Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB and others. Savage 99 vertical stringing w

Shooting factory ammo. .358

With one hand hold it strung shots vertically

Switched to softer sandbag and held forearm between thumb and index finger just to prevent canting
Fired three pairs of shots with a few minutes in between

Each pair was very close together but poi moved up and down

Thoughts? Need softer rest?

Try taking the forearm off and resting the gun on the receiver. If the vertical problem goes away, you can relieve the forearm to keep it from contacting the receiver. If I have a stringing problem with a 99, I'll bed the forearm near the screw that holds it on and relieve it from contacting the receiver. 5 of 6 guns I've done that to responded well. The other was a bubba'd 99f in .358 that would shoot the first shot to POA, then the next two would hit 18" higher at 100. Didn't matter how fast or slow I shot it, or what I did to the forearm.

What he said.

Thanks guys. Love this site

So if relieving contact with the receiver after the test you describe doesn't fix it, then bed the forearm as you describe?

I'd change the gun as little as possible to get the desired results, but that's me. I had a few that relief was enough, one that needed just a dab of bedding and one that needed the full forearm bedded for consistency. On another note, it probably wouldn't cause stringing, but how's the crown?

Will check

Before bedding the forearm and lowering the value of your rifle, consider a rubber o-ring or two over the forearm lug. No change to the gun, no drop in value, and sometimes a bit of relief to remove uneven pressure on the barrel fixes the problem beautifully.

Kool. It's a rebore though so not a collector

Had one of those 60 years ago! Sumbeech wouldn't hit due east!!

I have been handloading for a Savage 99F in .358 for almost 40 years now.

When I started loading for the rifle, it belonged to one of my hunting mentors who didn't handload. He became very upset when Winchester dropped the 250-grain factory load, because he used it for hunting timber elk here in Montana, and the 200-grain load wasn't nearly as good. (In fact he said it sucked.) So I volunteered to load 250 Hornadys for him, and bought a set of RCBS .358 dies.

He also mentioned that accuracy wasn't so hot, especially after the first couple of shots, and I found that true, since they started climbing as the barrel warmed up.

I did a little work on the forend, but the best I could get out of the rifle was about 3" groups at 100 yards. He was ecstatic with that, since he only used the .358 in thick cover anyway, and he had a .270 for open country hunting.

He passed away 25 years ago and I inherited the .358. At that point I started experimenting with the forend bedding, relieving a few pressure points on the front of the action by carefully filing away the dark spots on the back of the forend. I also ended up doing a little epoxy bedding to prevent the forend from rocking.

(Probably should mention here that the forend and buttstock weren't original. He was an outfitter and not much of a rifle loony, and had beat the snot out of the rifle since he'd purchased it as a teenager in the mid-1950's. He eventually sent it back to Savage in the 1970's, and they reblued it, and replaced the wood with a shiny new forend and buttstock with impressed checkering. He was ecstatic, and then of course started beating it up again.)

By 1990 I'd learned more about handloading, and tested my loads for bullet run-out. They were pretty sad, and the problem was traced to the sizing die: Even with the expander/decapper rod removed, the necks of sized cases were WAY out alignment. So I replaced the dies with new Hornadys, and the problem went away.

Between the forend bedding and the new dies, the rifle started shooting into 1" to 1-1/2" at 100 yards, with a 3x scope and just about any handload.

I found out later that during the 1970's, when I bought the first dies, RCBS didn't use complete reamers for many sizing dies. Instead, if the case body was common to several cartridges, they just reamed out the body portion of dies, then drilled/reamed the neck portion separately. As a result, the neck of the sizing die was often slightly out of alignment with the body.

This also turned out to be the problem with a set of RCBS .338-06 dies I had, which were a custom order back when I purchased them from the factory in the late 1970's. RCBS quit making dies that way around 1980, but I don't buy used RCBS dies marked with any year in the 70's.

I need to go shoot something with his .358 this year, since I haven't for a while.

John,

I really enjoyed everyting Norm Strung wrote. Glad to hear you got his 358. who got his BAR in 270?

If you should ever part with Norm's 358,give me a chance at it.
I read both of you guys as a teenager and young adult and feel almost like I was there with you.

Thanks!

I think Dave Petzal got the BAR, but don't remember for sure.

Probably won't sell the .358, as if I ever fully retire the plan is to keep and hunt only with my "family" rifles. I figure all my big game hunting will be handled by my grandmother's Remington 722 in .257 Roberts, Norm's .358 and the 1884 trapdoor Springfield my father found in the attic of his fraternity house in college. The Marlin Model 81 .22 rifle I bought with my paper route money will handle the small game.

John, that's a pretty eclectic collection of guns! They are also very interesting. I'm sort-of the same way in that I like to experience different cartridges and rifle designs. I just read an article by Ross S. wherein he talks about hunting with guns that fit right and don't kick so hard as to distract the shooter away from good shot placement. I have a couple of those too, but a loony's life would be pretty boring if all the guns were the same. My latest 'experiment' is a Ruger #3 in 30 Army, and by all indications it is going to be a keeper, and one that fits right and feels good and shoots where intended. Would love to meet you and Eileen sometime.

For those of us that buy older, pre-owned, RCBS dies, that is good to know.

I remember when you posted previously about how RCBS use to two-step ream some of their dies, I went and checked dates on my RCBS collection. I found a set of .358 Win dies made in 1981 that I had never used. Curiosity piqued, I made some .358 cases from .308 brass, they came out very straight which is consistent with RCBS retooling around 1980 as you posted.