Just wondering how hard it would be for a smith, more specifically what kind of smith would I look for to rebarrell a savage 93r17
Tr with a nice Lija barrel in an attempt to gain more accuracey. I noticed the barrel appears to be pinned not threaded.
I do my own, so I'm sure any competent gunsmith can re-barrel a pinned rimfire receiver. I usually use gunsmith blanks from Green mountain which are very affordable and the accuracy is amazing. I doubt that premier barrel manufacturers would be worth the upgrade but to each his own.
Good Luck
Sweet. That sounds like a much better way to go. The name brand barrels cost almost as much as a new gun. Do you have pics of any of your builds in .17 .17 hmr? I just want a lil more accuracy than the factory barrel is offering. I can shoot in the .7s - .5s at 100y and 200y but not consistently. I've already glass bedded it just looking at options.
Savage makes some very accurate barrels. You might want to have a smith set back the barrel, re-chamber and re-crown. Production barrels and especially Savage barrels are usually very well done. Chambers and crowning are where production work suffers and smiths/ high end manufacturers shine. No doubt they make more accurate rifles but if they had to do it thousands at a time and do it within cost restraints you'd get the same product. People get lucky and their unit was first off with new tooling and everything running nominal in production. As they go forward in the run tooling, coolants, tolerances change and if you get the last one before they change up it might not be the best they can deliver. It is just the way it goes in the production world. Picture is a 22 magnum that is near featherweight profile. First pic is the most accurate 22 magnum I have ever seen. It is not great as a target gun as the slim barrel heats up quick. For 5 shots it is very impressive and I think I paid less than $50 with freight for the blank. The second picture is a 17HMR blank spinning that I did for the same rifle. Finished in Heavy Varmint contour and will shoot clover leafs at 175 yards if the wind is calm. Just something else to consider before investing in a new barrel. I am lucky that I get to skip the cost of a smith so to me it is a cheap investment with a little of my time.
I should also mention both are finished at 19.75" in length. I don't know if there is something to it or I got lucky but that length keeps producing rifles that make me smile when I shoot them.
Good Luck.
Very cool stuff. I plan on going with a 20" or doing like you say and recrowning even though it appears to be pretty good, carbon on the crown is super even. It has the factory 21" so would it be possible to get it received and threaded while I'm at it?
Sure, If you have a smith set it back and re-chamber, it will take roughly an inch of the overall length. This would be the time to have the barrel threaded as he will have it free from the receiver to chamber it on the lathe. On a factory barrel the bore to the OD are never perfectly symmetrical so they usually thread with a support (center) in the muzzle end to thread concentric to the bore and not the OD of the barrel. After this he will probably re-crown to clean up where the center was riding in the end of the bore. This is easy work for anyone with lathe knowledge, but the chamber cutting is why you are paying a gunsmith to do the work. Also you can choose from many chamber dimensions depending on the reamer used. I would (assume) "haha" that 17hmr has not developed as much attention to different reamer dimensions as 22LR has. 22lr is used in competition world wide and has had every gun guru in the world come up with a chamber dimension for improving accuracy. The 17HMR is inherently accurate and not a wide spread competition round, so I doubt this has got much attention.
Do you have any pics of the receiver end of the barrel?
This is the pencil profile original barrel
That looks about as plain as it can get. When you do your barrels do you just take the measurements off the old barrel or do you take new measurements off the receiver to make a better fit?
I always indicate the receiver in a jig to as true as i can get the thing to come in. I then dial the bolt face to see how out of square it is at lock up. If it is more than .0015 I will skim the bolt face back to true and re-indicate it. Once I am happy that the bolt face is running perpendicular to the receiver I make a light clean up pass in the bore of about .0002 radial until I get a nice clean bore. Sometimes 3 or four passes are required. When I clean the breach face of the new barrel, I put an oversized chamfer on the OD so it is not interrupted where my new bore and original meet with a small step. I then cut the shoulder on the barrel between a slip and interrupted fit. I have used several methods for keeping the barrel at headspace. Glue, re-pin, thread, and on one receiver I machine a small cone into the bottom of the barrel where the front receiver bolt lug screws in. I re-made a new lug with the matting male cone. I can back out the lug and pull the barrel free, insert another caliber barrel and re-install the lug and head space is set by the cone fit.
I wish I knew someone that lived close to me that would do this. I talked to a gunsmith here and he really didn't have any idea what he was doing, or so it seemed, with Savage rimfires.
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