Savage Bmag 17wsm Review

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Its no problem opening up the barrel channel for a heavier barrel. I just use a piece of doweling wrapped in sandpaper. Once I have enough clearance, just re-seal the barrel channel with some polyurethane. The classic and prarie hunter are more for factory barrel channels although they can be opened up to fit a magnum sporter contour. For super heavy contours, go with the thumbhole. It has a wider forearm so the barrel channel can be opened up significantly more than the others.
 
Boyds stock is on its way. Should be here tuesday. Cant wait to get to work on this little rifle and clean it up a bit.
 
ole farmerbuck said:
I wonder if Boyds will be making stocks for the heavy barrel soon. I'm gonna have my dealer get a barrel if she can.
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The Boyds stock got here today. I did take a bit of work to get it right but not as much as my mosin nagant
project. First thing I discovered was that the safety cannot have any vertical play in it. If it does it will bind when you try to put it on safe. I could not get the rear stock screw very tight without pulling the factory bugel head screws through the wood. i highly recommend getting some screws with a flat faced head for it. I added a pillar by turning down a small nut and pressing it into the stock. I did also have to touch the inside of the stock a bit to lower the rear of the reciever to get the safety to not bind. Also had to touch up around the bolt head to get it to clear. I still havent got it perfect as the magazine is a very tight fit but at least its functional at this point. Im going to open the barrel channel up slightly as well. Just be aware yours might not be as simple as dropping your barreled action in and heading out to the range. The next couple of days ill have the opportunity to work on it a bit more and finish ironing out the kinks and then ill finish it up with some glass bedding. Oh and I touched up the "accutrigger" and got it to about 2 lbs with no creep. I did have to adjust the safety set screw to prevent misfires. Fortunately it adjusts with a simple hex wrench very similar to the timney or rifle basix triggers for the axis. Once I get the barrel channel finished and resealed, im gonna do a quick field test before glass bedding.
 
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20140313_221621-1.jpg Today I finished inletting the stock and re sealed it. All thats left to do is bed it. The issue with a magazine stems from the magazine well having excess clearance towards the rear and not quite enough at the top.. The magazine ejection spring cants the magazine at an upward angle making latching the mag a bit tricky. Although it doesnt seem to affect feeding. A careful bedding job around the mag well with cure that though.
 
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Well I did some test shots today. Results were not so good. Severe vertical stringing. Over 2 inches at 50 yards. Im gonna take a look at the factory stock and see where if any there are any pressure points in side it and go from there when I glass bed. I have a feeling I should bed the first few inches of that pencil barrel. Any benchrest shooters are welcome to chime in here. Id like to get this thing punching holes like it should
 
I took mine outside the other evening. 70 yards and I'll have to say that it is a lot better since I got it back. 25gr ammo. I'll go see if I still have the target.
 
ole farmerbuck said:
Darn, guess I'll have to make a new one.:) Not today though, 40mph+ wind. Again!
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Couple things I noticed. Due to the thin barrel, it flexes quite a bit even by hand. However it is not srictly due to the barrel weight itself. Ive seen pencil barrel tikkas in 30 cal centerfires with barrels almost as thin and they had nowhere near the flex this one has. I think due to the diameter of the reciever and subsequently the barrel shank, it allows for a bit of flex. Also I noticed there isnt a whole lot of threads available with the tapered barrel breech and the short action. All this contributes to a very weak flexible barrel reciever junction. Its probably half the threads of a standard savage action and considerably smaller in diameter. I put the factory stock back on and the groups settled back down. I notoced it does grip the barrel for the first inch and puts a bit of pressure on the underside by the reciever. I will definately bed at least the first 3 inches or so of the barrel to stiffen this joint up. I did the same with my 91/30 mosin nagant and it shoots under 1/2 moa if I do my part.
 
