Savage Barrel Crowns

Most of the barrel crowns on the Savages are decent, but I've seen more than a few a little off center and some that had the rifling messed up from the pilot used for the muzzle cutter.

Take a magnifying glass and closely look at the ring on the rifling, if it's uneven, just a little or a lot, it will hurt the accuracy. A factory crown can always be improved. If it's even, it will be good.

If you find this, it's time to have the muzzle re cut.
In my opinion, there is only one right way to get the best crown cut, that is using a PTG crowing tool.

It has pilots that fit snugly in the barrel and spin so the rifling is not hurt, the cutter cuts the crown all at once.

Single point crowning can do a good job, but will push a very little amount of metal into the bore, the PTG as it cuts all at once does not do this.
The barrel must be removed from the action and put in the lathe, centered off of the bore both in front and at the rear in the spider. This takes a 6 jaw chuck with each jaw independent of the other so that the bore can be dialed in perfect. The cutter is then held in the tailstock in a movable reamer cutter. This is the only way to get a perfect crown, other ways may be close, but this way is perfect. When done, the edge of the bore is so sharp, it can cut your finger, but it makes the gun shoot to maximum potential as far as the crown is concerned. If you want every last bit of accuracy, this is the way to cut the crown.

Many don't realize, but when it comes to accuracy, the crown is one of the most important things on the barrel for tight groups.
Protect the muzzle at all costs so it does not get damaged, especially when cleaning.

I clean from the breach and as soon as the jag exits the bore, before it's all the way out, I carefully unscrew it and remove it then guide the rod out of the bore. Seems anal, but if you want the crown to last, that is how you will do it.

Great Point. Stuff like this should becomepart of a larger Sticky Like in the faq's. For precision work holding I like the 3 or 6 jaw "Buck Chuck". Once the piece is secured using the scroll you use an allen wrench on the OD to indicate the part by shifting the centerline of the chuck. I have used these to indicate within .0001 or better...If you trust the test indicator that is.

They are great chucks, it was one of the first things I bought for my new lathe.

The wrist pin from a large diesel motor makes a great centering bar, then just buy a quality dial indicator and you can dial them in to very tight tollerences, far better than just using the stock 3 jaw chuck, even if you try shimming one or more of the jaws, never seems to work.

The importance of a concentic and well cut crown cannot be overlooked when going for the very best accuracy.
For a hunting rifle, a good crown is fine, for BR or long distance shooting, the slightest variation in the crown can win or loose a match.

My Best, John K

I will have to disagree with your post. I believe too much importance is placed on the crown with members of this site.
To start, I shoot both long range, (600 and 1000 yard.) and point blank (100-300 yards.) benchrest ,(NBRSA, and IBS with many different club matches, and the Kelby super shoots to add.) and have watched literally hundreds of top notch shooters clean their guns, and I can only remember one time ever seeing a person push a brush out the end of a barrel, and remove the brush before pulling the rod back in. (And that fellow was not all the competitive.) Just about every benchrest shooter I have even seen drags the brush back across the crown, and they go out and shoot tiny little groups.

To add to my argument in this past year Precision shooting magazine had an article about crowns.
http://precisionshooting.com/
In this article they used a rifle, and shot some small groups with it, as a base line, then they intentionally damaged the crown to see what would happen, they also re-crowned the barrel after each test verified its shooting, and re-damaged it again. In this article they took a air powder cut off wheel and ground a mark right across the crown, and shot it. They beat the crown up with a hammer, and then shot it, and they even took a hand drill and drilled 1/2 inch into the crown, and shot it. There test showed that out off all the test none of them had a significant affect on the accuracy of the rifle, in fact the gun shot groups about the same size every time.

To add more to my arguement, I was shooting a NBRSA match this fall and my rifle jumped out of the cleaning rest right onto the concreate, there was a big scratch across the crown from the concreate. My scope was trashed, I barrowed a scope off of another copetator, and to my suprise the gun shot as good as it ever did, the havy scratch had no affect on accuracy. I still shoot that barrel the way it is and it still shoots small groups. To prove more I have added some pictures of groups shot after the crown was scratched.
[img width=558 height=768]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/82boy/002.jpg[/img]
[img width=558 height=768]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/82boy/001.jpg[/img]
[img width=558 height=768]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/82boy/004.jpg[/img]
[img width=558 height=768]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/82boy/003.jpg[/img]

82boy,

So do you think with all that testing and your personal experience on barrel crowns, what are the chances that it's going to be the new "in" thing within the shooting world?

