Are Savage CF barrels made by Savage?

[nsaqam]

I am certain that Savage makes their own CF barrels in house at Savage.

I've seen pictures, read articles, and even read Savages ad copy that say that this is the case.

On another website, a guy is stating that Savage CF barrels are NOT made by Savage and instead are made FOR Savage by Douglas.

I've pointed him to the ad copy but since I have not actually been to the Savage factory I cannot state with 110% certainty that they are made in house.

Can someone here who has seen the process in person please confirm my belief about where Savage CF barrels are made?

Can someone point me to proff that this is indeed the case?

Thank you

[hotbrass]

Send Savage an email and ask them. They know better than anyone else.

[Uncle Jack]

They don't accept e-mails.

uj

[hotbrass]

They have a phone.

http://www.savagearms.com/customerservice/contact/

Imagine if the telephone had preceded the internet. It would be the greatest human achievement of all time! :D

[82boy]

Yes, Savage makes there own barrels. There is an article on this site, and I have seen video showing them making the barrels, the video was from one of the TV shows. The do every process from cutting the steel, to drilling the bore, button rifling, to contouring and straighting the barrels. On a Savage rifle the only parts that Savage makes is the action bolt, and the barrel, the rest of the parts are farmed out to other companies. If I remember right it only takes them something like 30 minutes to complete a barrel, It takes Douglass much longer.

If you look at a Douglass barrel and a Savage barrel with a bore scope there is no way in heck you could confuse the two, they look as different as night and day. Also if Douglass made there barrels the price would be much higher than they are now. If Douglass would make all of Savage barrels you would be looking at a long wait for a rifle, right now they around a few weeks wait on a blank. I also would say that Douglass doesn't have the capabilities to keep up with all the rifles that Savage makes in a year, on top of there other sales.

[82boy]

To add here is an article look at hte picture he is making a barrel at the savage plant.
http://savageaccuracy.com/2010/01/04...r-own-savages/

[82boy]

Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbPGT...eature=related

[nsaqam]

Thank you so much 82boy!!!

I knew they did but I couldn't find proof.

[Carvera]

So are all of Savage barrels, including centerfire, rimfire, etc... Unequivocally made in house?

Has Savage in the past had their barrels made by another company? If so, by who and why did they stop that practice if they did?

Would this be something that the people of Savage would want to disclose in the first place?

Just curious I guess.....

[oldguy]

I do know they just made a 223 heavy barrel for me SS,took a few weeks as they tool up for certain runs,
anyway once received it was perfect producing .500 groups or less.

[hotbrass]

So are all of Savage barrels, including centerfire, rimfire, etc... Unequivocally made in house?

Has Savage in the past had their barrels made by another company? If so, by who and why did they stop that practice if they did?

Would this be something that the people of Savage would want to disclose in the first place?

Just curious I guess.....

Just call and ask. They know and they will tell you.

[82boy]

So are all of Savage barrels, including centerfire, rimfire, etc... Unequivocally made in house?
Has Savage in the past had their barrels made by another company? If so, by who and why did they stop that practice if they did?
Would this be something that the people of Savage would want to disclose in the first place?
Just curious I guess.....

The rim fires are made in Canada, and as far as I know they are 100% made there. I have heard rumors that the rim fire operations are starting to move to the USA. Savage has always made there own centerfire barrels.

[Carvera]

Let me play devil's advocate, or conspiracy theorist.....

Say for instance that Savage decides they need a little help because they are getting extremely busy. They decide to have said "custom barrel company" use the same tooling, equipment, reamers, etc as Savage does at their factory (or something close enough to not be able to distinguish a difference).

Said "custom barrel company" cuts the steel the same, drills the bore the same, button rifle the barrels the same, and even contours and straightens the barrels just like Savage does. They then ship the barrels to Savage for final barrel stamping and installation. Would one be able to tell if the barrel was done at the Savage factory or not? With the success Savage is having right now, they could have a lucrative contract with said "custom barrel company" who in turn would obviously be tight lipped about it, (that is unless some worker were to leak out information).

I'm not saying, I'm just saying. Now don't go flaming me, I'm just having a little fun here.

You should hear me go off about the moon landing, aliens, and the Mayan calendar.

;D ;D

[Spade Cooley]

If it shoots well, I could care less who made it. I had an older Savage 110 in 223 that was junk. I got rid of it and I'm now putting together a 12 FV in 223. Lets hope I have better luck this time.

[82boy]

Carvera,
To start with, Savage is so efficient with there barrel making, I doubt they could ever get into a predicament like you described. Second, they have some very unique tooling that others have offered to buy, and Savage will not sell. This is going by what I been told by people that have toured the factory, and my contacts at Savage. I talked to my contact at Savage, and he explained to me that they could slow their machines down and make a barrel that is much smoother inside like a custom rifle, but he said that it would first slow down production, they would make less guns, second because of this, the price of the guns would go up, and third, 95% of the buyers would never notice a difference, and last, the barrels shoot dang good the way they are made.

Something else to consider is the SSN numbers on their guns, each letter in front of the number is stating a series of 1 million guns. For example A=1 million guns B= 1 million guns and so on. What letter are they one now? I believe it is G, so they have produces over 7 million guns, on their tooling. (I believe the numbers start from 1968, if so that is roughly around 171,000 guns a year.) Savage only works 2 shifts, and they have a couple of shut downs a year. (I also believe they have no production on holidays, or weekends.) If they needed to up their capacity all they would have to do is hire a third shift, and stop the shut downs.

