Savage ML ll

[bdog]

Thanks guys, I'm not about to throw in the towel, I never leave anything alone, I'm always tweaking, when I'm at the range, I have a couple of guns with me, so each one gets a chance to cool down, guys get a laff when I show up, I have a wheel barrow full of things with me.... the saga continues

[bellerivercrossbowhunter]

My savage recipe.

45gr Accurate arms 5744
.452 300 gr. XTP.
Harvester black sabots
Winchester 209 primer

I'm extremely happy with the groups!

[Big Jack]

Good to hear an honesty assessment for a change...at 100 yds almost all MLs on the market are capable of sub MOA. It's when you reach out past 200 that, like you say, requires a little more tweaking.

My belief is past 200 with black powder the bullets are entering transonic range. Flight gets erratic.

With smokeless that isn’t a problem but you start to see issues past 200 as it no longer stays on track. I think the bullet isn’t spinning same as a bullet to bore would. Try knurling the bullet to impart a better spin through the sabot.

You're exactly right, the Savage is a different animal and they can be extremely finicky. I've played with them since their inception and performed many mods to try to improve the accuracy from these beasts. I don't feel all were necessary but I like to tinker and felt it would help me get to know the rifle a little better.
Some mods that I felt made a noticeable improvement were , I lapped the barrel to get rid of the chatter marks that were left in my sabots from the rough button rifled barrel.
I feel a decent bedding job wouldn't hurt but wasn't entirely necessary if the action was seated properly in the stock.
The 3rd action screw was nice but again not a deal breaker and really not required unless the need to remove the bolt from the action frequently.
Finding the right combination of bullet/sabot/powder was by far more beneficial in squeezing out the best performance from these smokeless rigs.
The other factor which cannot be overlooked with these saboted guns is to leave ample cooling time between shots, minimum 15 min.
Also with bullet selection, these guns were designed with the use of 300 gr. projectiles and as tight a fit as you can get with the bullet to bore. Smokeless works with a build up of pressure so adequate back pressure is required to get proper consistant ignition.
Also thinner skinned bullets tended to obturate easier/better which resulted in tighter groups.
A pet load we've had consistant luck with was 65 grs of 4198 in either H or IMR , mmp short black sabot and the lowly .452 300 gr. XTP. ( non mag version). this combo should get you close then tweaking the powder. Always used Fed. 209A primers.
Most of these guns will shoot, but there are always exceptions.
Good luck.

Right on the pin.

Other comment to add is torque set screws same every time and that calms down poi shift.

[smokeeter]

took a while for me to find this old pic of the before and after of my lapped barrel. The sabots on the left was before the barrel was lapped and has the chatter marks I referred to, the ones on the right is what the sabots look like after lapping.
Does all of this help? Dunno but it sure didn't hurt and it gave me the confidence that I was improving things.

[bdog]

I'm sure it makes a difference for getting those clover leaf groups at a distance, CVA Accura and optima both use Bergara barrels, but the Accura goes thru 4 or 5 more steps to get rid of the tooling marks like you did, great pic for reference and good job lapping the barrel, what/how did you lap yours?

[smokeeter]

The first attempt was with a bore mop and JB paste, and about 300 strokes. It cleaned up the barrel nicely but the marks were still present, I then applied a small amount of very fine lapping compound and slowly did 25 strokes at a time until things cleaned up. I only applied the compound once to the mop and finished with the JB paste to clean out the residue.
The key was to go slow and steady, I heard horror stories of ruining barrels with improper lapping but mine turned out fine, I did 3 others the same way with similar results.

[bdog]

thanks for the info smokeeter