Savage torque tuning questions

I recently put a new Boyd's stock on my Savage 12FV to see if I can squeeze some extra accuracy out of it. I'm planning to follow Stan Pate's idea but have a question regarding his article and my rifle's setup. I have 2 action screws, the rear holding the front of the trigger guard and then the rear trigger guard screw. For anyone who's done this, how tight do I need that rear trigger guard screw. will torquing it matter, or just "in" to hold the guard in place?

Should I just tighten that back screw in enough so it doesnt come out, then follow his plan with my 2 screw action?

You are correct.... The rear trigger guard screw serves no other purpose then to keep the trigger guard from flopping around... Just tighten it enough to keep the screw from backing out, otherwise you'll strip it out. The ones you need to torque are the front and rear "action screws"... since you put it in a Boyds stock, you will most likely need to pillar bed the action to get that extra accuracy you're looking for. I put the Priarie hunter on my 22-250 and it worked well for about 6 months... Then it started to get sloppy (lateral movement) which resulted in the need to pillar bed it....

Is this "lateral movement" a common issue with Boyd's stocks, or aftermarket stocks??

Ill be taking it out tomorrow to see how it does. 6 months would be fine since deer season is over end of November, lol. I'm hoping itll hold ok for a little while. I may pillar bed it over the winter though.

As for the test, I have both screws torqued to 30 in/lb right now. Sounds like I need to back off the rear one and go up from there. Will report back with results.

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Originally Posted by jpx2rk

Is this "lateral movement" a common issue with Boyd's stocks, or aftermarket stocks??

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Not sure if it's going to be every Boyd's or Laminate that will have that issue... My prairie hunter stock was for my axis, so that may be the reason I had to glass bed it... I found that the laminate compresses in the action screw area and I couldn't maintain consistent torque on the action, so the pillars took care of that issue, but then a little while later, I started to get the lateral movement as my groups would be 5 shots nice group and then shots 6-10 would move right about 1.5 inches. So, I glassed the bed which took care of that problem.

I have a Pro Varmint on my 260 which I built off the 11/111 action and all I've had to do to it so far is the pillars... Will see if that one needs to be glassed also down the road.

Ill keep my eye on it. about 50 shots on it today with no issues that I could tell. I'll take some pics of the targets later but got a good result from the test. Turns out 30-35 in/lb is where mine needs to be. Ill just keep an eye on it as hunting season approaches. Ill get the rifle out another time or two before the season I'm sure.