Tight neck ??'s

[750k2]

Are Savage actions true enough to take advantage of a tight neck?

[kweeks10045]

It is going to be a crap shoot. Certainly, brass prep is a worth while venture. What type of rifle are you shooting? One of the target rifles, LRPV, Low Profile, etc. would be the best candidate to turn necks on. Unless you are doing quite a bit of work on the rifle, it probably won't matter. What are you trying to accomplish or correct? An action that has been T&T'd with a match grade barrel, SSS or Rifle Basix trigger, a good stock, and some good glass would be a good start. If you are trying to go from .200" at 100 yards to .165" at 100 yards, by all means. Weigh and match bullets, weigh cases, turn necks, check runout, uniform flash holes, etc. If you are using a 7 mag. and trying to get better than 1.5" groups, there is probably other options that would produce more substantial results. Just my thoughts by the way. I have a number a Savage rifles, that are capable of sub 1" groups, and most of them have very little work done to the rifle. I handload for all of them, and the trick was load development. My 110 in 30-06 has the most work, recrowned the barrel, new SSS lug, metal trigger guard, bedded the action, and all it did was take out flyers. It does shoot three shots into 3/4" groups, but it would do that anyway. Now it doesn't have the ocassional flyer. My 221 fireball started life as a 223 Model 16. Set back the barrel and rechambered, that it. Shoots 1/2", five shot groups. Handloads were the key.

[750k2]

22BR - Doggin
Don't do much testing at 100 anymore all at 200.
Both my BVSS's run under MOA - Both .223's - Nosler 52 J4's in one and Berger 70 VLD's in the other.
Changing bolt face on one for the BR and need to cover the distance gap between my .223 and my
.243 95VLD poke and hope rig(Shoots lights out thanks to Darrel Holland and Kreiger)
Was just curious if it was worth anything to go tight over no turn.
Brass is pricey and tight avoids cracked necks a little longer.
Just wondering how the floating bolt head reacts as far as run out on fired rounds.
I guess I could go spin some of my brass on my gage but with factory bbl's wouldn't be able
to tell if it was the bolt or chamber causing any variation with out a chamber cast.

[82boy]

Are Savage actions true enough to take advantage of a tight neck?


To start, a Savage action will work with tight necks, not because the action is "true" but the bolt head floats to line everything up. Most Savage actions are warped do to the heat treating process that they undergo at the factory.

My question is, why would the state of the action have anything to do with the chamber of the barrel? In a tight neck chamber there is still a tolerance built in, for example if you have a 22BR with a 250 neck you don't fit your loaded ammo at 250, you would want your loaded ammo to measure at 248, now you have .002 gap. I guarantee that the shell has more wiggle room on the bolt head than that. Print speck on a 6BR case is .473, I measured some Lapua brass and I get .471. Savage is not known for tight tolerances, and there .473 bolt head will measure much bigger, some I have seen are at .480. Now you looking at somewhere around .009 wiggle room on the bolt head, not counting the amount of float in the bolt head. What ends up happening is the case floats in the bolt head to where it needs to be. Besides that if you set the head space of the barrel with fired brass, and then only size the brass .002 the sidewalls of the brass are going to guide the neck where it needs to be.

The way I see it the action has nothing to do with the chambering of the round. The chamber is responsible for the accuracy of a gun, and how the brass is fitted. Now I know we are not talking about a factory chambered barrel that is tight necked, but I have sen a lot of Savage barrels that had crocked chambers, not if you had a tight neck on that I would see a problem, but more than likely the brass would bend to fit the chamber. which would cause consintrisity problems. I would say that any tight neck would be on a properly cut barrel.