I mean if precision shooting magazine proves that the crown plays little in the accuracy of shooting groups, how long before the competitive guys show little interest in having a finely finished barrel and cut corners with their custom barrels?

I knew this would get good! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...corn-chair.gif

To each his own. My crown cut with the PTG cutter has a very sharp edge, that is the reason I remove anything that is on the rod, I don't want to wear, roll over or damage the crown.

If banging up a crown makes no difference, then maybe we should stop using bore guides, I mean who cares if you wear the leade, the rifling in the beginning of the barrel. Why not bend the barrel too.

You do as you wish, but my feeling is if there is a nick in the crown, the gasses are going to exit that small gap before the rest of the gas behind the bullet, possibly pushing the bullet slightly. I have not seen the test, but all my life, every gunsmith I know thinks a perfect crown is needed for best accuracy, I learned the same in gunsmithing school.

You can do as you wish, my crowns will be cut and made perfect. Your groups are excellent, who is to say they may not have been slightly better with a perfect crown.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...DSCF0427-3.jpg
This is picture of the crown on my H&R 5200, this is how I like my crowns to look and protect them at all costs. Every target rifle I have has this same crown. If they get damaged at all, I'll cut them back a hair. This is what I do, you can do as you wish. Perfection in a rifle is always what I have strived for. I think it not only makes the best shooting rifle possible, but also gives me confidence in my rifle. If my crown was damaged, every time I shot I'd be asking myself if the group would have been better if only I had fixed a damaged crown.

Was your crown scratched so that metal was removed from the edge of the bore or just scratched on the outside. If metal was gone from the bore, how much?

My 2 Cents.

My Best, John K

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dksac2

If banging up a crown makes no difference, then maybe we should stop using bore guides, I mean who cares if you wear the leade, the rifling in the beginning of the barrel. Why not bend the barrel too.
My Best, John K

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I never said anything about intentionally destroying our guns, and not using a bore guide would be intentional destroying a gun. Going further what a barrel look likes inside is no predictor to its accuracy. I have seen barrels that looked beautiful, and would be a dream, and they shoot like crap. I have seen barrels with wiped out throats, heavy fire cracking, and even to the point where there was nothing (No lands.) for 6 or more inches of the barrel, and they would shoot competitively. I am not advocating that we overlook the crown, but this business of removing a brush, and the crown is a delicate as spider web, or a crystal sculpture, or a flower is just absurd, a crown should be great, to give the barrel the best potential it can have. On bending barrels, top gunsmiths look for the natural bow in a barrel and will index that barrel to that bow, so with that said they are already bent from the start.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dksac2

Was your crown scratched so that metal was removed from the edge of the bore or just scratched on the outside. If metal was gone from the bore, how much?
My Best, John K

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I tried to take a few pictures of it, and I just can’t get the dang thing to turn out clear. Yes there is several scratches across the bore, and the edge of the barrel, they are maybe a few thousands thick. They will catch on a q-tip, and you can see them, and feel them when you run your finger over them. When the gun fell, it hit on concrete right on the end of the barrel,(Taking all most all the force.) then fell and chipped the heck out of the stock. This happened at the second round of 200 Yard part of the match, the third round I got a 10 inch penalty because I could not even hit the target, and the scope was trashed. The next round I borrowed a scope for another competitor. (Thanks Tim Humphreys.) And the gun when back to shooting like it was never hurt, shooting groups in the .3-.4 area. (Competitive.) These targets were from a match shot right after that with my other scope, at 100 yards.

Thanks for the info 82boy! M.L. McPherson might not like it though! ;D Below is a link to the article in the March issue of Precision Shooting Magazine. Bet they get some mail over that one.

http://dougsmessageboards.proboards....nt&thread=8020

Photo 3 is hurtful to look at! I mean daaaam that's some damage.

