MilsurpShooter
Member
Last week I picked up a Savage 110ba in .338 Lapua magnum. Managed to borrow a scope and bipod from a shooting buddy and set her up for her first day at the range. Took the Mosin 91/30 with PU Scope and my new Savage.
Grabbed a box of Hornady .338 Lapua HPBT and set off to fire my first brand new gun. Never bought brand new, always had hand me downs and surplus stuff so I was excited.
Sighted in my Mosin, she was off after I tried to adjust the turrets to zero and lost a locking screw
and moved over the Savage to run her through her paces.
Loaded one round in the magazine (1 round at a time rule at the range) slid the magazine in and went to close the bolt. Bolt wouldn't close flush all the way, stopped just back of the bolt knob cut out. Ejected the round and tried again. No good. Manually inserted the round into the chamber and closed the bolt
Success! Bolt closed and ready to go. Figure it was just new gun and I didn't do something right. Took aim, sighted the scope on paper and fired.
I was amazed. Recoil was negligible at best. I was honestly shocked. Figured I'd get a bit of a kick at least. Happily I lifted the bolt knob... and tried to extract. With no luck. Bolt was locked firmly in place. Took a fair amount of muscle to extract.
Checked the casing and noticed some scratches, no primer pushback or anything except for a small band of discoloration around the base . Fired 6 rounds from a bench with hydraulics rigged for trigger pull just to test and each time the bolt was locked just as solid as before. Even trying to eject a chambered but unfired casing was trouble lol.
Called Savage today when I got home from work and they said it was probably an issue with the Hornady ammunition. Said they've been using a softer brass with their .338 Lapua rounds and that was probably what's going wrong. Suggested trying Black Hills 250 BTHP to see if that rectifies the matter. That's the round they would be test firing with if I sent it back so better to be sure that way.
However the RO's at the range got me a little nerve wracked about the thing. One guy said it could be headspace, another said he was concerned with how much threading he could see inside the receiver and wonder if the barrel was screwed in all the way... Now I take information with a grain of salt as it is (One of said range officers also told me rifling was not very important to look at in some of those old surplus guns) so figure why not get all the view points I can lol. Will try to get some pictures of the casing's that show the base discoloration... Will mainly be up to my (lack of) photography skills I think however
Grabbed a box of Hornady .338 Lapua HPBT and set off to fire my first brand new gun. Never bought brand new, always had hand me downs and surplus stuff so I was excited.
Sighted in my Mosin, she was off after I tried to adjust the turrets to zero and lost a locking screw
and moved over the Savage to run her through her paces.Loaded one round in the magazine (1 round at a time rule at the range) slid the magazine in and went to close the bolt. Bolt wouldn't close flush all the way, stopped just back of the bolt knob cut out. Ejected the round and tried again. No good. Manually inserted the round into the chamber and closed the bolt
Success! Bolt closed and ready to go. Figure it was just new gun and I didn't do something right. Took aim, sighted the scope on paper and fired.
I was amazed. Recoil was negligible at best. I was honestly shocked. Figured I'd get a bit of a kick at least. Happily I lifted the bolt knob... and tried to extract. With no luck. Bolt was locked firmly in place. Took a fair amount of muscle to extract.
Checked the casing and noticed some scratches, no primer pushback or anything except for a small band of discoloration around the base . Fired 6 rounds from a bench with hydraulics rigged for trigger pull just to test and each time the bolt was locked just as solid as before. Even trying to eject a chambered but unfired casing was trouble lol.
Called Savage today when I got home from work and they said it was probably an issue with the Hornady ammunition. Said they've been using a softer brass with their .338 Lapua rounds and that was probably what's going wrong. Suggested trying Black Hills 250 BTHP to see if that rectifies the matter. That's the round they would be test firing with if I sent it back so better to be sure that way.
However the RO's at the range got me a little nerve wracked about the thing. One guy said it could be headspace, another said he was concerned with how much threading he could see inside the receiver and wonder if the barrel was screwed in all the way... Now I take information with a grain of salt as it is (One of said range officers also told me rifling was not very important to look at in some of those old surplus guns) so figure why not get all the view points I can lol. Will try to get some pictures of the casing's that show the base discoloration... Will mainly be up to my (lack of) photography skills I think however
