Is truing the action necessary?

[TonyBen]

Should I have my flat-back 110 receiver face trued while I'm overhauling it? I have a new NSS recoil lug and barrel nut. McMillan stock is ordered and a 5R rock barrel will be ordered next week.

I guess I can always do it later. This is for a hunting rifle and a casual range gun. How hard is it to do? One of my friends is a fantastic machinist.

Tony.

[FW Conch]

JMHO...With what you are using your rifle for, truing the action face on a lathe would not yield any noticeable improvement. All I have ever done in that department is run the face around on a nice flat new sharpening stone, to make sure there are no burs or high spots. That way I can apply my "OCD" in other areas I deem more deserving ;-)).

[geezerhood]

I have never had any of my Savage actions trued. My Pac-Nor and Hart barrels often shoot in the teens with said actions so I didn't see much point in it.

I like FW Conch's idea of deburring the face and will probably try that. I might use 800 grit wet-dry on a sheet of glass.

[Robinhood]

Being able to shoot tiny groups is not really the intent of truing on a Savage. Having predictable elevation and wind calls is the purpose. But truing the action is only part of that package. Anything that can influence the axis of the barrel bore is critical. Action threads and face, barrel threads, barrel nut threads and face, all must be concentric and perpendicular. A straight barrel bore and scope mount screw hole alignment. These mating surfaces and threads all need to be close in order to be able to make variable range first shot hits.

[geezerhood]

I find that once I have the scope zeroed, and a load that groups well, my elevation and windage adjustments are very predictable, very repeatable and very precise with a good scope, a bubble level and a solid mounting setup, I can get first shot hits at various distances out to 1500 yards. I don't see how a trued action would change that in any way. Please explain further.

An interesting 12 page long thread on this topic:

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/blueprinting-and-accuracy-improvement-any-proof.3744125/

[Robinhood]

I did not mean to imply that no savage could do that, however the laws of physics remain unchanged.

[geezerhood]

Robinhood - I wasn't saying I doubt what you said - What I meant is I don't understand how truing the action actually makes scope adjustments / first hit probability or whatever aspect of the game, more predictable / repeatable / precise for variable range first shot hits given the same repeatable accuracy of a given barrel / load. I figured that once you have the scope dialed in, nothing moving out of place on the barreled action, stock, scope or scope mounts, and you have the reticle plumbed to your bubble level, as long as you keep that sucker level, you were good to go whether the front of the action was trued or not.

[TonyBen]

Thanks for the replies! I'll skip the receiver face truing.

Tony.

[Robinhood]

I figured that once you have the scope dialed in, nothing moving out of place on the barreled action, stock, scope or scope mounts, and you have the reticle plumbed to your bubble level, as long as you keep that sucker level, you were good to go whether the front of the action was trued or not.

This is an assumption based on the belief that the scope and the barrel are in a parallel axis. If you have a barrel action junction that skews the barrel, then your assumption is incorrect.

[Kingair001]

Is there anyone who had his Savage action trued and is it shooting better now ?

And how much better ?

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[m12lrs]

There is a lot going on here.

When you thread your barrel into the receiver on a barrel with a shoulder the shoulder and face of the receiver make contact. Those mating surfaces need to have consistent bearing everywhere. Facing the receiver is only part of the.equation.

On a savage the barrel has no shoulder. The lock nut performs that function. You have the face of the nut, the face of the receiver, the receiver threads, the barrel threads and the.lock nut threads all trying to achieve this consistent bearing while keeping the.barrel bore in alignment with the action.

Now throw in the screws for the.scope mount which have.to be in the same plane as the barrel bore and you see how complicated this is.

Remarkable they do as well as they do. Todays CNC machines make it much easier.

[Kingair001]

@12lrs So is there any profit / gain in performance when trueing the action vs a standard Savage action ?

