Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Difference between a savage and a tikka barrel

Just thought I'd share.

First picture is of a brand new unfired Savage 12 LRP.

Second picture is of a brand new unfired Tikka T3 HB Varmint (my t3 lite looks the same btw).

We all know tikka has excellent barrels but damn, for a grand you'd expect better on a savage. No amount of "break in" or dyna bore coat is going to fix that savage. It was returned. The other 12 LRP in stock has the same barrel issues btw and worse crown damage.

Neat pics! I'm really not surprised the Tikka barrel is the better of the two....

WOW!!

Tikka = Sako barrel. My Savage barrels in the past looked exactly the same and would collect copper just being in the same room as bullets.

kman,
Those are some great pictures. Someone....what causes those chatter lines as is seen in the Savage pictures? I have actually seen this in several rifles, though not as bad.

No real surprise, but great pics!

I bet after the Savage barrels are deep drilled that they are not being lapped prior to running the button and that explains the crap surface.

I agree looks bad, but did you shoot the Savage? Just curious if it fouled that bad and shot well.

Don't think that's chatter, more like feed marks from the cutting tool. Notice the similarity to the crown on the tika. Chatter tends to be random.

Looks like the barrel that came with a .308W Marlin XS7. Rifle shot random patterns despite trying almost every trick in the book. To their credit, Marlin/Remington bought the rifle back.

Thanks for the pics. Are you saying that Savage's barrels are cheap, regardless how much you spend on them?

A corollary question: If the situation was reversed, what would Beretta do for the owner/purchaser to 'make it right?'

i have had a couple savages that i could see chatter marks like that in. they still shot under an inch and sometimes way under. not sure why it didn't affect the rifle much.

it looks like crap and there's no reason they couldn't find a way to fix that, since other gunmakers don't have that as a common problem.

That's been exactly my experience with both of those rifle barrels as well. Both in .308.

The Savage was picky as hell. It would only shoot when the cases were FL sized, and the bullet jammed into the rifling. No combination of Neck size/jump or jam, or FL with jump would work. Since it was chambered with a pilotless reamer, the chamber is crooked as can be. It also fouled worse than any other rifle I owned up to that point.

The Tikka T3 OTOH, shoots everything I put in it, especially Sierra 150gr BTSP's, and went the first 700 rounds without anything more than patches and solvent to clean it. And some people bitch about the plastic bolt shroud.

About a year ago, the Savage faithful were on here beating their chests about some 1000yd match they had won with a factory .308. They couldn't have hit a barn with mine, and I told them that. Sure blew their dress up!!!!!!!

My savage has worn two factory barrels before I finally sprang for a real one. It was accurate for about 10 rounds, then fouled to beat hell.

My tikka might as well be wearing a custom tube, cleans easily and shoots anything you feed it.

the Savages are button rifled, which explains the appearance. Although a button rifled barrel still does not have to be finished that roughly.

I do feel like Savages have gotten pretty expensive for what you get. Regardless, the ones I own typically shoot very well right out of the box. I also like that the sporters come with a 3-3.5 lb no-creep trigger, and the varmint/target/LE rifles come with a 2-2.5 lb trigger.

Hmm. I had a similar experience with the last Savage I bought (it's gone now).



Hmm. I've had that same experience with all my recent Rugers!

You are welcome for the pictures. I'm saying that for $1000 and a rifle called Long Range Precision I don't expect a piece of crap barrel like that to pass QC and leave the factory.

Savage did nothing for me to make it right. The store I bought it from gave me a refund, they would have done the same had it been a tikka, winchester, whatever.

I have never owned a Salvage, but thank you for posting as it confirms what I have thought all along.

In the 80's Numrich was selling chromoly Savage barrels. This was long before they did stainless. I bought one and it looked just the same as this, it was crap. Hard to imagine a company putting something like that on a gun.

Took the tikka shooting today. I cleaned the barrel down to bare steel at home as you can see from the picture I posted in the OP.

First shot at 110 yards by itself and then the next 3 stacked in a nice group. First 4 shots.


Next 3 at 220 yards.


I'm just using some old Winchester Ranger ammo with 168gr hpbt to get the brass. Can't complain though, gun shoots!