Oldie but goodie? Update to old Savage model 116 thread from 7 months ago.
Hello all! First off I'd like to apologize to Dave for not replying to your final posts on the thread I started in December 2022. I was using my phone to view and reply on the forum and didn't realize that eventually there will be a "next page". I thought I was beginning to repeat myself, or got annoying so I wasn't getting any more responses. All I needed to do was go to page 2 :crazy:. Thank you Dave and all for your insight. It helped me tremendously in my decision making while building this rifle. So I'd like to update on this build as its taken me 7 months to finally get to it, life gets in the way.
So I installed a well known quality scope with a well know 20 moa pic rail and a well known set of rings :p. Just a reminder, this is a Savage flat back model 116 chambered in 7 rem mag. Using some older posts on the forum I was able to deduce the rifle was manufactured in 1997. I purchased used and cheap, all stock with the silver Bushnell scope (now a paper weight), installed my goodies and finally went to the range. I bore sighted the rifle and started shooting using some old winchester super x 175 grain bullets that came with the gun. I know the rounds are old because the boxes have price stickers on them of $14.99. I was very quickly able to get the scope on paper at 100 yards and my best 3 shot group was about 1.25 moa using the old ammo. I was shooting off a stock mounted bipod and a squeeze bag at the rear.
I switched to the Hornady ELD-X ammo that I wanted to hunt with and began to try and zero the rifle with that ammo. I allowed the gun to cool after every 3 round group. The best group I could manage was about 2.5 moa, which isn't terrible but was hoping for better. I'm confident I'm not the problem as the older ammo had better groupings and I have shot sub-moa groups with sub-moa rifles in the past. So before I try a different ammo (I know I really need to reload my own for best results, and in time I plan to) I decided to dig into the gun a bit and see if I can find any issue.
The gun still has the factory milk jug stock. I know I know, that's likely the issue. I removed the stock and found along the left side of the barrel the stock has been contacting the barrel almost the full length of the stock. No doubt this is an issue. Now I've done some research and found some controversy here. This gun is light weight with a small sporter barrel (I don't know why I'm telling you this as if you don't already know). Some people say it's a bad idea to have a free-floating sporter barrel and to have a contact point at the end of the stock. This makes some sense to me, but also I think just like trying different ammo, you have to determine what works for you and your rifles harmonics.
Now obviously there is an issue with only left side stock to barrel contact, and I plan to fix. It appears to me this rifle is supposed to be free floated from factory, if not then my stock really has issues. I want to fix this stock and attempt to get closer to a 1 moa or better group, I will try different ammo if the stock contact doesn't fix the issue. Is there anything else you wonderful folks recommend I look at or try? I know I should ditch the stock but that's not in my budget right now. If I'm going to replace stock, I want to go with high dollar good quality.
