Out of the box Accuracy.

[backwoods83]

Gary mine is an 8 twist, seems to work the best with 6.5mm's from my experience, but with a 6.5-06AI with velocities of about 3125 and up an 8.5 twist works good to, the jackets of berger hold together better at those velocities with the slightly slower twist, but the Lapuas I know will take 3180 from an 8 twist but you should aim for bone if using them for hunting.

 

[Fitch]

Yes it had very heavy fouling, after I cleaned it it would hold 5 shots within 1 MOA then next 5 would be 1.5 - 2. I used KG-12 this stuff is the best when it comes to copper, even with this it took more then an hour to get rid of the copper from 20 shots. J&B I have some, but rather use KG-2 bore polish, its less abrasive and I use on all of my rifles.

I can't say it enough - use a borescope in the store "before" you take the rifle home, or immediately after opening the box if you buy it online. In the two years since I've had access to a Hawkeye, I've learned more about factory barrels than in my previous 67 years. Trust me on this, you will see some ugly bores in factory rifles, regardless of brand.

I have a Savage LRPV that was incredibly accurate out of the box. It would literally shoot slightly bigger than caliber size 5 shot groups with the Hornady 75g BTHP match bullet. I shot the throat out of it, set it back and it's still a 1/3 MOA rifle.

I have a Savage 112BVSS in 7mmMAG

that, after being bedded and recrowned, shoots 3 shots into groups like this:

and has one of the best factory bores I've ever seen.

However, that said, some of the worst I've ever seen were in Savages (the current worst bore I ever saw was in a CR Daley .22 Hornet - it came from the factory with almost no rifling on one side of the bore, none on the other).

I had a Model 10 package rifle that would never shoot under 1.5" no matter what and fouled horribly. It had a 6" long bore section back a ways from the muzzle that looked like an annular file. Looked like this:

I've seen an unfired take off barrel from a new 10FP that had this for a throat:

Not to pick in Savage, I've seen Remingtons with chambers way off center, and other strange things.

The best factory barrels in my gunsafe for a long time were my two CZ527s (Hornet and .223), the Savage 112BVSS looked better. This is the throat in the 112BVSS after 30 rounds:

It has zero chatter marks from tooling which is amazing for a Savage. They almost always have at least light tooling marks across the lands and grooves.

Bottom line: If you can't shoot it before you buy it, at least look in the bore. It might save you a lot of time and trouble. The main manufactures will stand behind their products, but most of them have delegated the quality assurance checking to us. While Savage has a deserved reputation for accuracy, I don't think Savage scopes the bore on production rifles because if they did, the one's I've seen would not have made it out the door.

Fitch

 

[Greyfox]

I have been participating in a dozen or so egg shoots a year for several years. They are set up for 200 and 300yards with factory and custom classifications. A lot tougher then it seems, especially at 300 with wind or mirage. It is extremely rare for anything but a Savage to sweep the factory classes. The Target series Savages are not allowed in the factory class. I expect that within the next couple of years all shooters will have switched to Savages in order to compete in factory. Even more impressive is that there usually has to be a shoot off with reduced size targets due to perfect scores. We rarely had this happen years ago. Being a die hard Remington 700 shooter for a long time I have to concede......accuracy in a mass production rifle, out of the box, Savage appears to be the rifle to beat.

 

[Jinx-)]

Bore scopes are nice, with my luck I probably get one soon. I did called local gunsmith and asked for bore scope, everyone I tried didn't own one and had to borrow from somewhere else. As far as Savage or else, this is my 3rd Savage, compare to other manufactures, I would put Remington, Tikka and TC above it. Last year I bought Remington 700 SPS Varmint, I did replaced its stock other then that it shoots amazing 0.25 - 0.3" groups, consistently.

 

[Trickymissfit]

I can't say it enough - use a borescope in the store "before" you take the rifle home, or immediately after opening the box if you buy it online. In the two years since I've had access to a Hawkeye, I've learned more about factory barrels than in my previous 67 years. Trust me on this, you will see some ugly bores in factory rifles, regardless of brand.

I have a Savage LRPV that was incredibly accurate out of the box. It would literally shoot slightly bigger than caliber size 5 shot groups with the Hornady 75g BTHP match bullet. I shot the throat out of it, set it back and it's still a 1/3 MOA rifle.

I have a Savage 112BVSS in 7mmMAG

that, after being bedded and recrowned, shoots 3 shots into groups like this:

and has one of the best factory bores I've ever seen.

However, that said, some of the worst I've ever seen were in Savages (the current worst bore I ever saw was in a CR Daley .22 Hornet - it came from the factory with almost no rifling on one side of the bore, none on the other).

I had a Model 10 package rifle that would never shoot under 1.5" no matter what and fouled horribly. It had a 6" long bore section back a ways from the muzzle that looked like an annular file. Looked like this:

I've seen an unfired take off barrel from a new 10FP that had this for a throat:

Not to pick in Savage, I've seen Remingtons with chambers way off center, and other strange things.

