Suspect bolt body.

I have 3 savages. Two 110's and an 11. One of the 110's (a G series, round action with accu-trigger) proved to be inconsistent and chronically inaccurate. After months of study, I noticed that the bolt on that gun may be the issue. I have swapped known good barrels, scopes, ammo, bolt heads, etc. When I swapped the bolt assembly for the other 110 ( an older F series) the gun shot markedly better. The suspect bolt when used in the other rifle had poor accuracy. I have found that the suspect bolt head wiggles noticably including the bolt head retaining pin. On the other 2 rifles the bolt head is held more rigidly with no wiggle.(By the way I checked the head space carefully on the bolts when swapping them)

The pins from all 3 rifles measure about the same, about 0.239/0.240. The suspect bolt's body thru hole has a noticably larger dimension. The good bolts measure 0.250/0.251. The suspect bolt through hole measures about 0.256. Also suspect is the distance of the bolt head thru hole to recoil lug but I have not studied that yet. I incorrect it could have caused battering of the bolt body thru hole.

Has anyone else had such an issue? Am I on the right track here? I don't know whether it is due to wear or had this fault from the factory. I bought the gun used over gunbroker. I have put about 1200 to 1300 rounds through it. I tried to use this action as a target rifle. I have never heard of wear in this area. A rifle like this should be good for tens of thousands of rounds without wear.

I met a gunsmith who argued that a Savage rifle could not be as accurate as a rifle with a fixed bolt head. He claimed that if the was any non centric alignment of the bolt head/bore that the harmonics of that interface would produce negative results. I’m not sure about that exactly. However, you might have a potential culprit with the bolt body cross pin. Not sure why that would be worn out as it should not see any pressures from the bolt head, that’s what the lug abutments in the receiver are for. That’s an odd problem.

Have you torn down the rifle where the bolt originated from to look at things a little closer? i.e. the lug abutments.

+1 on what Rusty says, "that is an odd problem".
My thoughts are maybe the crosspin can mis-align and cause a drag on the firing pin. A small change in lock time can correspond with shooter mechanics leaving undesirable results.
Just maybe!
Can you change just the bolt body? Might be worth a try. Haven't bought one lately but the last ones I bought were from SSS a few years ago. Give Lisa a call, I hope they still stock them.
Randy

Rusty, Yes I have examined the abutments carefully and replaced the bolt head itself with a spare. I don't think the pin is worn. I think the hole in the bolt body is worn or was oversized when made. A new bolt body and pin replacement is not that expensive. So that is my next step.

Just had a thought. If the rifle was dry fired frequently it might eventually “hammer” out the cross pin bore. I think usually the cross pin would bust before deforming the bolt body.

Still not sure why that would be detrimental to accuracy.

Perhaps in addition to being oversized the cross pin hole was not bored square to the bolt and is applying undue pressure to one side of the bolt head?

This post has me paranoid. I'm going to do some of the same swapping to see if anything comes of it. Thanks for posting this up.