Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Headspacing a Savage 110

Chris, it depends on how many turns I go in with the receiver.

But, if I turn the receiver over the 85 degrees or so it's short, with the bolt out, the bolt will not quite go in once it's indexed. It's close but I have to back the receiver off a few degrees to get the bolt to close.

What's different about this 110 compared to the 99's I've played with is that the barrel doesn't bottom out on the receiver like a 99 does. It seems to come down, headspace and index, and then lock with the lock ring rather than bottom out on the receiver.

First thing I would do is remove the ejector and extractor. Extractor at a minimum. Just to be sure the case or gauge is sitting flat on the face of the bolt.

I did and it is.

That means the bolt is hitting the barrel when indexed and it needs to be shortened. If I were setting it up I would provide .010 of clearance from the bolt or extractor whichever is longer. Then of course head space.
With the barrel indexed correctly does it fit right in your stock?

Yes.

The stock inlet is not likely to be an issue give or take 1 turn of the barrel (.05"~), none of mine have been fitted that close.

I assume if you back the barrel out so your sights are clocked correctly then the bolt will close on your no-go gauge.

I think the issue can be addressed with the bolt-head instead

Thank you gentleman for your patience, this is not something I've done before and am thankful for all your help. I was having trouble reaching my headspace gauge rental guy and days were slipping by. I came and asked here because his wife is sick and he is taking care of her, so I didn't want to bug him. He did finally respond that he had a reamer and T handle, but there was some communication gaps I suspect because his mind was on his wife's care. I stopped by today and picked up a reamer and handle. I was able to spend an hour just now working on evening up the interface between the bolthead and barrel. The lugs were carefully hand polished back a bit, marked, polished some more, etc until I got the action and barrel indexed properly with the right amount of tension on bolt closing.

Now all I have left to do is run that reamer in until I get depth and tighten it up, relieve the barrel channel on the stock and reassemble. I'll need to figure out the extractor too. I'll let the forum know how it turns out and thanks a million, I appreciate all the advice and patience.

Fireball2,
You don’t need to rent a headspace gauge. Go-no-go gauge is the best route to go. You can also use a loaded factory case.

Sorry, my mistake. That's what I have, go no go.

So your good-to-go
Sorry had to

Ha. Now if I could just pry my chunt off the couch as they say and get it done.

Got the chamber cut and headspace set. Thanks again for the help guys. I really appreciate it. I'll work on the extractor next.

So you're using an old pre 64 M-70 barrel on that correct?

No it's an early Savage 110 barrel. The 1958/9-64 Savage 110's look like a pre 64 WInchester but they added a grip cap which dresses it up in my mind. They shoot very well as a rule. I have one in 243 that shoots less than 1/2" with Nosler Partitions.

Interesting factoid there.
Thanks, it looks like a fun project.

Well, I couldn't figure out why the extractor wouldn't work so I pulled out another old style 110 I have in 7mm mag. These have a snap-on C shaped extractor. Comparing the extractor to the 7mm it looks identical, but apparently the bolthead I bought from Numrich for this conversion has been ground on and some of the rim removed, which allows the extractor to walk around when it shouldn't. I feel better, at least it wasn't me being stupid! I'll call them tomorrow.

Rifle is chambered and indexed, fitted to barrel channel. Followers are different between the 30/06 donor rifle and 7mm mag I have here but the 06 follower works in the 7 mag so that's ok, should work fine with the 264 cartridge, but the opening in the bottom of the receiver where the cartridges go down into the magazine will have to be widened a little on the donor rifle for magnum cartridges. Waiting on a Numrich replacement bolt head to replace the buggered up one they sent me. Getting close.

I am going of memory here, which can be shakey, but isn't there different bolt heads for a Savage? Aren't the lugs on the WSM bolt head larger than a normal mag bolt head? Might be worth a look.

Micky, these old style Savage 110's are a different animal than the post 1966 ones. They do have different boltheads but the old ones have an extractor that looks like a C clip, and the ejector is at the rear of the bolt throw, basically a dog that sticks up and throws the cartridge out, in a perfect world.

Sounds like a few guys aren't familiar with the earliest Savage 110's. Here's one that's been rebarreled to 260. Beautiful rifles.