factory EGW 20 MOA base and behold, the receiver had been marked with a pencil around the scope base holes. Somebody obviously read my note and double checked this. I cleaned it and installed my Ken Farrell 20 MOA base, TPS rings and NightForce scope. I got off work this morning and headed to the range.

I convinced myself that the market was short on ammo and components these days (and I was tired after my 12 hour tour and it was pretty cold, wet and windy) so I only shot 6 shots. The first was a cold clean bore shot I deemed a flyer after seeing where the following two impacted. I made a quick adjustment and laid down a quick 3 shot group which ended up being 0.600" on the nose at 100yds. I was using the "el cheapo" factory 250gr Sellier & Bellot ammo. I know I could have adjusted a tad more to get perfect but this morning was about confirming I had a decent rifle. I'm pretty confident I could do better with some hand loads and sun shinier weather.

I think Savage Arms did a good job of making the customer happy in this instance. I was initially skeptical being this was my first Savage rifle but I am excited to know that I can start developing a load without worrying if my rifle can shoot. Savage could have better kept up with communication as I never received a phone call or email and it could have been faster but all in all, it looks like things turned out ok.

I did take my first elk/bull on my Colorado Elk hunt at 420 yds with my .300WSM too. I really wish I would have had the .338 Lapua up but everything worked out. Not an obscenely far shot and not a huge bull (still a trophy to me) but I was tickled pink to fill a tag on public land.

 

[royinidaho]

The follow up post is much appreciated.

I'm going through the same problem w/a a circa 1954 Rem 721 action. It looks like the Burris Sig ring thing will solve my problem, maybe.

Congrats to Savage.

It sure makes one feel good when it finally all comes together.

Congrats on your CO bull.

May you have many years of successful hunting.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Gary..

I still maintain contacting Savage and sending it back. It's a new rifle with very few down the tube. Let Savage sort out the issue on their dime.

I sure have better luck than you. I have 3 and all are straight and true shooters.

most folks remove barrels from Savage actions the wrong way. They simply use the spanner wrench on the barrel nut. Buy you should use an internal action wrench aling with the spanner wrench. This way you don't put undo stress on the reciever frame, but this also means you'll need an extra set of hands.

Sending the rifle back to Savage is a viable remedy, and I'm not against it.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

I like the Kevein Farrell base, and use one. (I had a long action 20moa base that I could have made you one heck of a deal on as it's as new.) The Farrel base really wants to be bedded with something like JB or Loctite 609. After you bed it, but before bedding it with the expoxy or the loctite, drill the base and reciever for 1/8" or 5/32" steel dowl pins. You want a blind hole in the reciever and a press fit in the bases. This alone seriously strenghens the reciever on the long action Sacages and also helps the short action a good bit.
After you have the base installed and hopefully dowl pinned, you should lap the bottom half of the scope rings with a piece of Thompson rod that is the same diameter as the scope O.D. I really like the Burris Tactical ring set, and they are much cheaper than some of the others with similar build quality.
gary

 

[SidecarFlip]

Savage isn't the only manufacturer guilty of sloppy machining, I have a Ruger 22 match target pistol, actually a very tricked up 22-45 bull barreled hunter that the rail mount on the receiver top is drilled lopperjawed. Its so bad, it's actually visible when sighting down the barrel.

It's going back shortly. Its shootable for indoor match but you have to offset the sight (I use a red dot railway sight, no magnification btw) a whole bunch to compensate for the mis alignment. If I get no satisfaction from Ruger, I'll TIG 2 mounting holes shut and jig the receiver and re drill and tap the holes in the correct alignment.

Gary.... Did you get the mill sorted out??

 

[Trickymissfit]

Savage isn't the only manufacturer guilty of sloppy machining, I have a Ruger 22 match target pistol, actually a very tricked up 22-45 bull barreled hunter that the rail mount on the receiver top is drilled lopperjawed. Its so bad, it's actually visible when sighting down the barrel.

It's going back shortly. Its shootable for indoor match but you have to offset the sight (I use a red dot railway sight, no magnification btw) a whole bunch to compensate for the mis alignment. If I get no satisfaction from Ruger, I'll TIG 2 mounting holes shut and jig the receiver and re drill and tap the holes in the correct alignment.

Gary.... Did you get the mill sorted out??

Another reason why I hate the Bridgeport variable speed heads! I got it aligned to within .0003" only to learn that the firicking splindle column and pullets need a complete rebuild with new bushings and drive keys (oversized.). Bridgeport and the clones used a plastic bushing inside them, and these allow the keys to eat up the splines. Male spline shows a little wear, but is salvagable. I'll have to figure out what exact key size to go with. I told him the saddle will probably go one more year tops. Now he's faced with the choice of dumping $2000 in the machine plus new ball screws, or pitching it for something better. But for about $4K I can give him a better machine than Bridgeport ever did.

