Savage 12 f/tr issues

[higginsdj]

Hmmmm. I Shot my Savage 12 f/tr in 308 yesterday after a 20 shot barrel breakin and could only manage 35 and 37 pts at 600 m. I shoot 50+ with my Omark 308 at 600 m so thus far I am unimpressed with it.....

I was getting a lot of what appeared to be wild fliers. 5 then a 1 then a 5 then a 1 then some 3's. Basically 3 distinct groups with no adjustment to the sights (high right 5's, high right 3's and high right 1's). The second string had only 2 distinct groups, high right 5's and high right 3's.

Could this be the need for further barrel breakin? I should point out that this is with factory ammo. I measured the Ogive and the factory ammo have the projectiles 10 thou into the lands (20 thou into the lands on the Omark)

Cheers

David

[RAVEN]

David factory ammo may or may not work well
I wouldn’t base the accuracy of F/TR on a few boxes of factory ammo
To get the best out of the savage tune a load for it or try different factory ammo until you get one with acceptable accuracy.
Talk to those that own one see what they did to get the rifle grouping.
RB

[bruce moulds]

david,
that sounds typical of scopes or bedding.
keep safe,
bruce.

[DannyS]

David,

How did it group during break -in? Ie at short range, have you changed anything since?

[higginsdj]

Still not at the reloading stage though I have most of what I need (except powder, my local supplier can't get any powder in at the moment)

I broke it in at 25m and my groups weren't great - a lot of variation vertically and horizontally BUT I wasn't trying to be too accurate since I was just breaking the barrel in.

I use the same scope on my Omark. So I will try the Omark next week and see if there is a problem with the scope. If it's bedding, I assume I will need a Gunsmith - so much for accuracy out of the box!

I only have access to one type of factory ammo at the moment.

OK, being a newbie I am aware that the rifle is not set up for me (I have to 'bunch up' to see through the scope and shoot it) I assume that this could be a contributing factor? (I have to do the same thing with the Omark so if this is an issue, it is obviously more forgiving)

Cheers

David

[slzagrodnik]

Seat Recoil Lug and Start with Front Action Screw(s)
On the model 12, I will first ensure that the recoil lug is seated securely against the stock by just lightly tightening up the front receiver screw then gently but firmly bumping the butt pad against the floor. Next I will tighten up the front two receiver screws to 30 inch-pounds starting at 20 inch-pounds and working up to the 30 inch-pounds in 5 inch-pound increments, and always tightening the front screw first and then the second screw. Once the front two receiver screws are torqued to the final torque setting, I will set the rear receiver screw to 5 inch-pounds and shoot a 5-shot group [to evaluate accuracy].

Increase Torque Incrementally on Rear Action Screw
After the group is shot and I am satisfied that I called all of the shots as good shots I will allow the rifle to cool off to about the temperature that the fist group was shot at. I will then add 5 inch-pounds to the rear receiver screw and shoot another five-shot group and allow the rifle to cool again. I repeat this process until I have tightened the rear receiver screw to 40 inch-pounds or have seen the groups get smaller and then start getting larger again. Once you have seen the groups decrease and then start to increase in size then you will have found the area of torque to work in. You can then can fine tune this to the exact inch-pound torque settings.

[slzagrodnik]

The Savage model 10 action, which has two receiver screws, uses the same process as the three-screw model 12. Measure your group sizes and place the measurements in front of you so that you can see the bell curve showing where your best groups were achieved. NOTE — there may be a better way of doing this and if you should Tuning a Model 10 with Two Receiver Screws
have one, I’d be very interested in hearing it. Good shooting and I hope to see you all on the range. – Stan Pate

This is on the Palma rifle using the torque settings of 30 inch pounds on the front two reciever screws, and 15 inch pounds on the tang screw, it is approximately 1/2″ center to center.
This is my second torque setting which for this rifle and this load is the optimal setting of 30 inch pounds on the front two reciever screws and 25 inch pounds on the tang screw, this group is approximately .180″ center to center.
This is the third torque setting which for this rifle is moving away from the optimal torque setting towards the heavy side of the scale. This torque setting results shows that you will usually see a “bell curve” of accuracy as you move into the optimal torque setting. This group is almost .7″ and the torque setting was 40 inch pounds.

February 15th, 2011
Tuning Savage Actions Using Action Screw Torque Settings
This article originally appeared in the SAVAGE ACCURACY Blog
Stan Pate is the Captain of Savage’s National Championship F-TR Team. In this article, Stan explains how to adjust the action-screw tension on a three-screw Savage target action to achieve the best accuracy. The procedure described here can be used for any Savage action, including the two-action-screw models. However, the optimal settings for each particular rifle may vary slightly.

[macguru]

My savage Palma was a similar rifle. The gunsmith who checked it over put a small wad of epoxy putty between the recoil lug and the bearing surface, and i always do up the screws to 40+ inch pounds - you can feel when its right, except the back one thats about 25inch pounds, but experiment.

Still the groups with the original barrel were crap until i started handloading and tuned it, then it all came together. So the short answer is you will not know where you are until you handload, and tune. The factories may have suited the omark but they are not working in the savage, and they didnt in mine either.

Andrew

[RAVEN]

David
Getting any rifle to shoot well even a full custom takes alot of tweaking
There maybe 1 in 100 rifle that will shoot great groups straight of the bat you are on a scale of 1-10 probably a 3 do some research ask questions
And I assure you you’ll enjoy the learning curve.
These rifles will shoot you just need to do the proper process.

slzagrodnik
Some good info there
Cheers
RB

[higginsdj]

Wow, never realised that was so important. I pulled the action out of the stock to adjust the accutrigger to the maximum weight (just over 1.5kg) as it was way too light out of the box then just screwed it back in just to hand tight. I'll need to get myself a torque wrench I think....

Cheers

David

[higginsdj]

Can anyone suggest a good torque wrench for this purpose (and where to get it from)

Cheers

David

[Quick]

A wheeler FAT wrench works well. Should be able to get it from shooters.com.au

[RAVEN]

Triple J has some

[macguru]

Remember its INCH POUNDS (not foot pounds) of course !!

[DannyS]

I've used a Warren & Brown Company, Model No 320300, for many years, don't know if they are still available.