My Plain Jane Beat-Around Reliable Good Ol Huntin Rifle Upgrade Build

I received my .270 Savage 111 Pre-Accu Trigger as a gift from my father in 1999 when I was 13 years old. I've killed a bunch of mule deer with it and am getting set for my first elk hunt this fall. Unfortunately, I had a bad squib load while sighting it in for the elk loads and never did get the darn bullet out of there, but likely jacked the barrel up pretty bad in the process (here's the whole story: http://www.savageshooters.com/showth...!-Stuck-Bullet!). This will be the only mention of the stuck bullet incident, as that is now behind me and I don't want that bad mojo seeping into this happy joy joy thread.

While this rifle has always "got the job done," I have had my dislikes about it. The stock is so flimsy that you can actually see the forearm move around when you grab it. I had problems with the bolt not picking up the next round from the magazine, even when I was sure to cycle the bolt all the way to the rear. It had a crappy trigger. I upgraded the scope from the one that came with it, but didn't upgrade the rings and they looked like they were slipping a little. Finally, I was all set to hunt elk with Barnes 150gr TSX .270 rounds, but knew this was on the small end of the scale for elk calibers, so I would have felt more comfortable with a larger caliber.

A couple years ago the Timney triggers were on sale, so I bought one of those and took care of the crappy trigger problem. Now it's time to take care of the other dislikes I've had with the rifle. I wanted to keep it looking as close as possible to the original rifle as possible, since it does carry some sentimental value with it being a gift from my dad and all the deer I've killed with it. I also wanted to keep it relatively light since I hump this thing up and down a lot of mountains and canyons. I always liked that I could sling this rifle over my shoulder and climb up and down the canyons without having to worry about it getting dinged up, so my final objective was to keep it low maintenance and very durable.

Before:
*Edit: It weighed in at 8.2lbs.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7405/9...39dd9819_b.jpg
Only current upgrades are the Nikon 4.5-14x40 Buckmaster BDC (My FAVORITE scope- love this thing) and Timney trigger.

Stock rings were slipping a little:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5500/9...dc7a22f7_z.jpg

Here is a list of parts in the mail that I cannot wait to put together:
-Factory Sporter contour 30-06 blued barrel 22" and barrel wrench (going to use the original nut and lug)
-B&C Medalist Classic Stock- Black with Checkering
-Internal magazine, follower, and spring
-Talley Lightweight Two Piece bases with Integrated 1" Rings for FLAT rear receiver (screwed this up the first time)- Matte Low
-Metal Trigger Guard
-Matte Black Duracoat DIY non-bake kit
Edit* -NSS competition barrel nut and recoil lug

I plan to update this thread all the way through this season's deer and elk hunt. Stay tuned!

That is looking good. That stock is great.
The only things I would have done different:
I would have use Boyds for stock. Get either the classic or prairie hunter and bed it myself. That would have save you a bit over $100 so you could...
Got a 1 piece base and Warne Maxima rings.
I would consider replacing the recoil lug with a competition one. about $25. I believe for elk shots in the 300 yards will be possible and the stock lugs tend to bend. I seen it myself in my 30-06 gun and caused me many headaches.

Nothing wrong with what you are doing, I just think for a hunting gun I would be better with a stock that I would not mind bang a bit and use the money to make sure my optics are solid.

Good luck, let us know as you step thru the process of upgrades.

The lug bends during the install or under the pressure of shooting? What signs do you look for to determine if it's creating a problem? Thanks for the advice.

I strongly considered the Boyd's classic but wanted to keep it synthetic to match its original look and keep the weight down. I would've gone with a cheaper one but this was the only one I found that I liked the looks of. The carbelite wasn't in stock

Go with the ground recoil lug and precision barrel nut that Jim Briggs at Northland Shooting Supply carries. Great quality and will definitely help you keep everything stout and straight.

I cannot say I have ever seen a factory lug bend from use, but the factory lugs are stamped when they are made and as such are often warped and don't make good even contact with the stock. Replacing it with a good ground lug and a trued and squared barrel nut help keep the barrel straight against the action and the barreled action straight in the stock.

