I have a 16/116 FCLSS Weather Warrior in .223. I tripped across a good deal from ER Shaw on an in stock Varmint profile 26" Stainless with an 11 degree crown that someone ordered and then backed out on.

I then picked up a barrel nut, barrel nut wrench, trigger spring and an action wrench from NSS. Since the rifle has an Accustock, I didn't change out the barrel lug. I wish someone would make one for the Accustock...

I was ready for a real battle trying to get the smooth barrel nut off. I just followed NSS's directions and it came right off, no problem..
I soaked it with some Kroil and let it sit overnight. I put the action wrench on it with pretty minimal tightening. I then put my 11" pipe wrench on the smooth barrel nut and hit it twice with a dead blow hammer and off it popped.

The barrel unscrewed without issue but as NSS warned me, there was an unbelievable amount of crud in the threads. It looked like it had been dumped in grit/sand and then screwed together.

I decided to add a PTG bolt head for no particular reason and and dress it out with a SSS upgraded ejector/extractor kit. Those parts haven't arrived yet so we'll see how that goes. Ordering from SSS isn't very obvious but it seems to be working out.

Brownell's has Clymer Go and No-Go gauges on sale...but even so, were not cheap.

Some anti-seize and the barrel went on and head spaced easily. I dremeled out the stock to handle the larger diameter barrel without a problem. I had to open it up quite a bit as the new barrel is ALOT bigger. Hopefully, it won't heat up instantaneously like the original barrel.

I kinda went overboard on this but I shoot it a lot because it is so cheap to shoot in .223 and it's my only left handed rifle. I really, really need to shoot left handed as I'm blind in my right eye. The Savage has always been accurate but after a very few rounds the barrel would heat up and and the accuracy went away....alot.

So, I was really impressed with NSS. The action wrench worked perfectly, the barrel nut is top quality and the trigger spring really worked well. The owners advice was right on and I have had no issues at all.

I'm making one change to the NSS barrel wrench. I'm changing from bolts to studs. It will make it a lot easier to manipulate into position. Beyond that, I can't imagine this widget working any better.

Because of my so far happy experience with this little project I'm going to see about adding a few calibers and doing a switch barrel thing. Maybe a 7.62x39? PTG makes a bolt head for that size.