new to me rifle

[rimfiresniper]

well i came onto this rifle for free. a friend of mine wanted to get into hnting and he bought this savage model 111 in 7mm remmy it has the drop mag. well when he bought it he put a nikon 3-9 on it and when deer season came around he didnt pick it up. then he called and wanted me to paint it. so i did. well to make a long story short i have been the only one that has shot this rifle (maybe 2 boxes ) he owed me a little money so he told me to keep it. what should i do to turn this gun into a tac driver. i can hit 8" plates at 400yds already with 140gr rem core lokt. also the barrel is 22" would i see a dramatic loss in vel/ acc ir i took it down to 18" a little better for stand hunting. anyways looking to make a real gem so if you could help thanks!!!!gun)gun)
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[devildoc]

well, you'd lose quite a bit of velocity going down to an 18" tube, but if that's what you need, that's what you need. If you decide to have that done. Have the smith setback the barrel for the load you intend to use and have it recrowned (11degree recessed is good). That ought to tighten your groups a bit. Of course learning how to reload (properly) will get you a long way in shrinking those groups down. However, seeing as you probably haven't even broken in the barrel yet, you may want to wait. Get yourself a good rifle vice (I like the tipton) a good boreguide (sinclair) and a good one piece cleaning rod (dewey or tipton) and some Wipeout and accelerator. Clean your barrel with the aforementioned tools and then again after five rounds and do that a couple times untill the blue gets faint on the patch. Then run a good 15-20 through her off the bench and see how she's grouping.

 

[geargrinder]

Is it the plastic stock? If so, it should be the first to go. If your swapping stocks you might want to ditch the detachable mag. Most aftermarket stocks won't accomodate it. Pillar and glass bed the action. Adjust the trigger or replace it with a Sharp Shooter Supply trigger.

I wouldn't shorten the barrel, in fact I would go longer and heavier. Magnum or Varmint taper.

Most important of all. Read everything you can here and savageshooters.com. Start shooting in their monthly email shooting competition. I've greatly improved my skills just by shooting 15-30 rounds every month.

 

[James Jones]

The velocity loss going from 22" to 18" would be significant but would still have your shooting faster than a 7mm-08 especialy with the heavier bullets like 150gr ,that said if its accurate enough you will still have enough energy to cleanly take deer to 1000yds. Personaly I would not shorten the barrel .

A good replacement stock would be a great upgrade , the Duramaxx from Bell&Carlson is a great buy for the money it will have a pretty big gap around that thin barrel though since its desgined for a varmint weight barrel but that has no bearing on the accuracy. As mentioned before the Sharp Shooters Supply trigger is good investment also.

the biggest thing is to shoot the gun and get used to it , if you don't reload then buy several differant boxes of ammo and see what the gun like to eat.