Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Savage... What can i do???

Hey everyone, well i have a Savage Model 110 in 7mm Rem. Mag. Its my only bolt gun and I cant afford to buy another one at the moment. so i want to try to make this the best i can. What do you suggest i do? i was thinkin an aftermarket stock, new trigger? but from what research i have done, i have found limited options in aftermarket stuff for Savages. Does anyone have any tips, or resources that could help me??
Thanks alot,
YH
Brock

I'm runnin' out the door,to go catch Spike a Trout,so I'll be brief.

If in a wood or laminate stock,I'd suggest bedding as a good first step. If in a milk jug handle,I'd look to go to a Boyd's laminate,or similar.

From there,make sure everything is tight,the scope is a known quantity and the barrel is clean.

Then I'd look to find ammo it likes and chances are that reloading is the easiest way and less expensive in the long run.

Savage triggers are much maligned,I've yet to have on that couldn't be tweaked to a respectable level,but they'll happily sell yo a new one(grin). Point bein',with a little bit of work,you'll likely be rather pleased and it won't break the bank...............

if it's a wood stock, definitely sand out the forearm to assure barrel is floated when you bed the action above the two guard screws. make sure the tang is not touching the stock. you do this when you bed it by placing a couple of layers of tape on the bottom side of the tang. when the bedding compound dries, voila!, the tang will no longer touch after you remove the tape. also place a thin metal washer between the stock and the front of the plastic trigger guard. this will keep the rear guard screw head from burrowing through the plastic trigger guard as you tighten the screw.

my current savage is a 7mm remington magnum. bedded, of course. beech stock profoundly slimmed, lightened and weatherized. it loves factory RP 150-grain ammo. VERY pleasant to shoot with a pachmayr decellerator screwed into the the butt end. oh, and the trigger is tweaked a bit, of course.

you've got to work on most of these puppies a bit to make them consistent (they are bargain-priced, after all). when consistency is achieved, they're about as accurate - or more so - as anything else out there.

Big Stick and Fish, thanks for the advice, but to tell you the truth i have no idea how to bed an action. I am completely new to this type of stuff. Until now I just used a gun as it was and never did anything to it. So got any tips for a beginner? or should i go see my gunsmith?
Thanks,
Brock

Nobody did anything,until they did it the first time.

Should be able to use the Search function,to source prior discussions on the matter and ask enough questions to easily walk yourself through it.

Take the plunge.............

Younghunter,

Mr. Stick speaks the truth.

If you are even a little bit handy you can bed a rifle.

I am proof. These folks here have helped me learn a bunch more than I thought possible.

Having not nearly the experience they have, I would recommend buying the steel bed kit from Brownells and pondering the instuctions for awhile. It can be done by us rookies, and it can work out to be a decent working job.

As Stick says...take the plunge.

It is worth it. Good luck.

fish280 wrote:



Maybe I am misunderstanding ... but do you mean tape the bottom of the tang, or the bottom of the recoil lug? The tang needs to touch the stock, otherwise the whole action rocks back and forth.

I agree with all the others who say "Just do it." Get one of the kits from Brownell's and follow the instructions to ... the ... letter, especially the parts about using release agent. I've done 4 and was able to get them all apart afterwards.

yeah, what those guys said. i bedded a bunch of inexpensive mil-surp rifles over the years before i took on savages and then a remington adl with synthetic stock (whoowee that adl shoots like a house afire after bedding). a nice thing about a savage is that the bargain-level birch/beech stocks are no great loss if you mess one up. just chisel/sand it out and start over. so read up and have at it.

naye, naye: the tang does not need to touch because it does not have a guard screw. the guard screws on the savage are in the middle at the front trigger guard hole and the usual place under the receiver ring. the recoil lug keeps the receiver from moving back. putting tape under the tang when bedding assures that the action is bedded only where the guard screws come through. this technique is not mine. i read of it on another board (the sniper one maybe?) and was provided an article from another source by a kindly cyber friend. of course, you should put at least one or two pieces of tape on the bottom of the lug, too. when the tape is removed after bedding dries, that also assures the action is bottom bedded only at the two chosen points (where the guard screws are located), not three (with the tang touching the wrist) or four (with the lug touching the bottom of the stock) or some unseemly combination thereof.

Younghunter,
Midway USA has some decent walnut or laminated wood stocks available for the Savage at attractive prices. Many of them are FDI (finished-drop in).
I currently have a Midway laminated stock on my Win 70 Classic in 264. It came as a FDI with aluminum pillar blocks(to support the action screws). While the inletting is not as precise as a full blown custom stock, it is definately serviceable for a knock about gun.
I relieved the action inletting slightly with a Dremel Moto-tool and applied bedding compound.
I also have a Savage with the synthetic stock. On my Savage, the stock is soft enough that the action screws tend to pull down through the plastic when tightened. This makes it very difficult to maintain consistent and uniform screw tension. At the first opportunity it will also get a laminated wood stock installed with glass bedding.
If your Savage is equiped with the synthetic stock, I would heartily reccomend replacing it with a quality synthetic or wood stock, and don't be afraid to attempt the bedding job. Most gunsmithing books describe the process in detail, and bedding is discussed in the major shooting magazines occasionally.
If I remember correctly, it was Jim Carmichael's Book of the Rifle which gave me the courage to attempt my first riflestock alteration and glass bedding job.
I reccomend this book to any novice shooter and rifle hobbiest.
Also any gunsmith should be able to tune the factory trigger for a nominal fee. It won't be quite the same as a custom made trigger, but will be much better than stock.
Good Luck with your rifle and enjoy the learning involved in the hobby.
[url=http://www.midwayusa.com/]

Ah -- my ignorance of the Savage comes through.

Thanks for the enlightenment.

I remain a devout "tang toucher",even on my Savage bolt guns..........

Thanks for the tips everybody. Im lookin forward to workin on my Savage.
Brock

The tang can touch, but it SHOULD NOT bear with force! I took a 110 from 3+ inches to under 1" just by taking pressure off the tang. FWIW, Dutch.

There has yet to be an action manufactured by anyone,that excells with excessive torque/twist induced to it's bedding.

As per usual,common sense prevails and if you gotta beat it into the stock with a hammer and then tighten the action screws with a 4-way lug wrench,you'll likely not take the cake at The Super Shoot.

Shy of the above are numerous methodologies,that will yield very nice performance. My preference is to allow the tang to touch,while keepin' my wits about me.

Mileage may vary...........

hey stick:

i've done it both ways. both succeeded. i will say the no-tang-touch method is a tad easier to do simply because there's one fewer place to rough up and add compound; no need to protect the trigger housing; and it's a lot less messy to place a couple of layers of tape under the tang instead of compound. if this particular savage of mine were to go on a far away hunt in a rough place instead of alabama piney woods, i'd probably go back and re-bed to get the tang, too. but it ain't, so i won't, as long as it shoots well, as it does.