Out of windage

[clannagael]

Hey guys and gals,

I have a factory Savage, round receiver, that I'm pretty sure was drilled and tapped on a Monday morning.

I put a Bench source base and some Kelbly Panda rings on it and it's beautiful; comfortable height for me; rock solid - a real looker. There's only one catch: I've tried 3 different scopes on it and all of them run out of windage adjustment and it's still shooting 2 feet left at 100 yards.

I have two questions:

1. I've never run into this problem before to such a degree. I've shimmed bases before to get elevation corrected, but I've never run into a problem with windage where the scope shoots 4 feet left when the adjustment is centered. Is this common or did I get hold of a "lemon"?

2. I'm not sure what if anything Savage could or would do about it, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to shelve my beautiful (and expensive) base and Panda rings, and put a set of Burris signature rings with the offset inserts on it. Is this the right thing to do? Has anyone used the offset inserts to make up for 40" of windage?

I've considered that the barrel/receiver may be misaligned, but pulling it off and putting it back on without blueprinting seems a waste of time since the headspace needs to be what it needs to be.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[DOGCAPPER]

I know of 3 ring sets with windage...
Leup with windage rear
Burris with bushings (1" only)
Weaver windage (1" only)
LT

 

[clannagael]

I should mention that I had a windage-adjustable Leupold rear base on another rifle. It was fine, but I'm concerned that on this rifle, with that much adjustment required, I'll have to use a dovetail front base and what about alignment and putting too much stress on the tube? It seems like a big adjustment to put on just the rear base without moving the front somehow to keep alignment.

 

[watercam]

I second checking the base. Have had two or three one and two piece bases where there were problems with bases, once with rings where the tensioning screw was threaded in the opposite direction of its mate. Line bore over the holes to muzzle, should be able to see a shift if there is one.

 

[BoydAllen]

If you talk to Fred Moreo, he will tell you that the face of a Savage action is the result of an imprecise procedure that is likely to have it out of alignment with the rest of the action. The good news is that the threads and lug seats usually are pretty good. What he does is thread the action onto a tight fitting square ended mandrel, that is running true on the lathe, so that the end of the mandrel is bottomed on the lug seats. Then he trues the face to the threads. Add an aftermarket recoil lug (He sells them.) and you should be a lot closer to square. Since the threads are untouched, there is no problem refitting the factory barrel. The nut allows you to compensate for the small amount of material removed when setting the headspace.

 

[spclark]

Take your scope bases off, screw in two longer screws of the same thread size.

Find a 36" or longer reliable straightedge & place one end across those two screws, the other end extending down over your barrel.

If those two mounting screws are off-axis on your action you'll see it in a moment with this kind of tell-tale. As others have said, 40 MOA doesn't take much on one or both of those screw holes....

 

[Moderator]

The issue could be scope base holes that are not in line with the bore... if you are lucky.

There are other issues we have seen first-hand with some recent Savages that had one rifle requiring 24 MOA to zero at 100 yards. That's correct... most of the scope travel was used up just getting to zero. The issue had to do with the way the threads were cut in the receiver.

I would suggest you check the positioning of the screws for the scope base. If they look good, the problem may be the action itself, and I would send the gun right back to Savage.

Anything is possible, but, with the amount of windage error you are describing, my guess is that the problem is not the barrel nut or the face of the receiver. The problem may be that the barrel doesn't screw into the receiver properly and the action may need to be junked.

Even if you could jury rig a fix with Burris Insert rings you should not have to do this. First double check with another optic to ensure "bad scope" is not the issue. Then I'd send the gun back to Savage.

 

[clannagael]

Thanks to everyone for your advice and feedback.

Here's where I'm at: I checked everything I could check. I took the rifle down (removed the barrel) and checked all of the survaces of the action with engineer's squares. The face of the action and the scope base holes are square to the best of my ability to measure them, which is to say they're not causing the problem.

I have great confidence (consistency) in the bases, rings and scopes that I've tried.

I'm going to reassemble everything and tomorrow morning I'm going to call Savage and we'll go from there.

Thanks again.

Dave

 

[Joe O]

Don't discount the posibility of the barrel being out of alignment with the action.If you have determined that the scope base holes are centered with the action,then the steel yardstick along each side of the scope base or screws,to see if the left to right barrel gap in relation to the straight edge is the same on both sides.The floating bolt head on Savage refles covers many alignment sins.Customer service it great.QC and enginering ?????

 

[clannagael]

I called Savage and told them about my problem. Not that it makes much difference at this point, but the person on the phone sounded a little skeptical. The person said they'd "sight it in for me." I asked that it be done with my base and rings, which they agreed to try.

I'm going to ship it to them as a warranty issue. We'll see what happens.