Not bad for a quick and dirty low budget (Savage) project

Here's one of my quick and dirty budget Savages...

Picked up an older 110FP rifle with rough looking bore and a very bad duracoat job. Cleaned it up, shortened the barrel, adjusted the headspace. It looked a lot better and shot pretty well. Bed the plastic stock, better. Picked up a cheap used Choate stock....even better still.

Had some old primed LC brass someone gave me. Loaded Varget and 4064 in 24, 25, and 26 grain loads with 53 grain HP Sierras.

Bottom Line - 26 gr of Varget shot 0.5 MOA at 200 yards. 26 gr of 4064 shot 0.75 MOA at 200 yards. Want to try 52 gr Sierra HPBTs next.

[img width=600 height=400]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j86/AAnd1/110FP-223-2-1.jpg[/img]

[img width=600 height=400]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j86/AAnd1/110FP-223-Varget.jpg[/img]

[img width=337 height=450]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j86/AAnd1/110FP-223-4064.jpg[/img]

Would do better with a better scope. My old eyes needs better than the 10X I had laying around

Very nice, you should be proud and I'm currently using a mild budget build but I'm afraid with my new barrel I'm soon to order I will go over the 1k mark and no longer be budget.

Nice stick,
Merritt

Nice looking stick. In keeping with the budget concept, you should try loading some TAC. It's cheap, easy to find and groups just as well as Varget for me.

A basic loading question....

With a shortened 20" barrel, should you be able to, or need to add more powder to push the bullet the same speed as the tables call for?

If you go to a slightly faster burning powder you will not get much if any improvement with heavy bullets unless you plan to exceed safe pressure levels.

You might have some luck with lighter bullets, but they generally use a slightly faster burning powder anyway.

Great looking rifle. Good shooting.

Might want to switch bullets. Have never got the 53 gr bullets to shoot great..in anything.

Anything Berger makes will shoot great (or so it seems!). AMax, BT's, or BK's work well. 52 gr HPBT's from Speer, Sierra, or Hornady are always a "go to" bullet.

If your barrel is a 1:9 twist, the 69 gr HPBT's from Nosler or Sierra shoot lights out with H4895.