...and I am hooked on these stinkin guns now.

I have been watching you guys build badass custom Savages for a couple years now and I decided it was time to start on my own.

I bought a used Stevens 200 in .308 Winchester, Centerfeed. The guy I bought it from said it had about 5 rounds through it and after looking at it I had no reason to disagree, it looked brand new, inside and out.

When I got it home though, I found the trigger felt alarmingly light... After cycling the action a few times and working the safety on and off a couple of times... the firing pin fell. I was surprised. I have a pretty well trained booger hook, never in the trigger guard unless I want it to be, but I thought maybe I bumped the trigger. After messing around, I found that it would drop the pin if I: slammed the bolt, worked the safety on and off a few times, or even pull the trigger with the safety on... which resulted in a jammed up mess and I had to remove the trigger to get the bolt to unlock. Upon removal of the trigger, I found that it had had potentially the worst trigger job ever...

Dip**** had ground the hell out of it and the sear was engaging by about .002", instead of the recommended .015". Needless to say I had words with the seller, rather upset about being sold a dangerous gun that now I couldn't even shoot. I am not a patient man, I have never gotten a gun and not shot it within 12 hours of getting it. Finally, a week later he mailed me a brand new trigger, I guess he had one laying around. I swapped out the trigger... and abruptly figured out why he decided to take the other one to the grinder, it was awful. I took to polishing it with emery cloth and then some steel wool and then polishing compound and a buffer on a dremel. It got a bit better and I am living with it. This is a hunting gun so, until budget allows a new one, it is good enough.

Rambling on, I opted for the Weaver one piece 0 MOA base, and Burris XTR low rings. I had considered going with steel components but decided on aluminum for the weight and cost savings. I then ordered the Wheeler scope mounting kit. I installed the Weaver base and measured the run out at each end with a dial indicator to see how close a match it was to the receiver. With a touch less than .001" runout, I opted not to bed the base as I probably would have just made it worse. I installed the rings and lapped the tops and bottoms together to get 90% contact and to ensure they are perfectly in line. With that done I mounted up the scope, a Nikon Prostaff 4-12x40 that I already had on my other hunting rifle. It's not a Schmidt and Bender, but it has served me well, and I am ballin' on a budget... I stuck on a Harris bipod that I had and a scope level, and it really started to come together.