My lug was bent but to be honest I cant tell if it was due to the gun use or from factory. I did not knew much about gun other than the m16 then. It was visually bent, I did not need a straight edge to check that. Either way, it needed replacement. Not sure how much the barrel nut from Jim cost (I hope that dont read as bad as it sounded, lol) but I would thing both would be maybe around $50 combined? That is not much when you weight it against it all. Good thing is since your stock is aluminum bedded you could wait a bit before you get them both. Of course, you will have to head space again since the recoil from Jim is .240 or so which is about double what the stock lug is if I recall right.

I have a similar model in 30-06 that my dad gave me. When I changed out the barrel I noticed the lug was bent in it also. I did not have a new one around and put the new 260 barrel on with the bent lug. It is by far the best shooting gun I have even with the bent lug.

Alright alright alright you guys talked me into it. Just got off the phone with NSS and ordered the nut and lug. Since I'm going to be duracoating this thing I didn't want to get it all together and painted then have problems later. I hope to make this a one and done install. For a plain jane ol huntin rifle the bill sure is adding up fast! That's my own doing. I tend to go all out with every project I take on.

Question: When I install the new barrel, Jim recommended putting some sort of anti-seize on there and torquing it to 40-50ft-lbs. What do you guys use for the anti-seize? I was going to pick up some from the auto parts store but is there a certain kind you recommend? I used plain old grease for my AR barrel. I remember reading somewhere to stay away from anything with graphite in it, but isn't that one of the main ingredients in anti-seize?

Thanks again for your help!

A small tube of automotive anti seize will work just fine and will last you longer than you think. You don't need much. I have used it for many years on many things (cars, rifles, etc...) and never had any bad after effects.

This is happening!!!

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3820/9...563e28bd_b.jpg

Whoohoo! Keep us posted!!!

Cool, looking forward to your next post.
Who built your barrel?

I went with a factory 30-06 barrel. Got it on yesterday. Unfortunately, the NSS barrel lug wouldn't fit with my receiver. It looked like my receiver lug notch was a little bit deformed and the NSS lug just wouldn't fit in there right. The factory lug seemed to be in good shape with no excessive wear and no visible bending, so I went back to the original nut and lug.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2814/9...e48e5cda_b.jpg

The metal trigger guard from Brownells came into today, too. I'm not that impressed with it. It looks like it's made of some pretty cheap cast iron and the opening for the trigger is much wider than my original factory plastic trigger guard, so it won't help at all in limiting the side-to-side slop my current Timney trigger has. Based on the advice of others here, I plan on purchasing a set of feeler guage and making my own trigger shims to fix this issue with the trigger.

The stock should be getting delivered today. I'm pretty excited to finally get to see that in person after spending so much time (and spending so much money) shopping around for that.

Got the internal magazine parts. They weren't exactly right- the slots that go into the grooves on the receiver don't fit up quite right, then the bolt rides on the feed lips. I took a dremel to the feed lips and ground them down just a tad and it functions fine now.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7421/9...dde4f468_b.jpg

I also got the stock today. It is slightly heavier than the factory stock, but of course much more sturdy.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7451/9...e03a6b6f_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7402/9...51fe60e1_b.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/9...9df9440e_b.jpg

Everything fit into the stock nicely, including the metal trigger guard. The barrel floats pretty well and I don't think it'll require any extra sanding. I got the scope rings today too and mounted the scope, too. I'll take some pics of the final product when I have time to break out the DSLR. I'm leaning towards not doing the duracoat anymore since everything actually matches up pretty well. Originally I thought the barrel was going to be a different type of bluing than the receiver and was going to use the stainless nut & lug, but now that everything is pretty much the same color I'll probably pass on the duracoat until I get bored this winter and need something to do.

Now I just need some free time to take it to the range! Unfortunately that won't be happening this weekend. It's killing me not getting to shoot this thing yet!

Can you take a picture of the lug recess in the receiver? I know with my custom barrel nut, I had to file a little bit of the key (on the lug) to get it to fit into my receiver without issue. It sounds like you're handy with a Dremel.