Contrary to popular belief, the factory crowns are not cut with a piloted tool. They are single point cut...I've seen it done with my own eyes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sharpshooter

Contrary to popular belief, the factory crowns are not cut with a piloted tool. They are single point cut...I've seen it done with my own eyes.

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;D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sharpshooter

Contrary to popular belief, the factory crowns are not cut with a piloted tool. They are single point cut...I've seen it done with my own eyes.

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Its funny you mention this, a great gun smith once told me to "never stick ANY piloted tool in the muzzel of the barrel," for any reason. I hold onto that like the gospile.

The Manson tool is significantly better and easier to use than the PTG crowning tool.

Kind of expensive but if you cut new crowns on all your barrels it will pay for itself pretty quickly. As for a new crown not making any difference, that might be true for some barrels but I have seen barrels that shot 1.5 MOA turn into sub 1/2 MOA guns with nothing more than cutting a new crown.

http://www.mansonreamers.com/PriceList.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xpzv1Spsnk

The artical on the damaged crowns was very interesting, but one thing you have to look at and it may or may not matter is that jacket bullets at high FPS are somewhat fluid as was said in the artical, lead 22 LR bullets are not, what ever shapes them the most, that is how they will stay, such as a tigh spot in the barrel, it will make the bullet smaller and it will stay smaller the rest of the way down the barrel.

There was a good artical where they showed some cheaper 22 pulled bullets that had a very small place or void where the lead did not totally fill the entire edge of the base, it was a very small void, but caused a flier every time.

This may be another case where a 22 LR is different than any other rifle, they are in more ways than one.

Jacketed and lead bullets are different in more than one way as how they act in the barrel of a gun, Just the way it is. Jacketed bullets are more forgiving of more problems than lead bullets are by a good margin sometimes.

I'd like to see the same test with a 22 LR, the author even mentioned that a lead 22 might be different, I am almost positive there would be quite a difference.

I also wonder why bullets from a fresh, good crown shot far worse than from a damaged one, maybe just not enough time to season the barrel, but that one made me wonder if the test was not right due to that factor, who knows. I think a lot more experimentation was needed before too many conclusions were drawn. On a subject like that, short tests are not the best, I would not totally believe all of that based on the little bit of testing done and starting with a beat up barrel on a rem. I would want a far more controlled test before I'd totally believe what was presented. That is the problem with many magazine articals, they have neither the time or money to do tests like that one correctly so at times, info can be way off. That said, it was very interesting to me.


As to pilots and hurting bores, I will not use a solid pilot in a bore, I know they can or will hurt the rifling, sometimes a very little, sometimes a lot.
The pilots with the rotating pilots do not seem to hurt the bore at all, should they, it would be so minor as to make no difference. A piloted tool will cut better than a non piloted tool, this is why chambers are off on most factory rifles, they are cut with non piloted cutters.

Chamber cutters are $40.00 with a solid pilot, just shy of $100.00 with a rotating pilot and a set of pilots for one caliber that covers most bore sizes is another $100.00 plus, it's worth the extra $60.00. I never owned a solid pilot, even if I had to eat the extra money it cost, my reputation was wotth the $60.00 to not give a customer a rifle back with a damaged barrel, even if slight, bore scopes show a lot, there is no getting away with sloppy work.

To the other poster, I have no doubt some crowns at factorys are single pointed, on lower priced rifles, you are far more likely to see a pilot on a bore cutter these days. I have seen damge from them in a few Savage rifles, but have no proof Savage uses piloted crown cutters, with what I saw and cost cutting measures, I very much doubt all muzzles are single pointed anymore.

My Best, John

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dksac2

A piloted tool will cut better than a non piloted tool, this is why chambers are off on most factory rifles, they are cut with non piloted cutters.



To the other poster, I have no doubt some crowns at factorys are single pointed, on lower priced rifles, you are far more likely to see a pilot on a bore cutter these days. I have seen damge from them in a few Savage rifles, but have no proof Savage uses piloted crown cutters, with what I saw and cost cutting measures, I very much doubt all muzzles are single pointed anymore.

My Best, John

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Do you actually know anything that is factual?