Model 11 308 sight-in issues

[RC20]

well, you paid more for a better rifle. You just happened to get a bad barrel, presumably. No reflection on the company or the model.

Hmmm, at the very least it does reflect on he company if its a crappy barrel. More money just makes it worse (if that's possible). As the model is an extension of the company and the barrels are common then no.

Have you thought about going into politics?

[RC20]

Cancelled

[bdz65]

I think my next move will be to eliminate the Nikon Monarch scope. I will swap the Leupold on my 270 to the 308 and try again.

[bdz65]

I removed the Nikon scope and removed the action from the accustock. After removing oil from the aluminum rail and a closer inspection I found some sort of what appeared to be adhesive and dirt adhered to the aluminum rail directly above the front action screw. Indeed when I cleaned the action I could see evidence of contact to the rail in all areas except at the front action screw. With acetone, some 400 grit sand paper with a block I managed to removed this stuff. I reassembled the action to the stock, made sure I had good contact with the recoil lug and torqued the screws to 40 inch-lb front and 20 inch-lb rear. To minimize the number of changes I reinstalled the Nikon and will try to get to the range later this week.

[bdz65]

I spent more time this evening looking at the action to aluminum rail fit of my gun. After placing lipstick on the aluminum rail and installing the action with 40 inch-lb on the front screw, I discovered that the action was not sitting on the bottom of the aluminum rail in the area of the front screw. Closer inspection revealed a ding on the side of the rail, which when removed enabled better contact with the rail bottom in a very, very small pad just behind front action screw. I worked on the aluminum rail bottom with 400 grit paper and a block and now have much better contact. It appears that I have a small area of contact between the bottom of the recoil lug and the bottom of the rail lug cut, this also is impeding good action to rail contact in the area of the front action screw. I may cut a .001" shim to place between the action and rail in the area of the front screw.

[bdz65]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

Did some more reading about the accustock and discovered the action should not contact the bottom of the rail @ the front action screw. So I re-installed the action torqueing the front screw to 35 in-lbs and the rear to 25 in-lbs. I then proceeded to remove the Nikon Monarch and installed a Leupold VX2 from my 270. I loaded 4 loads in .3 grain increments of H4895 and headed to the range to shoot a quick OCW test. At 42.4 grains the gun shot a .7" 3 shot group and at 42.7 grains it shot a .5" 3 shot group. The worst group of the night was at 42.1 grains @ 1.25" and was still equal to the best group ever shot with the Nikon on the gun. Finally I used the same bases and rings with the Leupold as used with the Nikon. If not the scope the only other possibility is the glob of adhesive like material found under the action in the area of the front action screw. This could have made the gun behave as though the action were torqued to contact the rail bottom.

[bdz65]

I reinstalled the Nikon scope headed to the range and shot 2 3-shot groups loaded at 42.7 grains. First group was 1.0" and second group was 1.25". Stringing was again horizontal, seems like the Nikon has a slight problem with holding zero.

[bdz65]

Before I called Nikon I made several more trips to the range with the Nikon and with the Leupold and was met with disappointment. I continue to get very erratic grouping and continue to find the front action screw loose. On my last outing groups started to scatter after about 7 shots, so I checked action screw torque only to find the front screw loose from 40 in-lbs. by 1/2 turn. After tightening the front action screw back to 40 in-lbs., my next shot was 3 inches, @ 100 yards, higher than the rest. The next 3 shots settled to be about 1" high of the group. After returning home I called Savage customer service to discuss whether or not the action should bottom to the rail at the front action screw and how to keep the front action screw tight. After discussing with their "Head Gunsmith" Savage now wants the gun back again, because they claim my gun is not right. This is getting really hard to swallow, I got the gun @ Christmas and by the end of July can still not get it to shoot 1/2 as well as my other Savages.