bad barrel on my 12fcv onyone seen this before?

[ringet421]

hey guys I am pretty new to this forum but have owned many savage rifles. my best was a stainless 223 that regularly shot 1" groups at 200 yards with hand loads. This gun was the most accurate of all my bolt guns so i thought why not upgrade to a 12 fcv 223. accu stock, heavy barrel, detachable mag, accu trigger and long barrel i thought i was going to have better luck and quality with this rifle at over twice the cost of my ss axis 223. but when i started developing a load i couldn't get the thing to group any better than 1.5" at 100 meters in no wind off the bench at my range. normally a shoot prone so i don't think there should be much difference in accuracy from the bench. Anyways i spent 280 rounds so far after break in (shoot & clean for 5, shoot 5 & clean for 5) still no matter what load i put through it including hornady superformance varmint nothing groups under 1" or even close. so after cleaning the bore completely i had a look down the bore with a light and found the last .5 " of bore was messed up. like lands tapper to almost smooth bore on one side. i thought wtf. thats the problem then upon futher inspection i saw what looks like a dent but it has tool marks in it. has anyone seen anything like this before?

here is a video of my findings have a look and see what i found:

http://youtu.be/ShghJddIy50

[earl39]

I would send it back to Savage. welcome to the Brotherhood.

[ringet421]

seriously so sad because after that axis i was a preacher for the savage ways no i have to shut up at the range. i was so pumped to get this rifle to. i have read about people getting bad rifles from every brand but thought thats bs. i guess i was wrong and hope it doesn't happen again. and ill make sure i take the time to really check the rifle out before i drop a grand on another. I talked to savage on the phone and they gave me a number to call and turns out its only a few hours drive from me so i might take it there in person and maybe get to see on an actual bore scope whats going on. i just don't wanna be out the cash if they say its fine but every rifle i own looks like i mirror when i do the same test. just hate for them to say nope all looks good and send me on my way. the guy at savage said to if the test fire it and get it under an inch for 3 shots its gonna be sent back to me untouched. i have had flukes that had 3 shots under an inch but like i said its not gonna happen all the time. my axis was almost always hitting the same hole at 100 just opening it up with every shot. now i wish i would have not sold that gem.

[devildogandboy]

yeah, I would send it back directly to Savage and not waste the time with your LGS. that's really piss poor QC and they should clamp down on that aspect of the manufacturing process! if we can see the defects without the specialized equipment they use then something is wrong somewhere!

Bruce

[ringet421]

ya thats what i thought. its too bad though i'll have to give them a call again and see if there is anything esle i can do. because i live in canada not sure about the rules in sending firearms across the Can/US boarder. if all else fails i'll get a gunsmith to cut 1.5" off the end.

[Vince]

There's a hard learned lesson in here.
If you have a rifle that shoots, your previous one, don't sell it come Hell or high water. In short, don't mess with them. I have a Ruger 30-06 that gives me 0.5" groups at 100 yards. My intention was to bed the action. After seeing how well it shot I elected to not touch it. Consistent half MOA hunting rifles, without a lot of gunsmithing, aren't that common. Better to leave well enough alone.
Good luck on getting your rifle right.

[Westcliffe01]

I suspect that the barrel was damaged by the use of a bore sighting device that has a mandrel which is slid into the bore. However, there have been many barrel quality issues with Savage rifles (and pretty much any factory rifles for that matter - Remington have some awful barrels and I got a lemon TC Icon also).

So the best advice I can give is to buy used rifles with the stock configuration / magazine you want and then drop $350 on a match prefit barrel. Pretty much guaranteed to be a better performing rifle than anything that comes out a factory for about the same money.