I can see what appears to be a brass colored extractor on your bolt face. is that original?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by grizzly_a

Can you take a picture of the lug recess in the receiver? I know with my custom barrel nut, I had to file a little bit of the key (on the lug) to get it to fit into my receiver without issue. It sounds like you're handy with a Dremel.

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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7443/9...00a8cd62_b.jpg

If you look closely you can see how the receiver comes out a little bit right at the lug. Because of this deformation, the aftermarket lug just didn't fit in there quite right. The original one fit in there perfectly since they got deformed a little bit together, so I decided to stick with it.

Here's the rifle all put together:
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3683/9...3e98dc0c_b.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3745/9...868bd1f1_b.jpg
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5522/9...79ca7ab6_b.jpg
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5445/9...8325cddc_b.jpg

It now weighs in at 8.6lbs- it gained .4lbs total. I think most of this added weight came from the stock, which I am okay with because it is much sturdier now. I'm glad I decided to upgrade the trigger guard, too. I just can't imagine it with that plastic thing in there.

I will be taking her to the range tomorrow and posting another update!

Thats a fine looking rifle now Sir!

you must have got lucky to get the writing on the barrel to line up -when you were head spacing it
I have a 3006 sporter that lined up also with the new action-
its the only one that has -so far
sweeeeeet! looking rifle
thanks for sharing

Groups! Sorry for the delay... my computer took a crap.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7291/9...ae5fb146_c.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3811/9...48904a63_c.jpg
This is the one I'm going with for elk and mule deer too to keep it simple. Accubond bullets.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7383/9...fe490cb3_c.jpg
I'm not sure what happened with the flier here, but if you count it out to shooter error this is a darn good group for factory 30-06 barrel and factory ammo.

While shooting its first groups since all the upgrades, I ran into a pretty serious issue with the trigger mechanism. I would shoot and rack the next round in, but once I got the bolt locked down, the trigger would not be reset and the hammer would already be down.

It turned out the new stock was rubbing on the trigger mechanism. I removed a little bit of material from this area and everything works fine now. This is a Timney trigger.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5495/9...24c2b0b7_c.jpg
This is the part where the trigger was contacting the stock.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5470/9...1fde8ab2_c.jpg
Here you can see the lighter spot where I removed some material with the dremel so the trigger could function freely.

I have enjoyed this thread very much. I liked your premise: to make a custom rifle that resembles the original but nicer. The execution was elegant.

Thanks! Elk hunt in only a few weeks and deer hunt another two after that! I hope to post some pictures of dead animals to round out the thread.

Definitely would stay with the Hornady Whitetail ammunition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wbm

Definitely would stay with the Hornady Whitetail ammunition.

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I would, except they're 150gr and I want 180gr for elk. I'll probably go back to reloads next year.

I have the same stock on my 30/06, my accutrigger trigger contacted the same spot. I just took the dremal to the stock. I also had to shim my action up a little to float the tang.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RiverSink

I have the same stock on my 30/06, my accutrigger trigger contacted the same spot. I just took the dremal to the stock. I also had to shim my action up a little to float the tang.

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Good to know... It's a potentially dangerous issue with the stock tripping the trigger.

I'll have to take a look at my rear tang. Could you also remove some material to float the tang rather than shimming the receiver? I don't want to defeat the purpose of the full aluminum bedding block.

Yes you could do that, but some solid shims are not going to defeat the purpose of the block either.

If I'm seeing your scope rings setting into your base correctly, it doesn't look as though you are utilizing the recoil lugs built into the base. If in fact that is the case, I'd recommend you move things in order to be sure both front and back are in the lugs. You do have a cross-bolt on each ring base, right? Given your objective diameter, you probably will need to get the next higher rings in order to fit the scope properly without the objective hitting the scope while still allowing you proper eye relief for your intended shooting position. This may also require you to add a cheek riser to get your head in line properly.

Kudos to you for a well thought out upgrade path with good parts. Once you get it dialed in for you, it should provide years of solid shooting.

"The only thing new is the history you don't know."