My Savage MKII FV Boyd Stock Project

I wanted to have an inexpensive rifle to enjoy non-competitive precision shooting at the local rifle range. This particular weapon wouldn't be used for hunting or serious competition and I didn't want to spend a boat-load of money.

[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7468/...113d606023.jpgIMG_0023-Edit by Mozella55, on Flickr[/IMG]

I selected the bolt action Savage MKII FV .22 as a starting point. That's the version with the large varmint barrel, no sights, Accutrigger, and a cheap plastic stock. I got lucky with Christmas sales discounts, the Savage rebate program, and even a $5 transfer fee. I wound up paying only $165 by the time the gun got to my door.
I test fired the completely standard gun (plus scope) with the plastic stock and made 5 shot average groups of 0.920" at 50 yards using a variety of ordinary ammunition in order to establish a base line.

I bought a Boyd Barracuda laminated stock in some crazy colors and pillar bedded it using various Internet threads for inspiration and guidance. Because there is so little structure in the aggressively inletted stock, I bonded a long aluminum "C" channel inside the stock which ties both action screws together as well as the pillars. Conventional bedding finished the stock swap project.
[IMG]https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8622/...39d04d8876.jpgIMG_0009 by Mozella55, on Flickr[/IMG]
I added a Mueller 8.5x25-44 Scope, a Harris bipod, and (eventually) an Apachee trigger kit. The stock swap took about 3 days to complete and I'm quite satisfied with the results.
After bedding the Boyd stock, the 5 shot groups (standard Accutrigger) averaged .697", a reduction of .223". That's a significant improvement. Then, after installing the Apachee trigger kit, the 5 shot groups improved a further .060"; not a lot but definitely worth it.

It must be noted that my so-called "testing" is not entirely scientific. All shots were from a bench rest, but some shots were taken from sand bags and some from the bipod. Some groups were made in calm conditions and some during gusty winds over 10mph. Some were made with Remington Cyclone ammo and some with Eley Target (yellow box) ammo. Nevertheless, over several hundred rounds I think it's safe to say that the stock swap and bedding process produced a significant improvement. The slight improvement associated with the Apachee trigger kit and the resulting reduction in trigger pull is not very large, but I am confident that it is real in spite of the relatively small number of test rounds fired. It certainly is easier to make what feels like a "good" shot even though the standard Accutrigger is pretty darn nice right out of the box. I believe that over time the improvement attributable to the reduced trigger pull and very clean break of the Apachee trigger kit will be even greater.

I've been shooting for many years, but my interest in precision shooting with rim fire ammunition is new and I'm learning as I go . The trend I notice with the ordinary ammunition I've been using is that out of a 5 shot group, often times three of the shots will produce a nice tight group and one or both of the other rounds will more than double the size of the group. For example, if you pick the best three, a particular 5 shot group might be around .25" but counting all five will produce a group size of .6" or perhaps .9", or even worse. I did shoot one five shot group at 50 yards in which all five shots went into the same hole, producing a group of .109" which indicates that the gun is certainly capable of good accuracy if the ammo and the shooter are doing their parts.
[IMG]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7491/...a48faa18be.jpgIMG_0031-Edit by Mozella55, on Flickr[/IMG]

So I've just ordered a selection of high-end ammo, including some Eley Tenex, to see if I can solve the ammo consistency problem. I'd like to reliably shoot 5 shot groups of around .3" at 50 yards with hopes that I can occasionally shoot less than 1/4" groups. Perhaps that's overly optimistic. We'll see.

Mozella,

Nice job on your build and especially your bedding process. I used lamp rod to do mine and its holding well, but I really like what you did here. I'm thinking that I'll revisit my rifle in the future and copy your process. .223 is a significant improvement. Great job and nice looking rifle!

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Originally Posted by Ranger412

.......... snip ................ .223 is a significant improvement. Great job and nice looking rifle!

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Well, as I say, with such small samples to work with my data is naturally suspect. It's quite difficult for a casual shooter, like me, to be truly scientific about these things. You just can't do it with a couple of hours of range time, especially when you're gathering data on different days under different conditions. I didn't even consider wind, and that in itself casts serious doubts on the accuracy of my conclusions.

But in spite of all that, I'm firmly convinced that my modified Boyd stock is working better than the Savage plastic stock, even though I couldn't swear that the improvement is exactly .223".

The problem is that accuracy is like an addictive drug. Shooting cartridges costing a dime which produce the odd flyer (wrecking your otherwise good group) leads to buying cartridges costing a quarter in the hopes that accuracy, or more precisely "precision", will improve. Now, I'm looking into trying out some of the half-a-buck-a-round ammo.................. sigh.

Something else you might try, if you haven't yet, is to weight sort your rounds. Figure out what the average is and then divide them all into lots, using those only at or within a grain or so of your average for serious accuracy testing or use in matches. The remaining rounds are for plinking, sighting in, etc.

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Originally Posted by Ranger412

Something else you might try, if you haven't yet, is to weight sort your rounds........... snip .

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Well, I did just that and after some careful testing, mostly with Eley Target and Wolf Match Target, I'd say that if there was any improvement, it was very very small. I believe the any improvement was because the wind was dead calm when I tested the weight sorted ammo.

After that round of testing I purchased a rim measuring device and sorted both by weight and rim thickness. Again, although there was definite differences in weight and rim thickness, sorting by both of those factors didn't seem to offer a significant improvement; slight perhaps, but not large enough to make it worthwhile. The best I could say is that sorting "might" have reduced flyers when shooting the heaviest rounds, but I'm not yet convinced of that.

I purchased a decent rest and set of bags, and that helped a little bit. I've also experimented with various holding techniques, but the improvement in group size is very small.

I'll have to say that my initial enthusiasm might have been a bit too optimistic. I thought I was well on my way to making a genuine tack driver.

I'm carefully logging target data on days which have little or no wind and tracking performance in a Excel worksheet. So far I've measured and logged 1301 rounds of non-bulk ammo, mostly Eley Target and Wolf Match Target. Nearly every group consists of 5 shots and I used On-Target software to scan and score the groups. The average of all of them is 1.499 MOA (.785"@50yds). The best group is a very good .170MOA (.089"@50yds).

Unfortunately, when I average a card of 20 groups (20 targets) less than 10% are sub-MOA and half are worse than 1.35 MOA. Only about half the 20 target cards I shoot include a sub-MOA group.

I was hoping I could regularly shoot sub-MOA groups with only a few groups worse than that given no wind and moderate ammo. Interestingly, Eley Club shoots only slightly better and Eley Match shoots as bad as cheap bulk ammo in my gun.

A very experienced bench shooter, fresh off of shooting tiny groups with his Anschutz, tried my gun and didn't do nearly as well as I do. The same when I let the range safety officer, another very experienced bench shooter, have a go; he shot as bad as my worst efforts.

My latest effort was to replace the original factory stock, but that proved to shoot slightly worse than the Boyd's stock. I've also tried three different scopes and three sets of rings, with nothing to indicate that the scope or rings are defective.

At the moment, I'm waiting for a calm day and then I will try some Lapua Center X and some SK Lapua Rifle Match and see if that helps. I'd really like to have a gun I can honestly call sub-MOA. But I was hoping to drive the elusive 50 yard tack without using expensive ammo...................... sigh.