Thanks Members & Jim Briggs!
Over the past year I've read countless posts, collected a few project Savage rifles, and had fun sending Jim money. Jim was a man of his word on several counts. First he promised to always have more parts whenever I could find more money... true statement. He also promised, when I was ready, to walk me and a friend through changing my first barrel. He accomplished the latter in just a few minutes. Yes folks, it was just as easy as you all have said it would be. I purchased one of Jim's action wrenches and a barrel nut wrench and both worked flawlessly. He had told me, when I bought the tools, that his method of barrel changing was organized to suit a person living in an apartment without access to bench vise or much of anything else. My ex possesses the real estate and real property that would have held my bench vise so I was Jim's perfect audience. Same goes for most of my tools. The barrel change was a snap and due to all your posts, I had everything I needed laid out and ready to go.
My hands don't work the way they used to because of a disagreement I had with my dirt bike years ago. Together, however, a shooting friend and I managed quite well. The first tip Jim suggested saved our bacon. He told me to get 1 gallon Ziploc bag to use for removing the extractor, spring, & ball bearing from the bolt. We put the bolt in the bag prior to any attempts were made to remove the spring-loaded piece. Just as Jim predicted, having the bolt in the bag kept the ball bearing from blasting into orbit, never to be seen again.
The bag worked equally as well when it was time to reassemble the the extractor. Since neither one of us had ever uninstalled, let alone installed, a savage extractor, the bag saved us several more times when the little ball bearing tried to escape.
The second tip I'll pass on became necessary when we discovered the pin on my new ground recoil log wouldn't ride smoothly, or really at all, in the machined groove of my receiver face. Jim said not to worry and to just use my handy file to smooth off the insides of the groove. What file? A file wasn't on my list! Luckily my daughter had left a couple of Emory boards laying around. My buddy worked at smoothing things out for just a couple of minutes before the lug pin rode freely in the groove.
Our objective, successfully achieved, was to replace the factory sporter 270 barrel with a CBI stainless varmint contoured barrel chambered in 260 Remington. I had also found a used long action, staggered feed laminated BVSS stock for a good price online. My old actions screws worked well, and with a new metal trigger guard in place, all that needs to be done is a pillar bedding job. I bought some threaded lamp stock a while back and I look forward to a day, not too far in the future, when we can bed the rifle and head to the range.
Thank you all and I will be sure to put up pictures of targets & rifle a little later.
