Reply With QuoteWorkmanship where it counts. Basic design.
There are alot of SMART people here. And for thank each and every one of you for your sharing knowledge.
My question is this. Has anyone figured out why such a variance riddled rig like a Savage 110 action rifle assembly shoots very decent from the box?
Workmanship where it counts. Basic design.
Variances appear to be riddled in the right direction. Barrel to receiver would seem to be the most important. Whatta Hobby!
Semper Fi
Sgt USMC 66-72
Floating bolt head......
Keeping my bad Karma intact since 1952
I dug a tad Fuj still trying to figure out how that floated bolt head increases accuracy. Im probably overthinking it and the answer is obvious as hell.Originally Posted by Fuj'
Anyway here is what Fred wrote in 2013.
The floating bolt head insures that both lugs make contact on the lug abutments. Compared to other rifles that use a solid bolt(Remington,Winchester, Ruger, etc.) the top lug usually has little contact with the lug abutments because the trigger forces the bolt upward at the rear.
The savage bolt on the other hand, engages the cocking piece pin and the sear from the side. The "float" in the bolt head at the cross pin joint allows the bolt head to swivel enough that both lugs make contact no matter how much the back of the bolt is shifted to one side or another. The deflection at the rear of the bolt could be as much as .040" in any direction, and still get full contact on both lugs.
The receiver threads and the lug abutments are machined in the same fixture, and will always be square to one another, but may not be square to the receiver face, especially on the older models. All of the new models that have been machined on the new Okuma machining centers will have the receiver face square with the threads, although it is a milling operation, not a turning cut.
LDS, that's good info! This goes back to another thread of recent about a comment I made about blueprinting of your action, if Savage is truly doing this process of making everything strait and squared where it needs to be? then getting close to a blue printed action from the factory is a major plus! I have a custom build going on as we speak, I used an old model 12FLV action that was a .223rem to begin with, I opted to have it built in 308win, instead of the 6.5 Creedmoor I was planning to build, I noticed when I disassembled the action on the M12 had no scuffing where the bolt lugs contacted the receiver, the bluing was basically untouched, and I shot this rifle about 1400 rounds, which Leeds me to believe I wasn't getting good contact? even tho my accuracy was 1.5'' at 200m with hand loads, not great IMO, but this M12 action will be blueprinted for this build, now back to the 110 newer SA, the 6.5 Creedmoor barrel I was going to use on the M12 is going to be used on a newer 110 SA, I had planned to build the rifle myself, only reason I didn't build the other 1 is I cannot MELONITE the action or other parts like the barrel, which is why I have it done by my friends, who will also be MELONTING my 6.5 barrel, so I hope your info is correct? if so It will make me happy and my 110 build should be a good 1!
So if the floating bolt head corrected all of those issues, why then, since they are now corrected in better fixtures and CNC machinery, does the floating bolthead fix things that no longer exist. Savages are still accurate. They still straighten barrels the same way. Many of which shoot well despite the bore finish.
The Bighorn actions use what they call a floating bolt head but do not have the generous clearances to accommodate the major angular alignment issues. It comes out to be more of an interchangeable bolt head more than anything.
I do agree that lug abutment contact is crucial for accuracy. I also agree with a lot of things happening with the trigger sear and the bolt. These things light my candle at night when thing get dark. I cant answer much but i can ask questions and ponder some of those points.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is alive and well.
What Savage touts as "blue printing" is not what you think it is. It's nothing more than marketing hype. One of the points is a surface ground recoil lug, which is not exactly a new thing, because all of the target style and small port actions came with a .250" ground lug from the start in 2006. Being that is a non moving part there isn't much to be gained unless what you were using before was wedge shaped.
The second point was a bolt head that was ground on the engaging surfaces. I saw these circulating around 2010 on some of the dual ports. The lugs were ground, instead of just turned to attempt to make the surface more true after the media tumbling process. The whole truth is it made things worse because most were ground out of square. A cup wheel was used and If I was to surmise, I would say that the edge of the grounding wheel broke down. Measuring several samples, some were out of square as much as .002".
I'm wondering why they wasted their time with the back and never done anything with the fact that the face is dished in from the tumbling process, again up to about .002".
"As long as there's lead in the air....there's still hope.."
Here is my problem is with the term floating bolt head. If you want an accurate rifle a bolt head can never float on a rifle that uses an explosion to propel a projectile. Unless you call it a shotgun! Fact is Modern Savage rifles have a fixed bolt head and its fixed with a pin instead of being fixed my machining Rem 700 bolt and head or attached by a weld and machined.