I can only think of one company that would make barrel like you have mentioned and I been told that it is Keystone Sporting arms, the maker of the cricket. I have been told that they have supplied other firearms makers with barrels, and they have a process like Savage that is able to produce high volume numbers of barrels.

The problem with custom barrel makers is this they are making a top notch product. It takes Savage less than 30 minutes to make a barrel when it takes others a few hours to make a barrel. For the cost that it takes for Savage to produce a barrel, I doubt any barrel maker would be interested in making barrels to sell. Savage has special tooling to make the barrels fast, for the custom guys to speed up their operations like savage they would be tearing up tooling.

But going back to your question, if someone had the same tooling as Savage, and used the same process as Savage and used the same materials as savage, and made barrels would anyone notice? I would say in theory it should be the exact same barrel, but from my experience I have seen where companies have moved operations to Mexico or China, they are using the same everything, but I have noticed a difference in quality, it just is not the same. I would say it would be the same if Savage farmed the barrel operation out to another company. The difference falls in the hands and experience of the workers, and the inspectors, I would say there would be a difference. I would say that most likely the average person picking up a Savage rifle for the first time would not be able to tell, but someone that has worked on them, and knows then would easily be able to tell.

[Blue Avenger]

Let me play devil's advocate, or conspiracy theorist.....

Say for instance that Savage decides they need a little help because they are getting extremely busy. They decide to have said "custom barrel company" use the same tooling, equipment, reamers, etc as Savage does at their factory (or something close enough to not be able to distinguish a difference).

Said "custom barrel company" cuts the steel the same, drills the bore the same, button rifle the barrels the same, and even contours and straightens the barrels just like Savage does. They then ship the barrels to Savage for final barrel stamping and installation. Would one be able to tell if the barrel was done at the Savage factory or not? With the success Savage is having right now, they could have a lucrative contract with said "custom barrel company" who in turn would obviously be tight lipped about it, (that is unless some worker were to leak out information).

I'm not saying, I'm just saying. Now don't go flaming me, I'm just having a little fun here.

You should hear me go off about the moon landing, aliens, and the Mayan calendar.

;D ;D

have you seen the higher then normal helicopter activity over Springville? the satellites seem to be pointed that way a lot.

[BillPa]

Let me play devil's advocate, or conspiracy theorist.....

Say for instance that Savage decides they need a little help because they are getting extremely busy. They decide to have said "custom barrel company" use the same tooling, equipment, reamers, etc as Savage does at their factory (or something close enough to not be able to distinguish a difference).

Try running your moon shine through a stainless condenser instead of an old brass car radiator. Hear tell they leach off brass and lead that can cause one to see pretty colors, think they're Batman and conger up strange rifle barrel conspiracies.

Just say'n ! ;D

'ol ( hiccup) Bill

[sharpshooter]

Savage makes all their barrels at the Westfield plant, including the rimfires. When I talked to Al Kasper at the Shot show, he bragged about they made about 800 barrels a day. They even had other barrel makers wanting their tooling.

[Doogy]

great video, thanks for sharing! on a side note, I hear a tinge of an accent in the CEO's voice; Irish perhaps?

Nice to hear this much goes into the rifles, they truly make a great product; and it shows!

[McKinneyMike]

Sounds Irish to me.

Other than Americans, my favorite people on the planet are the Irish. Spent 1o days there with the wife there and outside of the US, have never encountered a nicer, more friendly bunch of people in my life. We went to Scotland the year after and it was night and day. The Scots were standoffish, sometimes down right rude on the whole. We did meet a few that were friendly and outgoing, but nowhere near the Irish. Not even close.
I felt as if I spent ten days with close family, regardless of whom you meet. We hated to leave and my wife has been making plans to retire there ever since :) If I had to leave the US, it would be my first place to want to live. Oh and it is simply beautiful on top of its great people :)
I am so thankful that in this day and age of exporting jobs, Savage is is still 100% American made. I would own nothing else these days.

[rjtfroggy]

82boy I believe they are up to the H's now.I also don't think any barrel maker out there could keep up with the demand or needs of Savage, and if they could the rest of their business would fall off the map. Look at the wait times for barrels from any of the makers, shortest 6 weeks out to 22 weeks. Savage does most custom orders with in 6 weeks and that is for a complete rifle.

[hotbrass]

What do Savage barrels cost compared to custom makers?

How does one buy a Savage barrel from Savage. I know we have vendors here, but they dont list what I want.

Thanks!

[82boy]

Savage will not sell a barrel outright, for exact cost of barrel call Savage.

Lets see something, The way Savage makes barrels all barrels start life in a heavy barrel format, the sporter barrels are turned down, which would increase the cost of the rifle. Retail price on a Stevens 200 (Savage without the fancy trigger) is $275- $300. At that price the gun has possibly gone through a retailer, and a wholesaler, with both adding on there mark up as well as Savage mark up, my best calculations are that cost is well under $200 bucks, that is for a complete rifle. My guess would be that the barrel cost maybe $25 to $50 bucks, cost would be lower on a varminter barrel.

Now look at custom barrel makers a Brux, Krieger, Bartline, unchambered barrel blank sells for just under $300 bucks. Shilen, Douglas, Pac nor, unchamberd blanks are not far behind the others in cost, either way it is much more than what Savage is making a complete rifle for. So either the barrel makers have unjustly high mark up, or it cost one heck of a lot more to manufacture.