Comments on: How I tune a Savage Receiver

By: Jim Courtney

Jim Courtney — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 01:08:11 +0000

Stan , have you done any work with the model 111 for accuracy I like mine
but I am having trouble getting a group smaller than 6 inch pie at 100 yards my 111 is chambered in 7mm rem. mag I am shooting a 9 1/2 rem. primer
56 grains of IMR4350, horandy 162 gr. bullet
I like the gun but I know it can do better than that. some one had told me it was the trigger pull that was the problem. every thing is all factory settings on the gun thanks for any help that you can give me

Jim

By: Patrick Cimo

Patrick Cimo — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:36:52 +0000

Dear Sirs:
I have acquired a new (2003-4 Manufacture) 10FP-LE2B in .308 Win. with McMillan A3 (?) Fiberglass Stock. What is the proper (factory) front & rear stock screw torque in inch lbs.?
The dealer I purchased this rifle from told me this stock would be even better with a glass bedding and/or pillar bedding job to action and action recoil lug area as it could then be ‘torqued up’ for more consistant accuracy.
Is this correct?
Many thanks,

Patrick Cimo
National Rifle Association – Benefactor Member
National Rifle Association – ILA Contributor
Police Marksman Association – Original Life Member
New York State Arms Collectors Assn.
New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:22:35 +0000

Hey Randy;
Are you gonig to be shooting at Chilliwak this Spring? For those of you who might be reading this, there is a match held at the Volks range in Chilliwack, BC. called the International Tactical Rifle Match ran by an amazing gentleman named Mike Cook. This is one of my all time favorite matches to attend, I will always to my best to be there, I encourage any who are interested in attending to do so. You will need to contact Mike to arrange the required paperwork before attempting to get your firearms across the border.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:19:08 +0000

Hey John;
I’ve been asked this question many times and I’ve talked with several folks that have tried bedding the recievers on the model 12. I tried it once as an experiment and my results weren’t terriable but my rifle actually shot better without the glass bedding. I have talked with a few gentlemen who said that they’ve had accuracy gains by doing this and believe me they are very good shooters so I absolutely believe them when they say something like that.

I have no interest in attempting this again for myself, obviously the rifles will shoot extremely well anyway, I just don’t see the need. If you try this, I’d really like to hear your results. Thanks.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:15:20 +0000

Hello Edward;
Good question, sometimes when you write an article it is easy to not be as clear as you should because you “live” the subject matter so you don’t think to mention all of the details, I did try. I never back off a torque setting to achieve another setting, I always “come up” to a torque setting from the low end. After torquing the two front screws on the model 12 reciever I then set the rear reciever screw at 5 inch pounds and worked up from there. On my rifle I actually found two torque settings for the rear reciever screw, one worked better with one load, and another setting worked better with the next load.
When I was doing the load development for the Worlds I had two loads that were shooting very well back to 1,000 yards so I tested the torque settings for each load. One load liked a torque setting of 30/30/15 inch pounds, and the other load liked as setting of 20/20/25 inch pounds. The load that liked the 30/30/25 inch pound setting used .3 grains less powder which kept me away from the jewel power limit that we had to careful of in England so I went that way, and it shot slightly better anyway. Hope this helps.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:07:01 +0000

Hello Remi;
I would expect this technique to work on the 17 HMR also just like the larger recievered rifles. The tuning of a reciever is actually done regularly on many brands of smallbore rifles that are used in smallbore competition. I was first introduced to tuning a reciever some time ago by a young gentleman torquing his .22 caliber rifle before practice. I wold recommend that you contact the factory about the feeding issue, I don’t have any experience with that particular rifle on this problem.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:02:50 +0000

Hello Michael;
Some of your questions I have answered in the response to Bill listed above. I do intend to test the torque settings vs. accuracy on the rifle I have and perhaps some others with the accustock that we may be testing for the factory as time goes on. My gut feeling is that these stocks have already captured the reciever so strongly that we might gain that small percentile of accuracy but the gains won’t be noticeable except to the target shooters among us. I’ll keep you posted.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:58:31 +0000

Hello Bill;
Your question about whether this technique will work on the Accustocked rifles is a good one and to be honest I haven’t tried played with it enough to find out. I have one of the BAT/S rifles and am currently working up loads for it, once I have a load that dependably shoots consistent groups then I start my torque testing. On a cautionary note, if you are going to attempt this I do believe that I’d leave the wedge screw alone, this is the very front screw that isn’t a reciver screw. I don’t think that I see any potential at this time for accuracy gains in adjusting this and some potential problems with over-torquing it. If you are going to do some testing with your rifle I’d love to hear what your results is. I can’t wait to see what kind of accuracy that we can get from these stocks.

By: Stan Pate

Stan Pate — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:52:42 +0000

Hey Mike;
I have to agree with you about both the affordability of Savage rifles and the extreme accuracy that they are capable of both in hunting and on the range. Savage is the only firearms company that we approached about shooting for them, Savage has always been an accurate rifle. Once Savage Arms developed the accutrigger they then evolved into the next level of potential accuracy.

By: Randy Willson

Randy Willson — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:01:47 +0000

Thanks for the information Stan. I have always just blindly followed the recommended torque specs, now you’ve given me something else for my bag of tricks.

Too bad you will be in Bisley during the Chilliwack BC match, I was looking forward to shooting next to you and Darrel again.