Now he has a line on a gently used (what he said) K&T MM 600 with the CAT tooling. This machine probably had the "D" series Gemini controll, but might have an Allen Bradley 8200 or 8300 control. Told him a full tilt mechanical rebuild will probably set him back $50K at the most (assuming the spindle is in great shape). I think this one has the flat table top instead of the CNC rotary table that comes built into the X axis slide from the way he described it. In good shape it's a rock solid .0003" machine in two feet of travel. These machines are fairly easy to rebuild, and the worst case thing would be a bad spindle. I can get that all plated and reground up in Muncie. Bearing packs alone will cost close to $2.5K for Barden bearing sets (absolute best made), but think this machine would do fine with MRC or Fafnirs. I've rebuilt two or three MM800's and several MM2200 and MM2300's. They are similar in concept, but much larger. Also a lot more labor intensive. Also told him that he'd better have a long talk with the power company because what he has isn't good enough. I guess he has a line of a steady flow of work out of another company that is good enough to pay for his investment in 18 months. I've heard that one more than a couple times in the past. I told him to plan on a 40 month pay back, unless all his labor and tooling was super cheap. Lastly he's found a nice vintage 3' x 5' cast iron surface plate that he says needs to be touched up. I told him fat chance in hell! I could do it, but it really takes another plate to master off of that's also much larger and has the correct profile for mastering (probably something like a 6' x 9') . Even that way is the incorrect way, but also is the way most folks would do it. The correct way is to have two masters that are well beyond lab grade. I could do it with the six by mine by alternating the areas I master off of (kinda trickey, but do-able). When you start out your rubbing and cutting about five times a day, but as the pattern increases you spend more time cutting. Towards the end you rubbing at best twice a day. And one false pattern may make you start all over (don't ask me how I know!) Be way ahead buying a lab grade 3' x 6' granite table.

gary

 

[SidecarFlip]

I've never been fond of metal surface plates. I have 2 LSS Pink Granite plates, a checking plate and a toolmakers ledge plate.

The vari speed head is a nice touch and does make spindle speed changes easier but I have the old step pulley heads, except the Haas which has electronic drive. Long as you keep the packs floating in light oil, the old machines stay tight once the proper preload is set. The intermediates on the old step pulley heads like to back out ocassionally, thats about it.

When I spool one up, if it don't spray me with oil, it's running too dry.

Thats probably the one biggest destroyer of machine tools, lack of proper lubrication, especially boundary lubrication on slideways. You work in a shop and you run machines but you don't service them. Maintenance does so service is spotty at best and non existent at worse. I've seen some serious wallowed out and scored ways on machines that were the direct result of poor maintenance practices.

There are no dry slides in my shop. I'm very religious about lubrication, especially boundary lubrication. In my shop, Vactra comes in 5 gallon pails and Velocide in 15 gallon drums.

I'm a grease junkie. I bought a Lincoln air greaser that fits on a 55 gallon drum and 150 feet of grease hose so I can grease my ag equipment everythime I use it and not with cheap clay based grease either. I use a teflon fortified full synthetic HP grease from Lubrication Engineers. It costs plenty but grease is cheap compared to......

 

[SidecarFlip]

BTW Gary, we hijacked the thread. I apologize for that.

 

[Trickymissfit]

I've never been fond of metal surface plates. I have 2 LSS Pink Granite plates, a checking plate and a toolmakers ledge plate.

The vari speed head is a nice touch and does make spindle speed changes easier but I have the old step pulley heads, except the Haas which has electronic drive. Long as you keep the packs floating in light oil, the old machines stay tight once the proper preload is set. The intermediates on the old step pulley heads like to back out ocassionally, thats about it.

When I spool one up, if it don't spray me with oil, it's running too dry.

Thats probably the one biggest destroyer of machine tools, lack of proper lubrication, especially boundary lubrication on slideways. You work in a shop and you run machines but you don't service them. Maintenance does so service is spotty at best and non existent at worse. I've seen some serious wallowed out and scored ways on machines that were the direct result of poor maintenance practices.

There are no dry slides in my shop. I'm very religious about lubrication, especially boundary lubrication. In my shop, Vactra comes in 5 gallon pails and Velocide in 15 gallon drums.

I'm a grease junkie. I bought a Lincoln air greaser that fits on a 55 gallon drum and 150 feet of grease hose so I can grease my ag equipment everythime I use it and not with cheap clay based grease either. I use a teflon fortified full synthetic HP grease from Lubrication Engineers. It costs plenty but grease is cheap compared to......

the shop I came out of had oilers that were assigned a set of machines to check. Over a week they would end up checking a hundred or so machines (maybe more), plus they also did the geasing and P.M. as well. Normally they would trade off the grease work, and that had a guy climbing all over a machine. Usually got done on weekends when it was idol. He had a truck that must have had thirty different kinds of grease plus several small grease guns

With todays 10K spindles we've found that too much lube is as bad as not enough. Next to dirt, heat is the killer of ball bearings 80% of the time. Probably the best lube system for ball bearings (high speed setups) was the old spray mist systems (now outlawed) Best setups I ever was around used oil injectors that literally put a drop of oil in a certain location at certain intervals. For way lube, I still prefer the good old Trabon systems. I was always guilty of installing way too many prox switches on lube systems to help a guy trouble shoot a lube fault. They'd bitch about spending an extra six to eight hundred dollars, but never whine when they guy fixed it in minutes instead of hours at $350K an hour. The one that used to drive me nuts was the chill setups for bearing packs. They get a leak in those copper lines, and the pressure is so low that most of the time you can't see or feel it. Hydra Ribs used to scare me to death, but after doing a dozen or so I could do them almost blind folded. Ceramic ball bearing packs still give me the chills, as there's zero room for error. And if you do mess up you just spent a slick $10K. Ever work around silver alloy bearing packs like they use in grinders? They are fairly easy to do, but seem to take forever to get them right.
gary