Quality Control and Customer Service 116 6.5x284

Shortly after Christmas I purchased a 116 Cabela’s Exclusive…In short it’s the 10 Predator in Matte finish and black accustock in 6.5x284 Norma. As a builder and gunsmith the first thing I did was pull the barrel action and looked everything over really good. Unfortunately I immediately found a problem. Inside the receiver I noticed a great big bur sticking up from the front stock bolt threaded hole….and a bunch of black junk in the recesses for the locking lugs. Initially I thought it was metal shavings from the manufacturing process…but upon looking at it closer it was found to be blasting media from making the outside a matte finish. I ran a tap and cleaned out the stock bolt hole…and sprayed out the lug recess. At this point I was disappointed in the quality control..it was an obvious oversight. I checked the locking lugs and found no damage…luckily as the gun had been fired at the factory. Side note…the barrel was extremely dirty for a new gun….and took much more cleaning then I’ve ever done on a new gun that I bought or sold to a customer…and yes I clean all the guns that come into the shop. But this was just the beginning of the issues. I go to mount the scope base and as standard practice clean out the tapped holes of oil/grease. In the front base hole I see similar material in the bottom jammed in the barrel threads that are visable. That makes me wonder if there is junk in the joint between the barrel and action threads….so off come the barrel…(keep in mind..brand new gun). Sure enough the threads were loaded down with blasting media debris. Cleaned it and reinstalled the barrel. Filed a complaint with Savage..of course they were on Christmas vacation till January 6th. I am in the process of getting to a remedy …I’m waiting on a reply at the moment after we have exchanged multiple emails.
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Picture 1 is the junk I poked out of the front base hole..after taking off the barrel.

At this time nothing seems to be damaged…I’ve only put 5 groups thru it since re-installing the barrel and it looks like the accuracy will be where it should be. But the aggravation of having to disassemble it and do what they should have done in the first place is troublesome. Luckily I have the tools and knowledge to do this myself…not all customers will have that option.

Normal. I have 5 savages and all they have the same thing. I never shoot a factory rifle before cleaning it though. They test fire, don't clean, and also use some sort of rust preventive oil crap.

In my case I just cleaned the rifles well, broke in the barrels, and never worried about it. While rebarreling I just break the nut loose enough to unscrew the action. I then clean the threads on the barrel and remove the nut, clean the front of the thread where the nut was, and clean the nut threads. All is good afterward usually.

BTW- you might want to pull the bolt apart. They use that crap in there too. It is like a brown oil residue. It works, just looks nasty.

My 12 LRP I got in December was the nastiest barreled gun I have ever bought. It shoots great though!