A few questions about my new model 10TR and about barrel break in

[RP12]

Which one of the fluted bolt bodies, the SSS "fishnet" or the PTG spiral? Do NOT get a straight flute, Savage found it grinds on the rounds below.

What length barrel did you get, the 20 or 25 inch ones?

Yes you will have to reset the head space, easy job with Go/NO Go gages and the Savage nut wrench.

A really cool tactical aluminum chassis would be cool, but won't make it shoot better.

You got a GREAT DEAL, enjoy them.

You can order the Tubbs finishing system could possibly help some. I just shot mine and cleaned every 20 rounds. Shoots 126, 147, 150, 155, 168, and 175 grain bullets ALL sub MOA. Really likes the 168 and 175 SMKs.
See above! I am not touching anything as it is perfect for me.

Not unless you want to shoot 0.19 MOA all the time. That is my best 4 shot group.

No you do "not" have to reset head space, if you only change the bolt body. If you send them out, just make sure you put the same bolt back in. Just match the serial #'s. Hence the reason they don't put the serial # on the rest of the bolt parts.

[J.Baker]

No you do "not" have to reset head space, if you only change the bolt body. If you send them out, just make sure you put the same bolt back in. Just match the serial #'s. Hence the reason they don't put the serial # on the rest of the bolt parts.

Whoa! That's some bad advice! If you don't think there are variances/tolerances in the lengths of bolt bodies you're gravely mistaken my friend. Contrary to popular belief we do not live in a perfect world and simply because parts are CNC machined does not mean they're all going to be identical.

Bolt bodies are made from long sticks of round tube stock using a Swiss CNC machine. They pretty much function like this...



It's not uncommon at all for the feed portion of the machine to slip a little, especially when you consider the steel tubing is smooth and often times will have some type of lubricant or coating on it to prevent corrosion. Factory bolt heads are made on the same type of machine.

I've personally seen bolt bodies that were as much a 0.35" short that Savage sent out to a retailer as replacement parts. Why would Savage send a defective part out? Simple, they didn't know it was defective because it had never been assembled into a complete bolt and tried in an action.

Savage bolt assemblies are put together in their own area of the factory. The assembled bolts are then mated up to an action that comes from another area of the factory. If an assembler tries a bolt in an action and it won't function properly they just set it aside and grab another bolt until they get one that works in that action. When the next action comes along they try that first bolt again. If it works great, if not they try another one. The process repeats until the end of the shift at which time they disassemble the ones that haven't fit into any action and take the parts back to the bolt assembly area where they'll go into a new assembly with some different parts and through the whole process again.

Pretty much all of the bolt parts are outsourced to various shops and holding a tight spec isn't real high on the priority list. The Savage was designed from it's inception to be very forgiving when it comes to tolerances.

This is why you ALWAYS need to recheck your headspace if you change either the bolt body or the bolt head. Nine times out of ten it will probably be fine, but there's always that 1 in 10 chance that your new part is out of spec enough to cause a problem. Always better to be safe than sorry.