Resurrection of the Phoenix! - 308 Rebuild

[triehl27]

Well about a year ago, my buddy's shop burned. And up in the rafter ensconced in it's case was his Savage 308.

The stock was badly burned beyond saving, and the case foam had melted. The Fire Dept, pulled it from the fire, ripped open the case and made sure it was unloaded and the stock was put out, then it got dumped on the ground under foot and hose and water for two days.

In comes me. When it came to me it was a mess. The FD was able to bare hand the metal when it came out of the fire with the stock a flame so the action was ok it never got that hot or hotter then touchable.

But the foam had melted to the gun, and it had sat is char water for a couple of days. 10 hours of polishing, cleaning, remelting and cleaning old foam out the gun was again shootable minus the stock. Ordered a Ebay stock, wrong action holes. bought a second, wrong barrel cut, finally on the third it was perfect.

Put it back together, shot it, shot fine, just ugly as all hell. The blueing had come off where the foam had melted or rusted. THe bolt was brown from surface rust, the bolt handle was a melted foam mess.

So I rebuilt it,

Apache Gunworks 17' Match barrel,
Shooters Supply Recoil Lug,
Ebay synthetic stock
and a whole heaping load of cleaning and polishing, and fitting.

Today, it still shows some dings on the action, but it is once again together, and the barrel swap was the hardest part as it had rusted in. Took two guys and alot of torque to get it off. Now with 2 hours of retapping and cleaning out of the threads it is all back together, as test fired at the range into sub 1" at 100. Headspacing took one try came out perfect.

Pics are to come, but I am so excited I had to post this up before heading to work. Taking it with me to play with the god aweful trigger.

[din]

17 feet, huh? how do you get it to the range?

[triehl27]

17 feet, huh? how do you get it to the range?

Usually I just stick it out the sun roof. Then when I get to the range, you see I have this guy, he grabs one end and I grab the other. Then there is a wheeled canoe carrier I use by myself, and of course the 2 saw horses I put out in front of the bench to stabilize it.

I might have been off by one '

17.25" barrel

[bootsmcguire]

Glad its working out. You'll like that Apache Gun Works barrel. I had Jim make me my 6-WSM from a Green Mountain blank and it has been one of my best barrels so far. I've been very happy with his work.

Feel free to get us a range report.

[triehl27]

I just got to throw 6 rnds down the 100yds line today, just to make sure it didn't blow up. But I put 5 of the 6 in under an inch with my old 4X chief scope. Can't beat that!

And I just found a source for Sierra 168 match kings! YEAH!