Savage Action Truing?

[GenePoole]

I picked up a Savage 10 a month or so ago with the intent of building a tacti-cool rifle just because I've never done one on a Savage action. I decided to check out the action specs just like I do with a Remington so I made myself a 1.0625x20 mandrel with about 3 inches of "trued-to-the-thread" stickout. I have a similar mandrel for R700s. I used the Manson 0.500 dowel and PTG bushings setup to the bolt raceway, then dialed it in in my action fixture. Once dialed in, I threaded the mandrel in and put a couple of BesTest indicators on it and the runout was so bad that it exceeded the travel of the tenths indicators. I put a regular dial indicator on it and got about 7 thou at the end nearest the action and 12 thou at the far end about 110 degrees from the near end (wish I'd snapped a picture). The worst R700 to date has been about 10 thou and it was more-or-less just shifted to the raceway (eccentricity was in the same place, not 110° from end to end).

This seemed bad, but i figured since it's a Savage with a "floating" bolt head, it didn't matter too much as long as the face and raceways were concentric to the barrel, but they were not. I've got about 4 thou of axial runout on the face and about the same on the integral lugs (I didn't check to see if that was "inline" with the face).

So basically this thing is just way out all over the board. To get this thing up to what I consider decent condition it's gonna take a lot of cutting and I don't know where to even start. Any suggestions?

 

[mrjdasr]

I picked up a Savage 10 a month or so ago with the intent of building a tacti-cool rifle just because I've never done one on a Savage action. I decided to check out the action specs just like I do with a Remington so I made myself a 1.0625x20 mandrel with about 3 inches of "trued-to-the-thread" stickout. I have a similar mandrel for R700s. I used the Manson 0.500 dowel and PTG bushings setup to the bolt raceway, then dialed it in in my action fixture. Once dialed in, I threaded the mandrel in and put a couple of BesTest indicators on it and the runout was so bad that it exceeded the travel of the tenths indicators. I put a regular dial indicator on it and got about 7 thou at the end nearest the action and 12 thou at the far end about 110 degrees from the near end (wish I'd snapped a picture). The worst R700 to date has been about 10 thou and it was more-or-less just shifted to the raceway (eccentricity was in the same place, not 110° from end to end).

This seemed bad, but i figured since it's a Savage with a "floating" bolt head, it didn't matter too much as long as the face and raceways were concentric to the barrel, but they were not. I've got about 4 thou of axial runout on the face and about the same on the integral lugs (I didn't check to see if that was "inline" with the face).

So basically this thing is just way out all over the board. To get this thing up to what I consider decent condition it's gonna take a lot of cutting and I don't know where to even start. Any suggestions?

perfect for a before and after results thread, spin up a 6 Br barrel and shoot it as is. then do your magic on the action and post the results

 

[golong]

Not enough booze to make some women pretty.

 

[std7mag]

Beer...
Helping ugly people have sex for over 100 years...

 

[Toby Bradshaw]

Any suggestions?

 

[Mark W]

perfect for a before and after results thread, spin up a 6 Br barrel and shoot it as is. then do your magic on the action and post the results

I bet the before and after difference would be smaller than many would expect.

 

[gman47564]

Them savage actions cant be trusted.. they do this alot of times with a good load.. 5 at a 100.

 

[PhilKeil]

^^ that's funny

 

[NorCalMikie]

spin up a 6 Br barrel and shoot it as is.

And be sure to bring something else to shoot cause shooting bug holes with a 6 BR gets boring, real fast.
And after all that work, It's STILL a Savage!! BUT, you did it yourself.
Adding a good barrel will make all the difference in the world.
I've got 5 or 6 Savage rifles (I've lost count) and no matter what I do to them, the bolts won't close anywhere as easy as my Remington XP 100 action. Bug hole shooters, every one of them.

 

[golong]

I've got 5 or 6 Savage rifles (I've lost count) and no matter what I do to them, the bolts won't close anywhere as easy as my Remington XP 100 action. Bug hole shooters, every one of them.

I have played with this a bunch. For a while I had the best result with running the bolt internals dry but then heat from friction started to become a problem. There will always be some resistance because of the floating head, but I have found the biggest culprit poor closure to be the cocking pin / cocking pin sleeve manipulation.

If you have not already done so, take the bolt apart and look at the groove on the sleeve. If it is distorted from the cocking pin binding you can hit it with a diamond file to smooth it out. I had one that was lipped up and had to be tapped down, and another that was too bad to salvage. A little file goes a long way.

The sleeve needs a very light coating of silver anti-seize. Lastly, you may need to play with the tension on the bolt assembly screw.

 

[tobnpr]

What I do with Savages...
PTG piloted tap to clean up the threads concentric to the boltway. NOT oversize, cuts to factory spec. This may make for slightly sloppier thread fit but this is not a problem. I believe it's a good compromise that helps insure good lockup with receiver face and nut (back face trued) and retain ability to use prefits.

Leaving the tap/mandrel in place i put it between centers and face the receiver. Then, either an aftermarket precision nut or just true the back end of the factory nut using a mandrel. Aftermarket lug is a must.

Last step is a boltface cutter in truing block to true the boltface to the receiver face, and lap in the lugs.

I did not always chase the threads, and if thats not done I wouldn't care about the bolt raceway. The floating bolthead takes.care of misalignment there. True the lug seats and receiver face to the threads after using the threaded mandrel to dial in.

I've never.looked into changing the cocking ramp geometry but thats supposed help a great deal with bolt lift.

 

[ShaunBrady]

Any suggestions?

Where you the first one to remove the factory barrel? If not, and it's a customers gun, I'd give it back and say no thank you to the project. That receiver might be tweaked from a heavy handed barrel removal or install.

If it's yours and being done for entertainment, why not.

I've done 5-6 of them this way. I start with the Manson mandrel and Manson tapered bushings through the receiver to align it in the truing fixture. If it's a repeater, the sketchiest part of that process is there is almost no raceway at the top of the feed ramp. After aligning it to the mandrel, I check the face and periphery. The face is usually a half thou or less, and the periphery has always been under 3 thou.



I use the collars to prevent the alignment screws from cloverleafing the receiver.



This might seem a bit bold, but it's what you're left with when taking a small shank Savage to the large shank ID. The thing to notice here is the large thread ID does not extend past the the front action screw. This is how Savage does it. Using the standard Savage large shank dimensions allows the use of off the shelf recoil lugs.



The finished product.

Primary extraction timing is straight forward to adjust.



What ever you take off the back of the bolt body should also come off the retaining bolt. I turn a short form bolt lift kit into the end of the bolt. The cocking sleeve aligns on the end of the bolt and has a flat surface to bear on. The primary purpose of this is to not add preload to the firing pin assembly when shortening the bolt body. You can also experiment with removing even more preload, these bolts are cheap and easy to come by.