Need suggestions: Action holes canted

[oltmann]

I have an older 10fp that has always given me fits when bedding it. For the first time I tried using longer bolts with the heads cut off as dowels to guide the action into the stock. At this point it was immediately obvious what the problem has been. The two action screw holes are canted as compared to the rest of the action. The ejection port, scope rail, and trigger are all true to one another. The action screws are canted about 5 degrees.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to fix this, or which of the fine savage 'smiths I should call to take this repair on? I contacted savage and they wanted me to send it in for evaluation. I don't want to send it out unless I'm assured it will be repaired and they couldn't tell me that. I have had the bottom of this action machined to accept AI AW mags, so I would rather not have to chuck it and start over.

One solution I see is to drill the factory holes out and tap for a slightly larger bolt. Does anyone have any experience with doing that sort of thing?

Thanks in advance.

[Uncle Jack]

How old is it? First thing I would do is call Savage customer service and explain the problem and find out if your rifle falls within the dates they now service.

uj

[oltmann]

Thanks Jack, It's one of the non-accutrigger, stagger feed, 10fp. Just after they switched from using long actions for everything, I think.

I contacted savage and they wanted me to send it in for evaluation. I don't want to send it out unless I'm assured it will be repaired and they couldn't tell me that.

[skoger]

Are you sure the recoil lug is not off center, maybe canting the action, I have seen this twice, just thought I would ask?

[oltmann]

Thanks for the idea, but I'm very sure it's the action screws. I will try to get a pic once I find my camera.

I'm leaning towards finding a local smith or machine shop that will index of the scope base, mill these holes out, and then thread for the next size up.

[BillPa]

Well, a couple ideas.

You could simply use larger screws, maybe 5/16-24 if the existing holes would clean up square.

Second, you could drill-tap the existing holes to a larger size, make some threaded inserts then Loctite them in then drill-tap then to 1/4-28. The only problem there, the inside of the action at those points are radiused ( bolt race, locking lug recess). You would want to radius them to match or leave them short and lose a thread or two so they won't interfere with the bolt or lugs. It wouldn't necessarily be a tough job, leave them a bit long, radius the ends, index them in the action then cut and finish them to the exterior of the action.

Third, when I install pillars I attach them to the action then glue them in. It compensates for any small alignment problems and insures things will match when it all goes together. Regardless if I install pillars or they were there already I always open them for screw shank clearance, I want the lug controlling the recoil not the screws so I give the shanks plenty of clearance, it one if the areas a nice tight precision fit can be and cause problems

In your case simply enlarging the holes may be enough. Who cares if there not 100% square? On Ruger 77s, the front screw is at 45 degree to the action.

Bill

[oltmann]

Bill, good options. Thanks for helping me think this through.

I'm leaning towards option #1. If the action is 3/16" thick(guess) I would be going from 5.25 to 4.5 threads engaged switching from 28 to 24 tpi. Other than that I don't see a down side.

Your second option is great for the case where option #1 goes poorly. I can think of a couple of ways to go about that sort of a fix.

I started to enlarge the holes in the stock pillars, it was going to be fairly extreme. I would also have to enlarge the holes through my new DBM, as well as either find a smaller button head screw, or enlarge the recess in the DBM where the cap head screw currently resides. At that point I stopped myself and said "why not try to fix what's really wrong, instead of dorking everything else up to match"

Now I just hope I don't screw everything up trying to fix it. 8)

[docsleepy]

OK, possibly dumb answer here.

If you use your current mounting holes, the bolt, recoil lug, and scope mounting holes are all off by 5 deg. As long as the bolt notch in the stock allows you to close it, that shouldn't matter. As long as there is enough room for the recoil lug, you're going to bed that so that won't matter either.

What causes the problem is the scope base, right? You end up with a scope that is off of vertical by 5 degrees.

Bases are cheaper than actions. If your receiver top (front and back) is round, couldyou not have new mounting holes in the BASE be drilled off center so that the scope ends up straight up? If the rear reciever is FLAT, yhou hve a bigger problem I guess, but perhaps a skilled facing of the bottom of that ring could accomplish the same offset, though depending on the style, you might have to work on the holes.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I sure would rather making a mistake on a base than the action. But I may be missing something.

[docsleepy]

Another crackpot idea.

If you want to simply correct the mounting holes' offset and still use all your other attachments (scope, etc) as you have, you could make threaded studs (cheap), put them in to the desired depth, mark where they exit the action and the stock, take out, bend as needed, cut to fit a nut where the head of the screw would have been, reinsert, locktite into the action, and put nuts on the bottom of the action (you may need to enlarge the cutouts in the stock or trigger guard.

On my action, that front action hole is right there under the lugs of the bolt and right in front of the receiver lugs. Machinist would need to be careful, especially when running a tap in.

On another thread, Nat Lambeth (I think) suggested a solution to a problem involving cutting a piece of chrome-moly steel to fit the existing hole, carefully (he explained how) welding it in, then redrilling and tapping with the normal 1/4-28. There was considerable skill needed for the welding part to avoid damage to the action, but he seemed to think he could do it if needed.

If you have the ability to just move the pillars around (put in new ones) and drill completely new holes that might be easier, if there is enough room between the stagger feed magazine and the lugs.

