Torque Tuning a Savage Action, Does it really work?

[Bill2905]

It depends upon the stock material. In a stock (plastic) Savage stock I'll start with 45 in lbs on the front, and 10 or so on the rear, gradually working up in 5 in lbs increments while shooting two or three shot groups. On a more stout stock, 55 to 65 inch pounds to start on the front and 10 on the rear.

One thing I want to stress is to check the barrel rise as you tighten the rear screw. Do this by first setting the front screw torque, then place a finger in the gap between the barrel and forearm and then begin tightening the rear screw. If you feel the barrel rise as the rear screw is tightened, there's a bedding issue that much be corrected first.

Another issue comes to mind as I write this. When installing the barreled action into the stock, be careful to center the action into the stock before tightening the front screw by running a .005 shim around the rear tang and confirming clearance. It's easy to install the action slightly crooked so that one side of the rear tang is in firm contact with the stock. This will undermine any efforts to tune the action to the stock using the above procedure.

Thanks for sharing this tip and your observations. Is the tuning improvement specific to a certain load that you like or do you find that it improves things across a variety of loads?