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Savage F/TR .223 - Light primer strikes

praveen

praveen

Administrator
So, I have this stock Savage F/TR in .223 (1:7 twist). I've been shooting Berger 90s in it since 2015 and it shot perfectly. However, I was experiencing a lot of primer cratering and it essentially ruined the bolt face. So, I decided that maybe change the bolt head with one from PTG.
When I disassembled the bolt and took the firing pin out, there's like a washer behind the spring and it was broken (and the pieces we held in place barely). So, I also got a new firing pin from midway.

Now, I assembled the bolt and set the headspace. Basically took the barrel off and screwed it on, checked that it closed on the go gauge and doesn't close on the no-go gauge. Also, stuck a piece of tape (.003") to the go gauge and ensured that the bolt wouldn't close. Then tightened the nut.

Took it out to the range with and shot 10 rounds. I had a light primer strike 4 times out of those. I took those rounds out and they surely were light strikes. Re-chambered them and tried shooting them again. 3 of them shot but the 4th one never did.
The load is hot for I'm getting flat primers (and there's still some cratering). However, I'm not able to figure out why do I get intermittent light strikes.

The brass was FL sized. If it was a headspace issue, wouldn't I have the same problem for all the rounds?

I'm going to try to shoot some factory rounds next. If they all shoot good, then I'll assume its a brass sizing issue.

Or could there be a firing pin/spring issue?
 
If the gun has good headspace but you replaced a lot of parts due to damage or wear I'm wondering why you did not replace the spring. That would be my first step.
 
It is intermintent [sp] I would, with that many new parts, spend an hour just dry firing. It's quite possible that the new parts just need wear in. After the dry firing session I would disassemble and clean.
 
^^^^^ This

Also check that the cocking piece does not rest at the bottom of the notch when in the fired position. There should be at least .050 gap between the cocking piece and bolt body.
 
praveen said:
So, I have this stock Savage F/TR in .223 (1:7 twist). I've been shooting Berger 90s in it since 2015 and it shot perfectly. However, I was experiencing a lot of primer cratering and it essentially ruined the bolt face. So, I decided that maybe change the bolt head with one from PTG.
When I disassembled the bolt and took the firing pin out, there's like a washer behind the spring and it was broken (and the pieces we held in place barely). So, I also got a new firing pin from midway.

Now, I assembled the bolt and set the headspace. Basically took the barrel off and screwed it on, checked that it closed on the go gauge and doesn't close on the no-go gauge. Also, stuck a piece of tape (.003") to the go gauge and ensured that the bolt wouldn't close. Then tightened the nut.

Took it out to the range with and shot 10 rounds. I had a light primer strike 4 times out of those. I took those rounds out and they surely were light strikes. Re-chambered them and tried shooting them again. 3 of them shot but the 4th one never did.
The load is hot for I'm getting flat primers (and there's still some cratering). However, I'm not able to figure out why do I get intermittent light strikes.

The brass was FL sized. If it was a headspace issue, wouldn't I have the same problem for all the rounds?

I'm going to try to shoot some factory rounds next. If they all shoot good, then I'll assume its a brass sizing issue.

Or could there be a firing pin/spring issue?
Click to expand...

You said you have primer cratering/ flattening and bolt face damage. You can only get bolt face damage if there is severe gas leakage. Sounds like you are shooting very hot loads and you refuse to back off. Whenever I had primers fail to go off it was because they were not seated to the bottom of the pocket. The only spring that's worth buying is the silicon chrome alloy wire. The ones made from what's called music wire are junk.
 
You may just need to adjust the protrusion of the firing pin. It's a pain in the butt but it works. I needed to do that once. By any chance are you using new brass. Bought some new unprimed LC once and the shoulders were set too far back. Got a bunch of failure to fires on that day.
 
Thanks guys for all the suggestions. I’ll check the firing pin protrusion. Will grab some new lapua brass as well. And a new spring. Lets see.

As far as hot loads, I do plan to back off once it starts to shoot consistently so that I can find a new load. However, won’t a gas leak show up as blackening around the primer? I don’t see that.
 
I sent 1 to him last week and got it back end of last week. Sent another to him that he should get today, probably get it back by week end.
 
praveen said:
As far as hot loads, I do plan to back off once it starts to shoot consistently so that I can find a new load. However, won’t a gas leak show up as blackening around the primer? I don’t see that.
Click to expand...

FWIW, I've had a number of bolt heads showing the stereotypical 'ring' etched in the bolt face from leaky primers... but I've almost never had cases that showed any sort of blackening or soot around the primer/case head area (short of catastrophic failures).
 
Thanks Monte. Good to know. I'll get the bolt head bushed, change the spring and then redo the load dev.
 
it could be the fp spring isn't compressed enough by the cocking piece. someone stated to make sure the cocking piece pin isn't bottomed out against the bolt body ramp when the fp is uncocked. There could also be too much gap. If that's the case, turn the cocking piece clockwise to reduce the gap but not enough that the cocking piece pin bottoms out.

also, if you're going to use new brass use a softer primer, like CCI 400s, to fireform. If you send to Grimstod, send it with your original Savage bolt head. As has been stated, he doesn't care for the PTG boltheads. He'll make your old Savage head better than new.
 
I have two Savage 12 that gave me ignition failures on certain brands of primers, while being 100% on others. One rig was brand new and the other I bought used with less than 500 rounds.

I called Savage last summer, but they had just come off their summer break to find themselves being bought out. The CS guy wanted me to send him the rigs, but they couldn't tell me when I would get them back or what they would do to troubleshoot.

I searched the web and some forums. After finding that this is too common, and eliminating the short list of possible issues...

After much frustration, I changed the springs to the heavy options and now have no ignition problems.

Part number is Wolff 64436.

The pin protrusion isn't hard to set, neither is the spring preload. Good Luck!
 
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