Savage Axis heavy bolt lift fix-

Bought the wife a savage axis left hand .223. I put a EGW rail on top and she likes my tasco world class scope 3-9x.

First 60 rounds thru the rifle are outstandingly accurate. Recoil with 62 gr was manageable for her. 110lb pixie.
The thing she could not stand about the rifle was the bolt lift on cocking.

First day with new rifle. http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/...D9813163E5.jpg
There are no FAQ or fixes for that on the web:

DISCLAIMER!!!![
SO: I experimented. This fix worked for me.
DISCLAIMER!!

So I started by disassembling the bolt with a six mm hex wrench.
Push the cocking roller into the decock valley of the cam run.
This exposes the hex bolt cap of the bolt.
It was loc tighted -taps from a dead blow freed the keeper end of the bolt assembly.
Lift the bolt handle off the bolt.
Pour the main compression sping and separator washer into your hand.
Take a probe and push the cocking spring up the guide shaft of the pin. This will free the cocking roller.
Remove the roller.
Remove the pin assembly
Remove the cocking spring. It has a rat tail that acts as a cotter pin for the roller.

What I did to fix the heavy bolt lift problem-

I cut 1/2 of a coil off the top of the rat tailed cocking spring.
I then crushed the remaining exposed cut- in towards the shaft of the guide -so that the separator washer could not bind or slip between the now bare spring.
My logic being: that these are one size fits all springs, (.223-30.06) and I can get away with this on a .223 rifle. I left the mainspring alone as it has no bearing on the lift into the cocked detent.

I then polished the cam ramp on the bolt body and lightly reduced the locking peak of the cocked detent.
[url=http://s1201.photobucket.com/user/oneissuevoter/media/D3191E4F-2C92-44F1-91E1-4F802ECB10F3.jpg.html]

I reassembled, tested, and it worked. A noticeable lighter lift from the fired shot to the cocked position. And my pin strikes were just as deep.

http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/...802ECB10F3.jpg
http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/...94B6BFB185.jpg

http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/...6121CE628E.jpg

I have always disliked the bolt lift myself and I am curious as to what of some of the more experienced members have to say. I think you should move this thread into the savage axis section.

Great work btw!!

Cutting springs is not the best thing to do. You might get away with on a .223 but I would not recommend it.
By the way... you have very pretty wife.:eyebrows:

You're work on the cocking ramp is what reduced the cocking effort, not the clipping of the spring. It's a timing issue and it's present on all Savage centerfires be it an Axis or 110-series. As Fred noted, it's not recommended to trim the firing pin spring as doing so can easily lead to ignition issues.

Range report - works perfectly

Btw- the lift being reduced did not occur till after the cocking spring was reduced. The polish made it smooth. I had to go back in, and clip the cocking spring to get my desired result.

I did not clip the FP spring.
Deliberate reduction of the cocking spring only - to preserve the FP springs tension.

Honestly -- I never noticed heavy bolt lift in Savage rifles until I read about it on this forum. It's still a non-issue, to me.

I don't know what you are calling the "cocking spring" in this situation,....all of the springs work as one unit. Clipping one still reduces the free length and the spring force.

Happy wife

Happy LIFE.



Snipe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pitsnipe

Happy wife

Happy LIFE.



Snipe

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:amen:

The cocking spring is the first spring encountered by cam roller. It has a rat tail that acts as a retainer for the roller.



When talking about springs you need to realize two things.

1) compression weight

2) length of the spring.



The firing pin has two springs one is a heavy flat ended coil, the other is a light flat sided rat tailed.



The lighter spring that is compressed, to climb the ramp, is the one you "feel" when lifting the bolt. It is not a critical impact generator for the pin. Its sole purpose is to allow for a specified building in compression up that cocking ramp. That way you don't feel the weight of the main compression spring until near full lift- when you have the greatest leverage.



My fix alters the weight of the initial lift into leverage. Not the length of the final stack. Then the polishing of the ramp pays off.

Shortening the spring has to change the tension of the final stack. The only thing that separates the two springs in the system is the floating washer .

http://s20.postimg.org/o9udkz6r1/DSCN2367.jpg

For what it's worth to y'all....

I disassembled all bolts - Axis and 110's - and dressed the cocking ramp(s) up with a fine stone on my Dremel. I polished & cleaned them up as much as I could then, 400 and 600 wet / dry paper. Final polishing was with crocus cloth.
I noticed on one of the bolts the ramp looked like a rough washboard causing it to have a real rough feel when chambering. After all the polishing it reduced the lift considerably and made them nice & smooth.
Even my loving wife who hated the heavy bolt lift commented they felt much better. (and there's not much that makes her happy...)

While I had them apart, I recalled reading a few stories about guys cutting the spring in hope of reducing the heavy lift. I recall one story where someone cut 3 loops off the spring. I considered it but didn't want to take the chance of causing myself a new headache. I was pretty happy with the results of the cleaning up and polishing I did. The "washboard" I mention was noticed on 3 bolts. One was pretty bad. The other 4 were ok.

Seems I recall a lengthy discussion about the amount of spring pressure required and some technical info about the "whys & hows" of Savage firing pin spring tension. I believe it was from one of our elders here - (Jim? - sharpshooter?).
Maybe one of youse guys can dig it up to shed a little more light on the subject? I found it to be very useful and recalling what I read in that piece is what kept me from cutting the springs on my stuff.
For what it's worth to ya...

