Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Savage 220 Magazine Modification?

There was an 11 year old thread on this topic, now orphaned. The fellow did a lot of work grinding and gluing the plastic magazine to get it to be lower profile and hold one round.

I'm wondering, from all the savage gun guys out there, is there a better way? Does the bottom metal on a savage 220 happen to be used on any other caliber of savage gun? I ask because I wonder if I could buy a metal, low profile savage rifle magazine and must bend the lips for feed and adjust the ramp and call it a day?

Looking for a low-profile single-shell magazine option.

It's actually a darned shame savage made these things the way they did. Had they made an internal magazine and zig-zagged the feed, they could have got the profile down. Instead, they made a very dumb, ugly, two round box external magazine? Who need a magazine for two rounds?

They could have even made a tubular internal magazine hidden in the stock and had a three round blind tube.

Anyway, enough with my rant, I appreciate any info a Savage fan could share about metal magazines that might fit the 220F bottom metal.

Nothing but the plastic 220f mags fit a 220f. And even some of them might require tweaking.

Some states, like Ohio, have silly rules like one round in the chamber and two in the magazine. I'm not a fan of this.

I don't want more rounds, I want less. I was hoping a flush-mount magazine made of metal for another savage could be modified to hold a single 20 gauge shell so that the mag doesn't stick out the bottom of the gun. One in the chamber and one in the magazine is plenty of shells for a deer hunt.

Why bother? How many slugs do you need to shoot a deer? 3 is plenty. And the opposite perspective is it doesnt sit that far below, so why would you do that for show.

There is a misunderstanding repeating over and over in this thread. Best quality guns are not tactical guns. Internal magazines are the norm for fine sporting rifles. Sadly, for slug rifles the easiest basis for a custom sporting gun is the savage action. Nothing I can do about that for custom builds. But Factory bottom metal is terrible and plastic magazines by savage are junk in several ways: 1.) They wear to the point the first round won't feed because they are plastic. 2.) The second round feed geometry is problematic and requires feed ramp and mag modification and a 2nd round in magazine is completely unnecessary. 3.) They protrude from the bottom metal which is cumbersome, uncomfortable to carry, and ugly.

I'm looking for a custom 1-round, flush magazine option. Or even better a bottom metal swap that would provide an internal magazine.

I have a Savage 212. I have trouble feeding the rounds it shoots best - Hornady SST 300 grain slugs. They're hard to feed from the magazine, they can be hard to chamber, and they are hard to reliably extract. About 1/2 them are out of round. And the rim diameter seems to be a hair smaller than other brands, with a more slanted lip. Forceful cycling helps, but doesn't always prevent hang ups. But the gun groups them into an inch at 100 yards.

Other rounds feed, chamber, and extract much more reliably (Federal and Remington), but I can't give up the accuracy of the Hornady SST slugs. So I've just decided to live with the Hornadys, at least for now. It's not a dangerous game gun. It's not all that expensive. It is what it is and I've decided to just live with its peculiararities with certain types of ammo.

As far as I know, there is no alternative bottom metal. My bottom metal is steel and I think its rather high quality given the gun's price point. But not withstanding, it's a realtively cheap bolt action gun that is intended to cycle cylinders in and out of a chamber. It will never be as reliable in that respect as a bolt action rifle.