New to Savage guy seeks advice on 16 FSS .308

Hi,

great site, been lurking for a while and decided to jump in. I do shoot a 340 in .222 but I'm new to the larger Savage action.

I wanted a hunting weight rifle in .308, use will be mainly shooting off the bench but it might go hunting hogs or deer a few times. Mostly it will be shot off a front rest and rear bag, or offhand using cast bullets at a hundred yards or farther. For jacketed bullets 168 Match Kings and Hornady Match have worked well in another .308 and I want to try similar weight A-Max's.

Info found so far: stagger feed is more reliable than center feed, this rifle has stagger feed. Make sure the recoil lug seats well against the stock, bed if needed. Torque the action screws but I'm not sure how many inch pounds. Make sure the barrel floats freely and the tang does too. Adjust the Accu Trigger for bench/hunting use. I might break the barrel in with jacketed bullets in the usual accuracy rifle manner before shooting cast. Is there a better recoil pad?

OK, what am I overlooking? Any advice or comments on how to best get a sporter weight Savage to shoot well are welcome and much appreciated.

A couple comments: I've been wanting a Savage bolt gun since seeing those with the big screw knob on the back of the bolt. Those used older Savages are priced a lot higher at the local gunshows than a new Stevens 200 at a dealer. The Stevens 200 looks great but the ones I find for sale are center feed and aren't in .308. Then this 16 FSS turns up, it's the right caliber, has the right magazine and trigger and should be better for shooting in the blowing drizzle (bench or hunting) than the carbon steel Stevens 200. Drizzle: when you have to shoot, you have to shoot and besides it's better than shooting in the blowing sleet.

Again, I'm sure glad this forum and it's members are here, this is a great resource.

Actually, shoot enough cast bullet in your barrel and that will polish it for jacketed use.........will take a while though. You can also hand polish using Flitz but make sure you clean well with solvent to remove all the Flitz. J&B Bore Paste can also be used. Make sure your barrel is free floated clear back to the barrel nut. Even though your "tupperware" stock is pillar bedded, I would still glass bed the action. There's a wealth of information in the technical section but you must be a paid member (12/yr) to access it.

Before doing anything, shoot the rifle from the bench to see what kind of accuracy your getting out of the box. For scope mounting, I use the EGW Picatinney base, it solid and has enough adjustment points, you can easily get proper eye relief with the ocular especially with the latest shorter tube scopes. THe EGW can be ordered directly from their web site. There's a dirth of ring sets out there. My preference is for any of the windage adjustable rings so I can leave my internal windage adjustments alone when mounting the scope (Weaver, Millet, Burris, etc).

If your going to stay with a sporter weight barrel, and use the rifle for hunting, the Sierra match bullets will not perform on game as they were not meant to. The A-Max does do well on game and is extremely accurate. I don't believe I wouild waste the money on the factory "tupperware but, you can replace the recoil pad with a prefit Decelerator, your shoulder will than you for it. If It was me, and I knew the rifle shot well, I would replace the factory stock with a B&C Carbelite (glass bedded of course) or a Boyd laminate.

There's so much you can do with a Savage, I could go on and on. Become a paid member and read all the tech articles and decide what you want to do. Everyone here will help you when you run into problems.

OK, got the 16 FSS!

After cleaning, lubing the accutrigger and relieving the stock around the barrel and tang I put an old 6.5x20 scope on it and went off to the range. The cast bullet 100 yard groups seem to be 1.05" for five shots and in the .5's for the best four. 16.0 gr of 2400 worked great for 185 gr gas check bullets giving a velocity near 1600 fps. 27 gr of Varget did not work so well, accuracy was less and very hard grains of soot were left in the barrel after each shot.

Next is to get all five shots under an inch.

Thanks for the advice and help.

Mike

I have shot thousands of hard cast, .308 bullets with gas checks in .308 and .30-06. Cheap shooting and they are super accurate in my rifles. Not much recoil, great for youngsters to learn on and you can shoot all day without an aching shoulder. More shooters should try it, especially these days when everthing is getting so expensive. There is no substitute for trigger time, like any other sport, practice makes perfect and cast bullets lets you get in more of it. I have also shot thousands more of .45, .38 and 9MM pistol rounds and they helped me make master in bullseye pistol and practical pistol. Not as accurate as jacketed in .45 but in .38 and 9MM they seem to be.

El Lobo

"There is no substitute for trigger time."

No truer words were ever spoken!

Start at 14 grains with your 2400 and work up till your accuracy hits the sweet spot for your gun.

When you switch from cast to jacketed and vice versa be sure you clean the barrel to bare metal or you can end up with a mess (the copper will "tin" to the lead much like solder "tins" to the tip of a soldering iron).