Savage
110 Tactical in 308
Introduction
from the Editor; I made Ron's acquaintance through the Internet and turns
out that he lives about 15 minutes from my home. Ron offered to help with
my first "Reloading Class" at the local college and has helped ever
since. You may recall the product review on the Hornady Lock-N-Load Progressive
that he wrote up for me in the July issue.
Ron
is an excellent marksman with handgun and rifle and a heck of a gunsmith to
boot. To my knowledge, he is the one
who discovered the problem with the Ruger 77/22 bolt. See
Ruger Grouping article It seems to be quite a popular topic among those
who own and shoot these rifles. If he can't make it shoot, it is not going
to.
I
hope to put a tap on the side of his head and share more of his knowledge
with you in the future.
Bill
Wade
Savage
110
By
Ron Roberts
Recently I bought a Savage 110 tactical in 308. I had
read good things about this rifle and wanted one, no real need I just wanted
one so when I found one at the gun show I picked it up. I took it home and put a 4x16 power scope on
it and gave it a thorough cleaning after which I lapped the bore and rifling
with a mild abrasive. I do this to all new rifles to remove any burrs on the
rifling left by the manufacture.
A friend of mine who works at the local gun shop and
I headed for the range. Since I didn’t have any 308 ammo loaded we grabbed
a box of
After
getting home I put the rifle up, planning on looking in to the problem in
a day or so. Well, you know how that goes. About a month later I got time
enough to give it a good look. When I pulled the action out of the stock,
I saw that the pillerblock was actually setting below the level of the fiberglass
in the bottom of the stock by about 1/32. This gun was supposed to be pillerblock
bedded, to me, this meant that the two pieces should be touching. After about
20 min. with a dremel tool all the pieces met like they were supposed to.
While I was at it I cut out around the recoil lug and cut the barrel channel
out a little deeper for a good free float. I adjusted the trigger to get a
1-½ lb. pull. I then used Micro Bed to bed around the recoil lug area to give
it a good solid fit.
As
usual the weather turned bad and it was another three weeks before I could
get to the range to try out the gun and see if what I had done worked. When
I finally got up there I had managed to make up a few hand loads to try out.
The first three shots measured ¼ inch center to center the next shot was off
½ inch ( I could have pulled it) and the 5th shot went back into
the first hole. With the sights set a 2” high at 100 yds. I put it back in
the case and went home with it. It is good enough for hunting or anything
else I need to do with it.
Maybe
I got a bad stock from Savage, the other two 112s I have shoot great. Any
time you do large production runs one or two bad ones will slip through. So
if you get a gun that is supposed to shoot very well and it doesn’t, check
the bedding on it. A good solid bed is the basis for good accuracy.
Ron
Roberts.