That's the beauty of this forum in particular; there are a lot of highly experienced, well regarded shooters and smiths contributing their knowledge. I've been watching this thread as I'm currently working through the nuances of a Savage .308 FTR rifle, and I recently read through Stan's article. Another forum member is going to give me some guidance this evening with some reloading, and assuming I can get a load figured out I will try to squeeze out the last but of accuracy with the torque wrench.
Torque Tuning a Savage Action, Does it work?
- Thread starter Texas10
- Start date
That's the beauty of this forum in particular; there are a lot of highly experienced, well regarded shooters and smiths contributing their knowledge. I've been watching this thread as I'm currently working through the nuances of a Savage .308 FTR rifle, and I recently read through Stan's article. Another forum member is going to give me some guidance this evening with some reloading, and assuming I can get a load figured out I will try to squeeze out the last but of accuracy with the torque wrench.
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
Does anyone reading this believe that Savages are so unique that playing with action screw torque would only apply to them? No, I have not tested this. I guess my question is asked with the hope that someone will try it. The rifle that I have spent the most time shooting is a glue in.
That's a very good point. Does it work for other stocks, and if so, what types of stocks benefit the most?
Here's my theory why it works and how it works: If it is true that it's best to tune a load so that the bullet exits the muzzle when the shock wave is rearmost in order to lessen barrel whip, we can infer that the shock wave also moves rearward past the chamber to the rear most portion of the action, down into the pillars and bedding, and into the stock before returning. Some of the shock wave is dampened and absorbed by the stock, and the process of torquing the rearmost screw adjusts the timing of that process, to the benefit or detriment of shot placement.
Just my theory. Any comments?
Same type results in 4 savages
jackieschmidt
Gold $$ Contributor
This is kind of my thoughts.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned that this is the reason the vast majority of Short Range Benchrest Shooters use Glue Ins.
Even with glue-ins, I know of at least one shooter who claims his glued-in rifles shoot differently with the screws tightened but,again, I wonder if the glue-in was done on a good bedding surface or was the action stressed. In the early seventies, my Dad was shooting rifles on which the barrel was glued in; with the action floating. A few years after that, I, following the lead of others, started gluing the actions in and the rifles were much more consistent. My best F-class rifle is glued and screwed but I haven't fooled with torquing the screws to different values to judge the effect. They are just there for security. WH
It works on my BRNO small bore rifles
memilanuk
Gold $$ Contributor
A small bit of info...
The original Savage 12 FTR stocks, such as the one featured in the original article, were not bedded but did have 'pillars'... sorta.
The reason I say 'sorta' is because they were much lighter duty than what any gunsmith (that wanted to stay in business) would use... and because there was always a chance of some plus/minus tolerance stacking between the length of the pillar, and how it was fitted in the stock, etc. This usually resulted in one of two situations: either a), the pillar ended up stuck up proud of the wood, one way or another, and the action was just sitting on those very small points of contact (usually not with happy results), or b) the pillar was just ever so slightly below flush, so the receiver body got pulled down flush against the inletting, usually with much better end results. You can probably guess which way the factory tended to err in terms of how they put things together...
So, on an unbedded stock, when torquing the action screws to very specific values, you were effectively controlling how much crush force was applied to the wooden stock - despite it having 'pillars'. There were a few different ways of approaching this. One person (Stan) worked out that torquing the stock bolts in a particular way created repeatable improvements. There was a little more drama to it than that at the time, but the end result worked out very well for him. Another person on the team took a different approach, and would take a new rifle w/ stock and torque the be-jesus out of the stock bolts, and leave it sit for *weeks* like that , and repeat as needed until the bolts no longer turned any more - effectively compressing the wood fibers as far as possible, so in the end, the receiver was both sitting on top of the pillars, and firmly cradled in the inletting.
They both did that to stay within the sponsor's desire at the time to have us shoot 'stock' or as nearly stock as possible, rifles. Me... while I may have eschewed large external modifications as long as possible... pretty much the *first* thing I did was have that stock bedded. While I won't say that there is still no gain to experimenting with torquing the stock bolts to various degrees... I think the effect is severely reduced by having the action properly bedded to the stock.
YMMV,
Monte
The original Savage 12 FTR stocks, such as the one featured in the original article, were not bedded but did have 'pillars'... sorta.
The reason I say 'sorta' is because they were much lighter duty than what any gunsmith (that wanted to stay in business) would use... and because there was always a chance of some plus/minus tolerance stacking between the length of the pillar, and how it was fitted in the stock, etc. This usually resulted in one of two situations: either a), the pillar ended up stuck up proud of the wood, one way or another, and the action was just sitting on those very small points of contact (usually not with happy results), or b) the pillar was just ever so slightly below flush, so the receiver body got pulled down flush against the inletting, usually with much better end results. You can probably guess which way the factory tended to err in terms of how they put things together...
So, on an unbedded stock, when torquing the action screws to very specific values, you were effectively controlling how much crush force was applied to the wooden stock - despite it having 'pillars'. There were a few different ways of approaching this. One person (Stan) worked out that torquing the stock bolts in a particular way created repeatable improvements. There was a little more drama to it than that at the time, but the end result worked out very well for him. Another person on the team took a different approach, and would take a new rifle w/ stock and torque the be-jesus out of the stock bolts, and leave it sit for *weeks* like that , and repeat as needed until the bolts no longer turned any more - effectively compressing the wood fibers as far as possible, so in the end, the receiver was both sitting on top of the pillars, and firmly cradled in the inletting.
They both did that to stay within the sponsor's desire at the time to have us shoot 'stock' or as nearly stock as possible, rifles. Me... while I may have eschewed large external modifications as long as possible... pretty much the *first* thing I did was have that stock bedded. While I won't say that there is still no gain to experimenting with torquing the stock bolts to various degrees... I think the effect is severely reduced by having the action properly bedded to the stock.
YMMV,
Monte
Last week I took my model 12 single shot out to the range to perform the torque tune and fine tune a load. It's SSS build by Fred Moreo, SSS stock epoxy bedded and pillared (large pillars), Brux barrel in 6BR Norma. I started by loosening the rear screw (three screw system as in the article) and shot 7 rounds of a proven load that measured 1.3 moa at a sighter target. I performed an initial torque adjustment, shot 2 measuring 0.24, then another adjustment followed by two more shots measuring 0.13. I then moved to my fine tuning target, results below, for the load work. The final torque adjustment yielded .12 moa accuracy in the wind, and I suck at wind reading.
Pretty easy to see the improvement in precision that resulted from the torque effort on an expertly built rifle.
The reader can decide for themselves if it's worth the effort.
Pretty easy to see the improvement in precision that resulted from the torque effort on an expertly built rifle.
The reader can decide for themselves if it's worth the effort.
Attachments
How did it shoot before you did all of that?
It's hard to put a number on that, the gun is new to me and so is the type of shooting I am doing with it. Overall it I'd say it shot well, but I have never used wind flags before to the extent that I am now being new to match shooting. I've yet to clean all the targets in a match.
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