Savage barrel and bolt question

[Rozicrc]

Hi
i bought a shaw rebarrel kit to swap the barrel in my savage 12 as it is at end of life. I understand how to swap the barrel and check headspace with the go and nogo Gage's. However I was wondering about two items.

first is the clearance from the bolt face to the front of the barrel. Is here a spec for this measurement? I recognize it would not be adjustable without cutting back the barrel or reaming and polishing the chamber, but wanted to check.

secondly what is the reason savage recommends to keep bolts matched to the gun? I am assuming it is headspace differences between rifles, but wanted to make sure.

thanks in advance!

[olddav]

The clearance will be established with the Go, No Go gauges, (assuming the barrel is chambered correctly)
You keep the bolt with the rifle because if you swap bolts you could/will change the headspace.
Also if you swap bolt heads you could/will change the headspace.

As always, I'm just guessing here!

[Robinhood]

first is the clearance from the bolt face to the front of the barrel. Is here a spec for this measurement? I recognize it would not be adjustable without cutting back the barrel or reaming and polishing the chamber, but wanted to check.

When the person chambers a barrel for a Savage, there is a dimension, lets call it protrusion that is targeted where the case sticks out of the barrel breach and it is around it should be around .125-.130. There are some bolt heads that require .140-.145 but I believe those are special bolt heads and only on one model the BA. If you measure the depth of your bolt head you will see that there is between .005 and .010 with some exceptions. There have been posters who had the bolt face rub the breech end of the barrel when setting head space. If you run across this just measure the two dimensions I mentioned to determine the fix. as long as your lug isn't .150 deep your probably good with increasing your protrusion to have .005-.010 clearance.

Edited: Here is a link to Jim Baker explaining what I said. His article was where i learned about the BA bolt heads.
http://www.savageshooters.com/conten...on&new_comment

[Rozicrc]

Thanks - exactly what I was looking for!

[RC20]

The clearance will be established with the Go, No Go gauges, (assuming the barrel is chambered correctly)
You keep the bolt with the rifle because if you swap bolts you could/will change the headspace.
Also if you swap bolt heads you could/will change the headspace.

As always, I'm just guessing here!

No, that's spot on for the basics. As noted it can get a bit more complicated but for by far the the most setups its correct.

Now take this for what its worth, my 1917 30-06 Mil surplus not only go past the no go, they almost go outside the filed reject range.

They wanted lots of extra space for battle goo. You don't want too much, but it is safer than too little. Not something I would push past no go as advice (and no need)

Ergo if the face of the bolt rubs that might be a fix or patch.