Well the little rimfire will take care of p-dogs! It's not a .223 by any means but it does kill them quick without a mess. To tell the truth, it did better than I thought it would.
 
ole farmerbuck said:
Well the little rimfire will take care of p-dogs! It's not a .223 by any means but it does kill them quick without a mess. To tell the truth, it did better than I thought it would.
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Just did the first coat of glass bedding. I bedded the barrel all the way from the mag well to where the barrel begins its straight taper to the muzzle. The rest will be free floated. Unfortunately, due to the arrangement of the trigger mechanism bedding the rear of the reciever, would be next to impossible. Even if I removed the trigger group and bedded the rear of the reciever, i'd have to hack it all out again after to put the trigger group back in. Since the front pillar and magazine latch acts as the recoil lug, I made extra sure that got bedded with no voids. I think that the lack of a true recoil lug and only relying on the bedding pillar for securing to the stock is very weak and is one of the reasons bedding is going to be critical for consistant accuracy. Due to the bedding flowing into the groves cut in the barrel near the reciever will stiffen the area quite a bit. It should calm barrel harmonics down significantly. Hope to get out and shoot it sometime in the couple days.
 
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I'll be waiting for the report. My new 'heavy barrel' b mag will be here next Friday. It will be interesting how it does. Where can I find more ammo? It's time to find some.
 
Well I picked up the heavy SS barreled B-Mag today. Looks like it's going to shoot just fine.(so far) I'll post a pic of the target pretty soon.
 
Well the first attempt at glass bedding didnt go according to plan at all. Despite my best efforts in blocking off areas that shouldnt get bedding, material managed to get there. The worst was when material flowed under the e clip holding the magazine latch in place. It created a mechanical lock so strong that the stock broke before I could get the rifle out. In the process, it also bent the front bedding pillar and broke the magazine latch. What a nightmare and this was far from my first bedding job as well. So I ordered a new stock and savage was kind enough to ship the replacement parts free of charge. This time around I wasnt taking any chances. I decided to bed the magazine latch to the stock and eliminate the e clip and the potential for a mechanical bond. I made sure every nook and cranny was filled in with plumbers putty. Finally I decided to toss the mold release agent that came with the kit and went for the best non stick substance I could think of. Silicone plumbers grease. It takes a bit of work to get a smooth thin coat but let me tell you, nothing sticks to the stuff. The rifle poped out of the stock without so much as a tap and cleanup was so much easier than the acriglass mold release. With the first 4 inches of the barrel and reciever bedded to the mag well, im gonna fill in the rest of the nooks and crannies on the stock to try and strengthen it. The area around the front action screw is very weak as there is not alot of wood there. Its not an issue with the factory stock due to its integrated bedding pillars but its very easy to overtighten and crack the boyds stock. Its nothing boyds did wrong but simply has to do with the forward action screws position relative to the mag well do im going to fill the gap up between the magazine latch and the front action screw with bedding material and add a bedding pillar so I can get more tension on the screw. I highly recommend to anyone thinking about working on the same rifle do your homework cause this one has a few curveballs thrown in there waiting for you.
 
I got a different rest finally. I knew something was wrong when I couldnt hit a fly at 150 yards every shot! What difference it made. I'm not going to do anything to my B-mags but shoot them. The heavy barreled mag is pretty heavy with the scope I installed on it but it will be fine. Havent had a chance to shoot them again but maybe tomorrow. Almot 90* today and pretty calm but is suppose to be 38* and windy with snow tomorrow so who knows? :)
 
Yours looks like it shoots great. I doubt mine will shoot that well with the pencil barrel. I finished glass bedding today. It has definately stiffened the barrel reciever junction immensely. I bedded the magazine latch into the stock and filled in the gap between the latch and the stock and added a bedding pillar. That alone helped stiffen everything up a ton. I hope to get out and shoot sometime this week. Definitely going to use silicone plumbers grease for all my bedding projects from now on. The stuff is slicker than snot and nothing sticks to whatever its on.
 
Got a chance to shoot a little today. Still severe vertical stringing. Horazontal spread was less than an inch at 100 yards but over 3 inches of vertical spread. As well as this thing is now bedded it only leaves one other possibility. The ammo. Currious, I pulled 10 bullets. First thing I noticed was these things are crimped in like nobody's business. Completely unnecessary amount of crimp. To the point where the bullet was pinched severely. The bullet sits so deep in the case and the brass is so hard that very little if any crimp should be necessary even in an autoloader. Im pretty sure these little pills have more neck tension than most 30 caliber rounds. I then weighed the powder charge. It varied anywhere from 7.9 to 8.3 grains of ball powder. For a case that only holds about 8 grains of powder thats a huge variation. Come on winchester reps, are you listening?
 
Think I will wait for all the bugs to get out before I buy one. I have the 17hmr in a Savage and love it.
 
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