Holy smokes,after reading your post, I'm too tired to look up anything.

And I whipped that out at 0630.
Sharp as a tack first thing in the morning, I tell ya.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oneissuevoter

The cocking spring is the first spring encountered by cam roller. It has a rat tail that acts as a retainer for the roller.



When talking about springs you need to realize two things.

1) compression weight

2) length of the spring.



The firing pin has two springs one is a heavy flat ended coil, the other is a light flat sided rat tailed.



The lighter spring that is compressed, to climb the ramp, is the one you "feel" when lifting the bolt. It is not a critical impact generator for the pin. Its sole purpose is to allow for a specified building in compression up that cocking ramp. That way you don't feel the weight of the main compression spring until near full lift- when you have the greatest leverage.



My fix alters the weight of the initial lift into leverage. Not the length of the final stack. Then the polishing of the ramp pays off.

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No disrespect, but you have no clue of what you are talking about. Makes no difference if you have one spring, or five in a stack, they will all work together as one. The original springs in the Edge/Axis were 1 piece with the tail to retain the cocking piece pin. This single spring presented a problem because it could not rotate against the bolt assembly screw without "unwinding" and causing the bolt to lift after it was closed. The spring was then split and a ring washer was added as a bearing to facilitate rotation. The single spring version and the 3 piece version still have the same compression force. When fully cocked it emits 25lbs, when in the fired position, it is 15 lbs. In comparison to the standard spring set up in a model 10, it is 25 lbs cocked and 20 lbs in the fired position. The big difference from fired to cocked, is the free length of the spring, which will determine the spring rate. The model 10 spring is almost twice as long as an Axis spring combo.
You can still get reliable ignition from less than 25 lbs, but that's not the biggest issue. The big issue is having enough force left when fired to support the primer cup where the firing pin dented it. Upon firing there is about 60,000 psi trying to excape in any direction it can, and without something to re-inforce that little stretched out copper dimple in the primer, it will blank, sending gas through the bolt.
The tests that I have conducted showed that the .223 was the least suseptible to blanking primers in a situation like this, but anything with a large rifle primer blanked a primer everytime.

Oneissuevoter, I would strongly encourage you to take sharpshooter's advice and expertise seriously. Fred is a Savage Guru. Perhaps THE foremost expert on / gunsmith of Savage rifles. The problem you are trying to solve is not new. Solving it and altering spring tension has been attempted many times by many different people of various levels of expertise. Whatever the issue, and this one in particular, if Fred says he has tried and tested your solution before, and can explain his concerns with it, you'd better believe they're factual.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fgw_in_fla

And I whipped that out at 0630.
Sharp as a tack first thing in the morning, I tell ya.

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You did good ! My mind was still reeling from it most of the afternoon while trying to keep my occupied on something other than the boring repetition of bending the same sheet metal parts for the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes it's like watching the toaster for the toast to pop up. Now I wonder if anyone flinches when their toast pops up ?Thanks !

Yes- do not do this mod if you have anything other than a .223 savage axis.

But I challenge anyone who has a .223 axis and an extra spring to test against to verify the lift differential.

Tell ya what - whose got a Rat tailed spring they will sell me? I'll measure the weights : Before and After. On this rifle and in this thread.

Ok, I just picked up an axis xp 30-06 today and my biggest beef is the way the bolt is very tough to unlock. My initial gut feeling was to polish this "cam ramp" part of the bolt. And my research on this process led me here. The OP so kindly drew a picture for us, and I am just wondering if this is a safe thing to do? Anything that I need to watch out for (besides getting carried away)? I do not plan on cutting the springs, just cleaning up and polishing the cam ramp as show below.

http://i1257.photobucket.com/albums/...ps840535eb.jpg

Quote:

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The OP so kindly drew a picture for us, and I am just wondering if this is a safe thing to do?

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Polishing the ramp and even the cocking roller is perfectly safe... so long as you don't go crazy with it. Honestly, you're not gonna remove enough metal from simply polishing to make the bolt unsafe from this.

Anyway... I tried this with a couple of my rifles and honestly could never tell a phenomenal difference with any but 1 of them. One of them was especially bad and a polish (along with a little bit of grease applied to the ramp and cocking roller) made a huge difference. Don't expect a miracle.

now i'm interested in the ramp mod alone,perhaps a slight reshape and polish would work well?
any other views on this?

So I just got my Axis in 22-250 and the bolt lift is quite heavy. What all options do I have to reduce the lift weight?

Not a whole heck of a lot. The most sure-fire solution is to get a TTT job from SSS or another smith. The next best solution would be to polish the cocking ramp. Really that just smoothes the cocking action, but I find that a smoother bolt lift feels lighter. Carefully adjusting the geometry of the surfaces, the way a knowledgeable gunsmith does, is the way to decrease the amount of effort it takes to open the bolt.

A longer bolt handle will help

I emailed sss today. Hopefully I will hear back from soon! I am looking at the Glades bolt handles.

If Fred can work you in, he's the best. I would not send it anywhere else.

I like Glades' bolt handles, too.

Ive noticed it when my 243 was new and thought it was just the bolt lugs....cycled the bolt a few hundred times and 500 rounds later it's smooth.