Send it back ?

[Kenneth66]

read through the Sporter postings and there is a big following of Savage . I have owned four or five in my life , and currently still have two . A 110 LP folding stock 308 and a 111 hunter 30-06 . All have been excellent shooters except the 111 . I have tried various factory ammo manufacturers and bullet weights . Tried several different hand loads that work well in my other 30-06's and two inch groups with hand loads is as good as I can get and that is not consistent , even they open up to 3" at times. Factory is giving 3"-5" groups . Glass is a Leupold 6.5-20 EFR that has worked fine on other rifles . Groups seem to be stringing up and down . Using a buds bag with stock set in up close to the magazine to reduce stock flexing . Tried monkeying with action screws , crown appears to be ok . Rifle is a few years old , why I still have it I don't know . Still has the Savage sticker on the side of the stock so it hasn't seen hard use , or a lot of use for that matter . I have a Remington Buck Masters and a 721 in 30-06 , and have no problem getting .75"-1" groups with them .
Send it back ?
Kenneth

 

[jimbires]

you could try that , to see what savage has to say .

 

[Richard Jones]

read through the Sporter postings and there is a big following of Savage . I have owned four or five in my life , and currently still have two . A 110 LP folding stock 308 and a 111 hunter 30-06 . All have been excellent shooters except the 111 . I have tried various factory ammo manufacturers and bullet weights . Tried several different hand loads that work well in my other 30-06's and two inch groups with hand loads is as good as I can get and that is not consistent , even they open up to 3" at times. Factory is giving 3"-5" groups . Glass is a Leupold 6.5-20 EFR that has worked fine on other rifles . Groups seem to be stringing up and down . Using a buds bag with stock set in up close to the magazine to reduce stock flexing . Tried monkeying with action screws , crown appears to be ok . Rifle is a few years old , why I still have it I don't know . Still has the Savage sticker on the side of the stock so it hasn't seen hard use , or a lot of use for that matter . I have a Remington Buck Masters and a 721 in 30-06 , and have no problem getting .75"-1" groups with them .
Send it back ?
Kenneth

1. Verify scope bases/rings aren't moving
2. Verify scope is good.
3. Verify barrel clearance in forend (my vote)
4. Verify barrel is not loose, although Savage usually farms out the barrel tightening procedure to a bunch of male lowland gorillas......

But yeah, 3" is just wrong.......

 

[Kenneth66]

There actually is a reason I still have it . I have a problem with selling a rifle that shoots lousy .
Guess I'll give Savage a holler and see what they got to say . If that doesn't pan out I'll see what the actions are bringing and consider letting it go for that .
Thanks for the replies , Kenneth

 

[jimbires]

There actually is a reason I still have it . I have a problem with selling a rifle that shoots lousy .
Guess I'll give Savage a holler and see what they got to say . If that doesn't pan out I'll see what the actions are bringing and consider letting it go for that .
Thanks for the replies , Kenneth

if savage doesn't help you out with making it shoot well , I'd take it to the local gun shop and see what it's worth on a trade in , before I parted it out . I'm sure you'll take a beating this way too .

 

[Mikemci]

if savage doesn't help you out with making it shoot well , I'd take it to the local gun shop and see what it's worth on a trade in , before I parted it out . I'm sure you'll take a beating this way too .

I have a Savage 111LRH .300 WSM 180gr. Zeiss 3-9 scope and shoot under 1/2"@100yd. Nothing wrong with that model.

 

[jimbires]

I have a Savage 111LRH .300 WSM 180gr. Zeiss 3-9 scope and shoot under 1/2"@100yd. Nothing wrong with that model.

his is shooting 3" - 5" groups . this sounds like a problem to me .

 

[Sniper338]

I have a Savage 111LRH .300 WSM 180gr. Zeiss 3-9 scope and shoot under 1/2"@100yd. Nothing wrong with that model.

Model dont make a shit. Its a different gun.

 

[Ggmac]

Just add a new barrel to it , much cheaper in the long run .

 

[CaptainMal]

You never mentioned the condition of the bedding. Has it been glassed? What does it look like? Is the barrel, and nut, completely free-floated? What about the tang. For a Two-screw that does not need to be touched but from that front trigger guard screw through the recoil lug, you most often need some kind of quality bedding job.

If I had a guess, since you did not mention the topic, it's factory "messed up". Vertical stringing is common when there's issues with bedding.

 

[Kenneth66]

I picked up a 110 in 30-06 the other day and it came with a cheap Bushnell Sportview 3-9 .
Figured I'd give it a spin as is before going to the trouble of putting good glass on it .
Griding the scope on the target helped compensate for the quality of glass and my eyes and managed some 3/4"-1 1/2" three shot groups with it and trigger needs some serious work , hard pull , gritty and creep , one of the worst triggers I have encountered in a spell .
Those groups were with first load so it's possible it may even get better .
165 gr SGK over 59 gr IMR 4350 .
Got a VX II 4-12 w/ao I'm going to mount on it and if I can't get that trigger cleaned up I'll drop a timney in it if I see a significant improvement with glass .

I'm done with the 111 , I've read lots of good stuff from others , but this one isn't one of them .
Thanks , Kenneth

 

[Mikemci]

Model dont make a shit. Its a different gun.

The message I was attempting to convey, is not to think that the model 111 is a bad model.
Thank you for your eloquent comment though, I'm sure that you explained it much better than I.

 

[PAshooter20BR]

Is the barrel free floated? Second vote on bedding. If no issues give savage the opportunity to make it right.