Savage 111 born again

[stagpanther]

I'm beginning to learn the consequences of having a barrel-heavy balance.

 

[stagpanther]

Took the stock back off and am going to do more work, I'm convinced there must be some stress in the mating of the receiver someplace. Yesterday I tried 180 vld's driven by RL22 and the numbers were quite impressive (the winds had backed off just enough that I didn't worry about the labradar blowing over). I also put a hellfire brake on to tamp down the muzzle left somewhat and that definitely helped--but talk about LOUD report, it's up there with the biggest cartridges I fire. Groupings are still mediocre unfortunately.

 

[brasscollector]

I haven't played with my 280AI that much yet. However, a friends I was able to do some load workup on last year produced much better groups with RL19 than it did with RL22. The velocity was, for the most part, in the same range between the two.
Did you use Manson's standard headspace gauges or a "down and dirty" set?

 

[stagpanther]

Did you use Manson's standard headspace gauges

I used Manson's--they are very high quality.

The velocities above I was getting out of my criterion barrel with uncompressed loads below some of the max charge weights I've seen. I wasn't getting much improvement in additional charge weights, so I decided why bother since all I was likely doing was increasing pressures without much gain in velocity.

The RL 22 also burns very nicely and uniformly in my set-up with little to clean--the H1000 loads were sending residual fireballs out the muzzle and left a lot of residue in the bore.

 

[reynolds357]

I used Manson's--they are very high quality.

The velocities above I was getting out of my criterion barrel with uncompressed loads below some of the max charge weights I've seen. I wasn't getting much improvement in additional charge weights, so I decided why bother since all I was likely doing was increasing pressures without much gain in velocity.

The RL 22 also burns very nicely and uniformly in my set-up with little to clean--the H1000 loads were sending residual fireballs out the muzzle and left a lot of residue in the bore.

H1000 is pretty good at doing that. It sounds funny in long barreled rifles also. Kind of a crack boom sound.

 

[stagpanther]

H1000 is pretty good at doing that. It sounds funny in long barreled rifles also. Kind of a crack boom sound.

Oh, I LOVE H1000 in my 338 lapua magnum loads, my favorite powder for that.

Worked some more on the Hogue stock today--did a little more bedding. Despite the full-length aluminum bed it comes with--it still flexes since the bed pretty thin past the lug slot. I also decided to fill the hollow buttstock to give it a bit more weight and stiffen it up.

 

[stagpanther]

Finally got the bottom metal in for my Boyd's thumbhole featherweight which I've decided to treat my old savage 111 300 win mag to. This rifle has been faithfully serving me without complaints reliably shooting sub MOA out to 400 yards--even with off-the-shelf budget factory stuff-- for years with a wide variety of ammo.

 

[stagpanther]

Because of my gross negligence, I violated 7mag's sense of Feng shui and interior design and mounted my 280 AI build on a less than aesthetic stock, and for that I'm truly sorry. I didn't know, but now I do. To make amends, I bought a MDT gen 2 LSS XL chassis and remounted the action to it.

More importantly, I just never could figure out where the stress point was coming from in the Hogue stock, so I just gave up and went with the MDT. I also bought a Usuckometer from wearethebestshooters.com to see just how much improvement there really is by mounting to an MDT chassis.

I decided to go with 3.715 magazine since I can also use it for 300wm and 30-06 and the criterion barrel I have appears to be long-throated to accommodate big VLD's.

 

[stagpanther]

I made the fateful decision to pillar and bed the Boyd stock after close examination--the lug bed has no real support other than the wood (though there is an embedded cross bolt a couple of inches behind it) which using a 300 win mag I know would start compressing it. The bottom metal inlet was also compressing easily with not much torque--that would result in asymmetry pretty quickly in the bedding as far as I figured. The stock came with a pillar of sorts pressed into the front screw hole--but that was it. I can see why they don't pillar the rear screw--there's not much of anything there to put a hole through. Furthermore, savage often puts their rear action screw right up against the trigger group--in the axis it's actually part of it--so clearance between the pillar and sear/bolt release is a big obstacle. I spent a whole day trying to figure out why the bolt failed to cock when working the handle, in some areas the inletting was too tight--others too loose. I finally figured out that the trigger guard inlet was just a tad too deep and in the process of cocking the trigger housing rocked up against the trigger guard releasing the sear. It's like figuring out a puzzle.

 

[stagpanther]

That was my first "failure mode project"; the second was the 6mm BR Norma which out of the blue started having FTF's with about 1 out of 20 cartridges. I thought it was the primers, but then the same thing happened after switching primers. I then suspected headspace likely was causing a light pin-strike. Although everything passed when I put the barrel on--sure enough the bolt closed on the Manson no-go without too much resistance, so I had to take it back apart and reseat the barrel. Everything go bang now.

 

[stagpanther]

I bought the savage 111 trophy XP in 300 winmag about 2008--it had the crappy weaver scope and regular trigger--the older model before they started packaging it with the accutrigger and Nikon scope. Still the original sporter barrel--it's shown no signs of burning out yet. After fixing the bedding and trigger issue I got this at 240 yds using 82 grs of magnum and 180 vlds. In the spirit of full disclosure and own up to my spazdom--one shot I pulled the rifle clean off the rear bag and didn't even hit the target.

(sorry about the mis-named file--I did use magnum)