[PEI Rob]

If you use a normal tap and run it through the action screw holes, they will get larger and you will have lots of wiggle room.

[oltmann]

Doc, this is the older action with the flat stepped rear on the action. I like the idea of switching from bolts to studs, if I am not able to drill/tap to 5/16 I may do that.

Rob, this rifle sees kind of hard use, that may be getting harder. I don't want to introduce anything that could be a weakness, or in any way leave questions in my mind. Good shooting is a mental game after all.

Thanks again everybody.

[docsleepy]

The reason I know about the stud idea, is that somehow or another I damaged the threads in the front threaded hole in my savage 12FV action---that I was spending $$$ on to convert to 6PPC. Many people made great suggestions.

Hardware store black 1/4-28 bolts (mildest metal I could find) didn't have enough threads to make it all the way. Die $7, holder $11, and some lube and I cut additional threads. Then I screwed into action, measured exact legnth to just be flush or a bit less out the stock, and cut the stud. I had to ream out the existing countersink in the stock a bit as the nut is larger than the bolt head that was there before, but that wasn't hard. Your problem will be to do that as well on the front screw on the truigger guard--that may be more of a pain, and you may want to grind down the outside diameter of a nut and then grind some flats on it so it works better for your purpose.

I glued my stud in with epoxy once I had it right; you will need to bend yours CAREFLLY so you don't damage threads....maybe put lots of nuts on them (cheap) and chuck up in a vise etc. ONly need 5 degrees. Bend needs to be carefully positioned of course. Then screw the stud back in and position the angle in the stud appropriately. Locktite or epoxy would be needed or you won't be able to tighten the nut below, I think.

I ended up putting a neoprene washer under my nut because I had bedded the action and I just don't like how hard I was having to turn those nuts to keep them tight; there is no "give" in the devcon bedding, so any loss of tightness at ALL, and my action screws would get loose. With the neoprene washer (just 1) my action is nice and snug down in the bedding, and the nut has stayed tight since I did it (which was several weeks back, and about 50 6PPC shots, some highpower case expansion ones).

It is a kluge, but it saved me $325 for an action, or weeks to have a good gunsmith fix my error (I called around locally and they didn't seem to be up to that challenge locally), or $600 to get exactly the action I wanted from Savage with the holes where I wanted them.

The idea of holding action with so few threads just amazes me anyway. Some of the benchrest actions are FLAT on the bottom and I think most of them glue their action into the bedding (which we can't do because we need to get at that trigger assy and it won't come out through any hole in the bottom!) -- much more secure than a few threads. My stud is working great and I'm going to make a little cap to hide the nut. I'm in this to learn and have fun anyway, not to look pretty!

[no_name]

I don't want to send it out unless I'm assured it will be repaired and they couldn't tell me that. I have had the bottom of this action machined to accept AI AW mags, so I would rather not have to chuck it and start over.



OT but where oh where did you get that done? I am in dire need of finding someone capable of doing such work. TIA.

Bill

[Blue Avenger]

do not overlook metric as an oversize option

[oltmann]

CDI bottom metal works with the AI AW mags, and Jeff did the machine work on the action too. I believe I can also use AICS mags, but I haven't borrowed any to try yet.

doc, I am reluctant to convert to the stud idea because I have the CDI bottom metal and I don't want to damage it by trying to recess the nuts into the bottom metal.

I ordered drill bits and a tap for 5/16x24 last night. I should probably consider metric more seriously as well though, to get a finer thread. Going from 28 to 24 tpi will cost me about 15% thread engagement. On the front action screw there is already only 3 turns of engagement, that will go down to just over 2.5 with the 5/16x24 bolt. Now I am weighing the pros/cons of having 2.5 solid threads engaged, or retapping the hole with 1/4x28 and having 3 loosely fitting threads engaged. I may try re-tapping first just to see how it goes, then evaluate metric vs. 5/16x24.

[no_name]

Oltman,

Can you send me an email bulletbill@6x47lapua.com? I'd like to ask a few questions about Jeff's work. and I'd rather not clutter up your thread with OT stuff.

Thanks,
Bill

[oltmann]

No problem, email sent.

I just checked into metric options. The next size up commonly available from 1/4" is m8, which is just slightly finer threads(1mm pitch ~ 25.4tpi) and slightly larger diameter than 5/16".

[docsleepy]

Wish you luck whatever you do.

If you end up wanting to start all over, another possibility is to braze in a bit of metal and redrill and retap where you really wanted it. The fellow who suggested welding said to put wet clothes all over everywhere to avoid changing temper of remainder of metal.

Keep us informed how it goes!

[oltmann]

Update:

While waiting for the 5/16 tap and 'I' size drill bits I decided to try retapping the 1/4 threads. I trued up my drill press table to the spindle, chucked the tap in there, clamped the action to the drill press table with the scope base flat on the table. Then hand turned the tap into and out of both holes. Results are threads that are much looser, but straight. I re-assembled the rifle and they hold torque fine so far. I plan to use the gun fairly hard, so I hope this fix stands up over time. If not, I'll try the 5/16 option next time.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[PEI Rob]

I think you'll be glad you followed my suggestion. To make the best of this, make sure the screws are the proper length and not too short. They will hold just fine.