The best factory barrels in my gunsafe for a long time were my two CZ527s (Hornet and .223), the Savage 112BVSS looked better. This is the throat in the 112BVSS after 30 rounds:

It has zero chatter marks from tooling which is amazing for a Savage. They almost always have at least light tooling marks across the lands and grooves.

Bottom line: If you can't shoot it before you buy it, at least look in the bore. It might save you a lot of time and trouble. The main manufactures will stand behind their products, but most of them have delegated the quality assurance checking to us. While Savage has a deserved reputation for accuracy, I don't think Savage scopes the bore on production rifles because if they did, the one's I've seen would not have made it out the door.

Fitch

I have a remington in .223 that I should have simply placed it back in the box, and returned it to remington. But no not hard headed me! The barrel was so rough that it tore up patches, and had tight spots and losse spots. Following instructions from the Borden Gang, I plotted the barrel to find out what was going on. It appeared that the last three inches or so was junk, and the first inch was not anybetter. Did have access to a Hawkeye scope, and I must say that remington did a very good job at maintaining that same "100" micro all the way thru the bore! I was getting around 4.25" groups on a good day! Guys I know that shoot benchrest said there was no remington that bad, and took it home with them. About a week later they call me up asking what I did to get 4.25" groups? They were much closer to 5". Doug and I pull the barrel, and do a chamber cast. Figured we done something wrong I did two more for a total of three casts. Remington cut the chamber at roughly a 7 degree angle to the rifeling, and the throat was also about seven or eight thousandths off center. That's when I should have stopped and sent it back, but it got worse. With the barrel out of the action, I could see a very largte burr that the bolt was seating on instead of the reciever! About .062" worth of burr. Surprisingly the threads were fairly square, but had taper in them as well as being a few thousandths off center. I figured the bolt face was junk, but was well within .0005". Took the reciever to work and stayed over one night, and cleaned it up. Cut a new barrel thread that ended up being about .015" oversize. I then made a mandrel to just barely fit the threads. Next night I set it up in a #13 grinder, and squared it all up to the mandrel (about .0005" in 10"). Then recut the bolt seating area and the shoulder. While I was doing all this, Doug installed an M16 extractor on the bolt. Doug was going to cut the barrel in a chop saw, and I bout died! Saw it! Cut about 2" off the big end of the barrel, and about 3.5" off the muzzel end. Then Ferris loaned us a N.M. reamer (boy do I miss that old man). Instead of taking the barrel to work, and doing it on my Monarch EE, we did it on Doug's lathe which I personally squared up for him. I used raw Trim for coolant that was simply brushed on the reamer everytime I pulled it out of the bore. Finish came out a very nice satin silver color with what was close to a single digit micro. Then I discovered that Doug didn't have a steady rest! Made a device to hold the big end of the barrel at the rear of the headstock, and simply recut the muzzle off the chuck. I then lapped the crown after cutting with a series of lapping compounds that went down to 7a. When we finally got done I looked on the shelf and saw an 8" Buck chuck! It had no adapter plate, and somebody gave to to him. Felt like an idiot!! I then lapped the barrel bore with 5a compound and a little elbow grease, but stayed away from the last three inches of the barrel.

I did some bedding block mods as well, but nothing too serious. When the trigger functioned right the gun started out shooting 3/4" groups, using the same handloads (55gr. Vmax moly coated bullet over BLC2). Three triggers later and about a hundred fifty rounds the gun shoots solid fours at 3270fps. Looks like a .225BC is about right for the barrel. The scope mounts need to be reworked again, and I'd like to install a 4x-16x scope instead of the 32x it has right now. Barrel still fouls after 25 rounds (copper), but the gun has a near perfect balance for off hand shooting.
gary

 

[rscott5028]

Gary -

You're one of those guys that doesn't like to be told that something is impossible.

kudos!!!
-- richard

 

[Jinx-)]

it looks like every manufacture produce defects some of them more consistently, nowdays buying rifle of the shelf is just like playing russian roulette. I mentioned before I had 870 Remington which had defective ejector rail, I also have their 597 which shot 3 - 4" groups at 50 yards, I tweaked it a little did some bedding, recut crown now its withing 1" @ 50, so I can take down evasive rabbits. Right now I'm working on accurazing my other Savage 111 in 270 WIN, its nothing wrong with its accuracy, its good for hunting 300 - 400 yards max, it groups 0.35"@100 with handloads, with federal ammo 0.5 - 0.7" it was like this right out of the box. It does have many visible machine marks right at the muzzle and as far as I can see...

 

[Trickymissfit]

Gary -

You're one of those guys that doesn't like to be told that something is impossible.

kudos!!!
-- richard

Doug begged me to send that gun back! To be exact about a dozen men told me the samething. I like the rifle about as well as any I own right now, but I also still hate the barrel. I'm looking at getting two Pacnor barrels for it right now. One will be .222N.M. with a .244 neck, and the other will be a .223N.M. with a .244 neck. I need to post a picture of it on here. They'll both be 22" barrels with the factory contour (5.5). I've probably killed 150 dogs with that rifle, and everytime I goto the range somebody will ask me what model Remington is that. I also might add here that I lost almost exactly 75fps in muzzel velocity when I cut the barrel. I'll take that trade anyday!
gary