Here is my guess of how the Savage arrived at the ter "floating bolt head" This guess is based on over 30 years of engineering and physics in a government manufacturing environment. Fact is marketing and legal drives manufacturing period. The bolt head floating marketing idea was an afterthought. In the beginning marketing at Savage guy said we need to make the safest rifle possible to boost a sinking companies sales. Legal said while you at I remind you Remingtons huge class action lawsuit. Now the task goes to engineering. So as an engineer you can't change many things to make a rifle fire safer, as physics is physics. But you can add things to stop the trigger from engaging and deflecting blowback to the shooter from misfires. Thus Savage did the only thing they could do, add front and rear solid safety blow back baffle and more robust two safety failure system in case of drop bumps like Savage endures also in law suites. Savage engineers basically added fail safes. No better fail safe then a backup system. Example lets add a front blowback baffles and if gasses get around that and enter the bolt well add a read safety baffle. If our triggers get a bump fire for which we were sued well add a safety trigger lever system. Instead of marketing it as a safety feature because of the past, marketing says lets call it a two stage trigger! (as Fred says "It's nothing more than marketing hype")
To get the front safety baffle idea to work and meet and/or decrease manufacturing cost, design testing found that the pin fastening type system of the bolt head needed to came about when adding the safety baffle.
But the drawback was how do we handle handle for example 62000 PSI for a 308 round pressure applied to to a short action bolt face and head assembly; with a loose fit happening in the future from wearing on pins, elongating bolt head holes and elongating bolt holes. Thus causing rifles after 1,000 rounds shot through to lose accuracy? The only viable solution was tighten the bolt head tension to the receiver.
All at the sacrifice of adding "some" effort to bolt lift. Marketing said heck that's okay as our market share is hunting and plinking and most guys don't understand how lift effects accuracy anyway.
All is not lost as the increase on bolt/receiver tension just happened to ensure that a not so smooth or trued CNC machined lug faces were flattened out. In other words so much tension that on a slight beveling for example the bolt would remain fixed on this slight bevel and not cause the bolt face to be be untrue. Simply the increased tension assured repeatable alignment of the bolt face to the round. Thus reatbale down range was assured...at least for awhile maybe forever.
Thus IMHO it's not the floating of the head that causes better accuracy its the results of pinning the bolt the bolt head instead of having a fixed bolt head. Again am I overthinking?
Non- the-less you have a more accurate rifle right out of the box because in sloppy tolerance when pinning the bolt to the bolt head is SAVAGE corrected this by more pressure on the lug mating surfaces.
After writing all of this it occured to me. I wonder if accuracy could also be approve if the bolt retention pin would be oversized and pressed fitted into the bolt head hole, the bolt head proper hole. Then truing the bolt lugs to receiver lugs, and then truing the bolt face. Sure it means cleaning out carbon around the bolt head firing pin guide hole may be effected as more then not an individual could not remove the head without a press. However, if the firing pin hole is bushed not much carbon would be in that hole probably.
Just a thought, maybe this is how it's done already? Fred any comments to my thoughts.
Remember when building a competition rifle from a factory rig you have to always do the opposite of "if it aint broke dont fix it" to achieve better accuracy.
Last edited by LDSILLS; 03-28-2024 at 06:49 PM. Reason: pain medications and maybe I should stop posting!
Just poured me a Rye.....
Keeping my bad Karma intact since 1952
No need for more Fuj its me...read below
Have you been smoking something?.........definitely over thinking for sure. I read your post 3 times and still trying to comprehend.
"As long as there's lead in the air....there's still hope.."
Have one for me...sorry read below.
I read it once and WOW, I wrote that crap. Your close on the smoking something, been taking quite a few prescription pain meds for the back everyday. Some times as in now they confuse me. Ignore what I wrote please. Come April 26th I'll have my 17th spinal surgery. I am hoping it will take the meds away for awhile. Sorry folks!
Do I need to petition the Underwriter's Laboratory to issue a new safety warning label for the forum that reads: "Do not engage in discussing gunsmithing while under the influence of opioids such as oxycodone, percocet, and/or vicodin"
"Life' is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." ~ John Wayne
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” —Mark Twain
Good thing I did'nt go for a second 2 fingers of Bulliet 95 Rye and stayed logged in !!...... LOLDo I need to petition the Underwriter's Laboratory to issue a new safety warning label for the forum that reads: "Do not engage in discussing gunsmithing while under the influence of opioids such as oxycodone, percocet, and/or vicodin"
Keeping my bad Karma intact since 1952
You forgot the sneaky one...Tramadol that only affects a person randomly, except when communicating with your wife of 50 years, then its effects are 100% of the time, according the her!!Do I need to petition the Underwriter's Laboratory to issue a new safety warning label for the forum that reads: "Do not engage in discussing gunsmithing while under the influence of opioids such as oxycodone, percocet, and/or vicodin"
To quote the quote of a famous Admin...“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” —Mark Twain"
FUJ may the next 2 fingers burn your F@!@ing adam's apple! Hahahaha
Last edited by LDSILLS; 03-29-2024 at 10:14 AM. Reason: DRUGS!!!
Hey, this was fun!! I love a bit of off topic stuff
Ok... haven't been drinking- smoking- or taking pills- so "should" be safe to post....
Floating bolt head...-- so now we have both recoil lugs making good contact- but if things are not true and the "floating design" is why they are now making contact then that means the bolt head is not sitting completely true- which would mean that the brass is not making contact with the bolt face on all sides and you would still have a similar issue as the one you are trying to correct?
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