Does a aftermarket recoil lug make that much difference in accuracy in a model 10 fcp-sr.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you use both a trued lug, a trued barrel nut, and true the receiver the barrel will be mounted straight and therefore everything will line up better. This is not so important on a regular old deer gun, but the more precise you want the rifle to be, especially at distance, it really starts to matter.
Absolutely, the factory recoil lug is stamped by a pig punch press. The result is a piece of metal that in no way is close to being flat. The two sides of a recoil lug need to be parallel as they it is sandwiched between the lug nut and action face. I have ground factory recoil lugs and I can tell you that precision or parallel does not come close to describing a factory recoil lug.Originally Posted by LoneWolf
The Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and well.
I'm not a competition shooter and I am far from knowing everything there is to know about such matters, but as a Savage tinkerer and a grumpy old man that's been around the block at least once I have found that a properly bedded factory recoil lug in good condition will hold everything where it's supposed to be, transfer the recoil evenly to the stock and is quite sufficient for my needs.
This opinion is worth exactly what you paid to read it.
A good wife and a steady job has ruined many a great hunter.
I would only change the recoil lug out if I'm swapping the barrel. I would only upgrade the barrel nut if I had a smooth barrel and I was going to setup the rifle for swapping the barrels. (I hate the smooth barrel nut). Otherwise, I wouldn't lose any sleep over a factory lug or barrel nut.
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
I got one for the first build.
Used the factory on the other two, though I checked them.
The Savage ones were quite uniform.
If you shoot 1s to 3s maybe, I don't think with my shooting 3s to 6s it makes any difference.
As noted above, its my opinion and take it for what its worth.
+1 on a parallel ground lug versus factory. To some it may seem unnecessary got the non-parallel surfaces where barrel nut meets lug and then lug meets action will induce stress when the nut is torqued. Maybe not an issue on the first 3-4 shots but as heat builds and you see your groups walking around on the target (if they still remain as groups) and you might want to consider just replacing the factory lug.
PT&G has them in varying thicknesses for under $40 in either C/M or SS. A cheap improvement if you want to eliminate "good enough".
I use the stamped facotry POS for my shooting to a mile, it isn't THE hinderance to groups at that distance.
If you feel better using one that has been blessed by the Pope, and lapped with unicorn tallow, then by all means get one while you can.
I'm a firm believer in the theory that if it bleeds, I can kill it.
The floating bolt head design of the Savage negates the importance of things like the recoil lug, barrel nut and receiver face needing to be true like on a solid bolt rifle like a Remington 700. The floating bolt has more than enough travel to it to make up for any slight deviation from square your rifle may have from the factory. Are the stamped factory lugs tapered slightly? Yes. Does it really matter? No - not in 99.99999% of the cases (there's always that one exception floating around out there somewhere).
I tell people this: If you're building a rifle and want it to be as accurate as possible and you want the piece of mind in knowing you've done everything you can to ensure the best possible accuracy, by all means put in an aftermarket recoil lug. If you're pulling your factory barrel to install an aftermarket barrel and you have $30-40 extra to spend, go ahead and get an aftermarket one and install it for the peace of mind. If you've got a factory rifle with factory barrel and you aren't planning on pulling the barrel for any reason other than to change the lug, don't waste your time.
As for the trued barrel nut, waste of money IMO. I've yet to ever see a factory nut that was more than 0.002" out, and you can easily true one yourself with a piece of fine sandpaper and a flat surface (piece of glass or a mirror) with just a minute or two's worth of effort on your part. If you're upgrading from a smooth nut then go ahead and spend the extra couple bucks for a trued one, but if you have a notched nut already you're just throwing money away.
I've yet to ever have or hear of a case where changing just the lug from a factory one to an aftermarket one resulted in any kind of increase in accuracy. That said, if you have a hard kicking magnum cartridge I would recommend keeping an eye on your recoil lug (especially the AccuStock lugs) as I've seen a number of them that have bent. For those harder hitting cartridges I would recommend upgrading to a 1/4" thick lug at some point.
I figured I would do it to the max on the first one and adjust thinking from there.
So I got the nut and the lug from NSS with the barrel and other tools.
After looking it over I didn't see it made that much difference though the nut is pretty.
As one gun had the smooth lug I used my "spare nut" so that worked out.
If I was Tubbs it might make a difference, I am not.
So far I found my trigger finger now makes the biggest difference with the rest up to par.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks