Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Stainless Action Welding How-To

I've got a Savage SS rifle that is a couple of years old. After looking around on the web, the closest description of what kind of steel it is actually made from is "400 series stainless". I've tried to ring Savage customer service to no avail; hold times are too long. I'm not sure they'd tell me anyway.

Anyway, here's the idea -- remove the hinged floor plate from the magazine and install a piece of SS there (or whatever type material or steel that would work best) and replace it with a piece of material that has a flat surface and female receiver tapped for the screw that holds a tripod mounting plate. This way, the rifle can be dropped into a tripod with minimal other gear needed. And the mounting plate can be removed as needed for other types of hunting/shooting.

I currently use the "Gun Claw" and it's a good product, but if there's a way to shave weight and eliminate equipment in my pack I'm all for it. Even if I have to sacrifice one round in the magazine.

Thanks for any info.

I don't know why you would go to all of that trouble when you can get a Harris bipod that attaches to the front sling stud and you can still use the sling.
I carry a bipod on most of my deer and elk rifles every time I leave the truck and I'm surprised at how many times it comes in handy. Fold it up along the barrel and out of the way when not in use, fold it down to use it. Only takes a couple seconds.

Maybe I'm confused on what you're trying to accomplish?

Bob

I'm trying to keep large hunks of metal off my rifle and out of my pack. A bi-pod won't work, because a standing shot will almost certainly be needed. And I already have a good tripod with me when doing that type of hunting; it's essential for the 15x binoc. Hence the Gun Claw. The sling works fine with all options mentioned.

The fuss is a way to engineer around the Claw, save weight, and get onto the tripod quickly.

Our original plan to replace the bottom metal with a solid piece is still the best option. Now if we can just find someone we trust to do the welding

Okay, here is one way to deal with this after giving this some minimal thought...

The stud on a tripod is 1/4-20 and the action screws on most rifles are 1/4-24 or something like that.
In the front action screw take an inletting screw like stockmakers use for aligning actions when inletting stocks. Cut it to length of the front action screw plus enough to put a nut on it and thread the end 1/4-20 with a die. Install it on the rifle, but instead of a nut on the bottom, use a 1/4" rod coupling cut just long enough to tighten the action down and leave enough threads for the tripod screw to screw into securely. 3-4 threads should be enough. I may even have one laying around here I could send you for this experiment if you'd like, or you can pick one up at most Ace Hardware stores for about 25 cents.

If it all works out, you could make everything out of Stainless for the permanent pieces and leave it on full time.

I'm still thinking the standing length bipods that Stoney Point sells or shooting sticks would be a better set up, but experimenting can be worthwhile also.

Bob

What about silver soldering it instead of welding? I would think that would be plenty strong enough.

That would work but I think Sheister hit the nail on the head. Another suggestion would be the screwed in contoured "base" and just forward of the receiver and barrel nut. Then you'd have a more stable platform. Just a thought from the cheap seats.

The rigidity of the system is paramount. The plate we use is quite long and really likes a lot of bearing surface It slides into the tripod head. In the future, I will use ADL type stocks and machine a flat into the bottom of the stock and screw/epoxy the plate on. That isn't an option this time. Silver soldering is not a good option as it requires a lot of heat over and extended period which is prone to migrate to the areas that need to maintain their current heat treated state. TIG welding concentrates the weld in one small area and will be the best option.

Actions are actually really soft, so are barrels. If it were hard like a good knife it would explode when you shoot. The soft steel shouldn't be softened more unless you go above the tempering temps. A soft silver solder should flow in the 400 degree range and you will be fine. Hard solder will be closer to 1000F and I would avoid that. Most steels can take 450 to 500 degrees and not be softened much more than the quenched hardness. Heat treating is a little hobby of mine. I had an action tig welded on and regretted it shortly after I had it done.

For anyone still interested in this thread, I finally waited long enough for the Savage tech folks to answer the phone and confirmed that the action is 416 SS, as many suspected.

The only problem with the action screw idea is that you must still support the butt of the rifle w/ your shoulder. With the Gun Claw, you can center the rifle on the tripod. That's the effect I'm trying to achieve without the claw.

Also, for anyone interested in small pieces of many kinds of steel stock, try Alpha Knife Supply. After a couple of hours of searching for suppliers of 410 bar stock of good dimension, Alpha is head and shoulders above other places in terms of types of metal and sizes.

Right now i've got a few hot projects going but if you sent a floor plate and your tripod mount we could make it work. Silver brazing is a good option to. But I have a very nice tig machine and do very nice welds on nearly any material

How about installing a rail on your stock and using that to attach to your tripod. Better than wrecking an action I would think. You are making it way more complicated than it needs to be.

Put a quick detach mount on your tripod and run it. Navy Seal approved...

Well he's not ruining an action just a floor plate. two it would need to be one heavy assed tripod to support a rifle even a few inches ahead of the balance point.

Right on, I guess it's just not possible. The MK15MOD5 pictured isn't real, it doesn't have a rail mount tripod head, and the carbon Manfrotto tripod it's attatched to must be really heavy. Also, the 16lb rifle shown is well in front of the balance point. Two other rifle cradles shown for camera tripods. I guess I don't know wtf I'm talking about and never worked with such things. Nevermind.

This rig will weigh about 9 lbs and the Slik CF tripod will support it nicely. The idea is to mount the rifle ON the balance point here, with a minimum of fuss and using the stock I already have, which is a pretty good Savage Accustock. The only weight issue in the project is on my back, and I'm trying to minimize that ...

Thanks for the ideas. I was pretty hot on an action screw idea like Sheisters but it's just not close to the balance point. Also thought about threading the shaft coming out of the tripod ball, but that would bugger up my other attachments. I need to switch from the 15X binocs (or spotter) to rifle with a minimum of time and weight. A fairly exacting set of requirements. But the stock rail would work also, I think. Fortunately, the rifle itself is not too heavy.

Get your panties out of a bunch will ya!! for crying out loud it was a friggin guess on my part as to how well the rifle would balance on a tripod.

May I point out that you were the one saying he was going to ruin an action by welding on the FLOOR PLATE

How does your equipment attach to the tripod head? If it is like some of the video tripods I've seen, they have a slide-in piece that attaches to the camera (or in this case a gun), then slides into the tripod head and locks in with a lever.
If you had that type of head, you could get and extra one of those mount base pieces and attach one to the binos and one to the rifle in a rail or otherwise, and then detaching one and attaching the other is just a matter of releasing the lever, slide in the new piece of equipment (rifle) and it's locked in place.
At least this way you can mount the piece on the rifle stock where it balances best for you and it's ready to go at a moment's notice.

I'll see if I can find a picture of what I'm talking about. Okay, if you look at these pictures, I think you can see the detachable base the locks into the head. Extra pieces are available or you could make one to fit.

http://www.amazon.com/Vista-Explore...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1362547021&sr=1-1

Bob

That's exactly what he was trying to do. Have a base on his bino's and a base on the rifle so he could swap back and forth at will.

Okay, now that I understand what the object of this project is, the idea above would probably be your best, cheapest bet for what you're trying to accomplish. You could avoid all of the welding originally described if you are going to go the balance point anyway, which should be forward of the floor plate. In this case, you could drill a hole in the stock and epoxy in a piece of 1/4-20 rod coupling long enough to accomodate the threaded stud on the tripod mount so it wouldn't have to be mounted permanently. Screw it on when you leave the truck and it is ready to go anytime you need to shoot with it.

Bob