In my case I am thinking about the action of my Savage 12 LRP

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[bearcatrp]

Have been following this thread with great interests. Kudos to the folks taking the time to answer the question. I wondered this myself as I have 2 10T savage rifles. One, the 308 shoots so good i wouldn't want anything done to it, the other is the 6.5 creedmoor thats on its way back to savage. Serious accuracy issues. Here is my question to add to this thread. Is it worth it to have a rifle trued for the average shooter who's rifle is already shooting great? Or is this more toward a distance shooter trying to ring out every mm of accuracy? With the RPR coming out with there trued action, and now savage coming out with the stealth rifle trued and the ashberry coming in the fall, am just wondering if its worth spending more money on these rifles starting costs over a grand. Have only shot my 308 at 100 yards so far so it may be a tac driver there but when I get to try my luck next month at targets up to 1000 yards, may find out it sucks. Allot of variables come into play when shooting long distance. Is it the rifle, the weather or the person that could be the problem. I suppose truing a rifle could remove one of those variables.

[Kingair001]

I really would like to know if truing would make my Savage better !

The rifle shot 0.5 MOA when it was brand new
Actually I will check that again since I am mounting a new scope in the next weeks

I would really love to hear comments from someone who did it already and what his findings are

But not a comment like . . . 'it feels like' or 'I think' . . .

Has to be based on performance

What where the groups the rifle shot before and after truing the action ?

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[m12lrs]

If your rifle is shooting well I would leave it alone.

Remember truing an action entails a lot more than just truing the face of the receiver.

If you find that with a 100 yard zero at longer ranges say 600 yards your groups move left or right you could benefit from trueing. It also could be that the scope base screws are misaligned.

The savage action is unique in that the bolt floats and corrects itself for minor misalignment.

[Kingair001]

@m12lrs

I was just thinking to do the truing when changing the barrel

Actually I am thinking to start using it in Tactical Matches

It just needs a muzzle brake and modify my stock with an adjustable cheek rest
Other modification would be a BDM or use my Dark Eagle magazines

I just need to adjust my trigger back to 1.5 or 2.0 lbs so that the Accutrigger doesn't block when running the bolt fast and hard

The only big question mark I have is : how long will the Savage action last and how good will it survive this hard usage ?

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[Robinhood]

The savage action is unique in that the bolt floats and corrects itself for minor misalignment.

What does the floating bolt head actually do to improve accuracy?

[yobuck]

If your rifle is shooting well I would leave it alone.

Remember truing an action entails a lot more than just truing the face of the receiver.

If you find that with a 100 yard zero at longer ranges say 600 yards your groups move left or right you could benefit from trueing. It also could be that the scope base screws are misaligned.

The savage action is unique in that the bolt floats and corrects itself for minor misalignment.

You could also just make a sight correction and shoot again lol

[LoneWolf]

What does the floating bolt head actually do to improve accuracy?

When a round is chambered it for best accuracy it must be chambered concentric to the bore. If it is off be a fraction of a degree this can cause the bullet to start at a very slight angle and will not travel down the bore as intended. It will actually bounce from side to side down the barrel.

The floating bolt head allows for a little bit of wiggle room due to differences between actions and the barrel nut system since the threads, action face, recoil lug, and barrel nut are not perfectly tuned in to one another.

I'm not an expert, but I believe this could be a reason for the theory of bullets not going to "sleep" until they get out to 200-300yds.

Nowadays, the top level Gunsmith's in the industry are chambering barrels and matching them to actions on CNC ran programmable lathe's. This allows them to keep the tolerances extremely tight and concentric. This is why the top shooters in the PRS running their highend built customs can shoot almost Benchrest like groups from unorthodox positions. The rifles are built so accurately that they truly show off the skills of the shooters.

[yobuck]

Ive been hearing about bullets going to sleep for about 50 years.
I don't think anybody knew what it meant then, and I don't think much has changed.
Wake me up when somebody sets a record. Then wake me up again when they duplicate it.