greyling22
Member
I have a left handed pre-66 savage 110L rifle in a nice custom stock, smooth action, light trigger, etc. Bottom line, I like it.
However, there are 2 issues with it.
1) It has something like a shilien #5 contour barrel on it that measures 23" from muzzle to receiver face. It weighs a ton, and so I never take it hunting (I walk around looking for pigs or antelope or whatever, I don't sit at a feeder)
2) it is a a 1.5-2moa gun. (Old ershaw 1:12 barrel from the 70's in 257AI) and thus, not really worth keeping around as a target rifle. [I have played with loads for it for years using rl-17 and 4350, bullet weights from 75-120grns (it hated the 75's) weighed cases, bullets, trickled powder, it's just not all that accurate]
So here is the question: if I had a local smith turn the barrel down to a lighter profile, would I lose a lot of what accuracy remains? would I gain much weight back? would I be better off cutting 3" off the muzzle?
Originally I had thought to just buy a new barrel and thread it on there, but in my tinkering I learned that the pre-66 guns have a different bolt. There is a nose on the bolt that prevents it from being used with modern barrels. So fine, new bolt head....wrong. the bolt body attached to the bolt head via a pin that is turned 90 degrees from modern bolt heads. And the ejector is mounted to the box magazine and would need to be ground off, and.........well you get the idea. rebarreling is not simple. And numrich is out of stock on most of the parts I need to get a new bolt.
I am open to other ideas of what to do to this thing, but it looks like reprofiling would be ~$100, rebarreling would be ~$400, and fluting would be something like $300.
I'm currently into the rifle for about $500. I hate to get too deep into a savage you know.
However, there are 2 issues with it.
1) It has something like a shilien #5 contour barrel on it that measures 23" from muzzle to receiver face. It weighs a ton, and so I never take it hunting (I walk around looking for pigs or antelope or whatever, I don't sit at a feeder)
2) it is a a 1.5-2moa gun. (Old ershaw 1:12 barrel from the 70's in 257AI) and thus, not really worth keeping around as a target rifle. [I have played with loads for it for years using rl-17 and 4350, bullet weights from 75-120grns (it hated the 75's) weighed cases, bullets, trickled powder, it's just not all that accurate]
So here is the question: if I had a local smith turn the barrel down to a lighter profile, would I lose a lot of what accuracy remains? would I gain much weight back? would I be better off cutting 3" off the muzzle?
Originally I had thought to just buy a new barrel and thread it on there, but in my tinkering I learned that the pre-66 guns have a different bolt. There is a nose on the bolt that prevents it from being used with modern barrels. So fine, new bolt head....wrong. the bolt body attached to the bolt head via a pin that is turned 90 degrees from modern bolt heads. And the ejector is mounted to the box magazine and would need to be ground off, and.........well you get the idea. rebarreling is not simple. And numrich is out of stock on most of the parts I need to get a new bolt.
I am open to other ideas of what to do to this thing, but it looks like reprofiling would be ~$100, rebarreling would be ~$400, and fluting would be something like $300.
I'm currently into the rifle for about $500. I hate to get too deep into a savage you know.