A Savage story almost 10 years in the making

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MCMXI

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This is going to drag on a bit but it's a good tale. :p

Back in June of 2009 when I was living in Hawaii I ordered a Savage Weather Warrior 16FCSS chambered in 7mm-08 Rem for $574.28 and $19.95 shipping. This would be my first, and as it turns out, only Savage. The Weather Warrior was fairly new to the market back then, and I was looking for a rugged, reliable and accurate hunting rifle to use on pigs and deer in the Aloha State. The Savage seemed to be a good choice based on accuracy reports for Savages in general but little did I know.

Soon after receiving the rifle I set about installing some Talley one-piece rings/bases and a scope and I remember that I had to lap the rings to such an extent that I assumed the rings were really bad. The factory recoil pad is still the worst I've ever encountered having the feel of melting cheese so I ordered and installed a much nicer one from HiViz. My initial impression of the rifle shooting some factory and handloaded ammunition (139gr SST) was that it was very bad to bad in terms of accuracy/precision. When I did some digging I discovered that for some reason known only to Savage, the barrel had a 1:11.5 twist or it could have been 1:11. Regardless, since the SAAMI twist was/is 1:9.5 I figured that my poor accuracy was due to the barrel. And so the rifle sat for a while.

Around December of 2010 I ordered a heavy 22" barrel from McGowen, a new knurled barrel nut (factory pos was smooth) a new recoil lug with a tab to engage the receiver (factory one didn't have the tab), an aluminum Picatinny rail from TPS and some aluminum 1" rings from Seekins Precision. I think the barrel arrived first so I opened up the barrel channel in the AccuStock and installed the barrel and then things got worse ... much worse. As I started to install the rail it became clear that something was very wrong. I realized that the tops of the bridges weren't in the same plane. They were in parallel planes angling downward front to back. Emails, phone calls, and photos to Savage got me nowhere. They refused to pay shipping back to them for what was clearly a big problem and certainly a warranty issue. And so the rifle sat for a while and I vowed to never buy another Savage product ... and I haven't.

I went to work for Remington in November of 2011 and during my two years there asked a number of machinists if they could fix the receiver but none thought it would be possible (easy). I realized that in good conscience I couldn't sell the rifle so I decided that I would attempt to true up the tops of the bridges such that the TPS picatinny rail would sit flush on the receiver. My plan was to mark up the receiver with permanent marker and roll/slide it over some coarse wet & dry paper on a flat, hard surface to grind down the bridges so that they were in the same plane, then rinse and repeat. It was slow work but I would do a bit here and there when I had time and was motivated. And so the rifle sat for a while.

In November of 2013 I left Remington and moved to Montana. Occasionally I would get back to shaping the receiver but it seemed to take forever so I would only work on it sporadically. Two years ago when ordering a Hogue rifle bag for my girlfriend for Christmas I decided to take a chance on a Hogue overmolded stock with a full-length bedding block for the Savage. When the stock showed up it was clear that there was an issue in that the entire barreled action was sitting way over to one side. This additional set back just about put the final nail in the coffin for that Savage. I was so fed up with the whole thing that I seriously considered cutting it up with my plasma cutter and spreading the parts to the four corners of the earth so that they couldn't somehow get back together to mess with someone else's life. And so the rifle sat for a while.

Three weeks ago and close to 10 years after I bought the rifle I figured I'd finally get this boat anchor down the road, but it had to be in a good enough state that I could live with the idea of someone buying it. This sudden surge of interest was inspired by my recently selling three revolvers on Gunbroker and being on a "cash flow high". With the initial purchase price, HiViz recoil pad, McGowen barrel, Hogue stock and a few bits and pieces I'm probably into this thing to the tune of $1,000 but if I could get $600 for it I'd be able to forget about Savage forever. So two weeks ago I sent an email and photos to Hogue in the hope that they'd replace the stock. It turns out that the color I had (olive drab green) was no longer available but they told me to send the stock to them for evaluation once I refused to try their ridiculous suggestions of adding shims and/or rotating the recoil lug. Last week I received a brown replacement stock from Hogue that still wasn't perfect, but close enough that I could work with it. I did a bit of inletting on the left side of the barrel channel and now the barrel sits nicely in the stock.

For the last couple of weeks my intention has been to get the Savage to the level where I would feel ok about selling it along with a few hundred rounds of 7mm-08 Rem that I wouldn't need anymore. Two days ago I installed the TPS rail, Savage rings and a Zeiss 3.5-10x44mm scope and everything fit perfectly. I have close to 300 rounds of Barnes VOR-TX 120gr TTSX ammuntion that I got when I worked at Remington in addition to a similar amount of Core-Lokt. So yesterday morning I shot the rifle for the first time in probably 9 years using that Barnes VOR-TX stuff which is loaded by Remington and uses crappy ball powder. I knew that I'd be ok with anything even half decent so my hope was that it would shoot well enough to make it worth my while to put a nice brushed finish to the top of the receiver so that it looks factory and then sell it. I had a coworker bore sight the rifle as I went inside to get a box of ammo. He was shooting with me at my home range yesterday morning testing some much nicer rifles. So here goes, let's see what this anchor will do. The first shot was nowhere to be seen ... uh oh! I'm rarely off by more than 6" when bore sighting so I was thinking "here we go again". He thought the shot was high, very high, so he held on the center of the board for the second shot and still nothing on paper. So he held on the bottom of the board for the third shot and there it was, a single hole 13" above his point of aim with near perfect windage. He dialed down 13.25 moa and shot a 5-shot group in a couple of minutes or less. Then I shot a 5-shot group ... mine was worse! :D

So here I am today with a Savage Weather Warrior FCSS with a McGowen barrel and Hogue stock that I could never sell for half of what I have into it and against all the odds I don't care. After this almost 10 year journey I think I'm going to keep it. The two groups weren't great but certainly weren't bad either and once I pull all those Barnes rounds, resize the neck, stuff a bunch of 4895 or similar in the case and shove the bullet back in I'm sure I can get five shots into 3/4". The rifle is heavy to the tune of 9lb, bolt lift is ridiculously heavy, the trigger is good, the stock comb is too low but lower rings might fix that, and based on the two groups, there's a very good chance that this rifle will shoot extremely well. I might even send the barrel off to @MachIVshooter to have him cut it back and thread it 5/8-24 for suppressed use. I figure after 10 years and $1,000 I might as well keep the anchor and stuff it behind the seat of my truck if nothing else. You never know when you might need a firearm capable of reaching out to 500 yards or so.

I hope this wasn't too boring for those of you still reading. :D

Top of bridges not in the same plane
savage_ww_flatness.jpg

Rail tightened down and the "wave" clearly shows bridges are not ground properly
savage_16fcss_tps_2.jpg

Defective Hogue stock has barreled action sitting off to the left
hogue_stock_1.jpg

Defective Hogue stock
hogue_stock_2.jpg

Bridges corrected, rail sits flat
savage_ww_tps_rail_2.jpg

Savage Weather Warrior in replacement Hogue stock after minimal inletting
savage_ww_hogue.jpg

Heavy beast! :D
savage_ww_scale.jpg

Barnes VOR-TX 120gr TTSX with good brass, decent primer but crappy ball powder
barnes_vortx_powder.jpg

Two groups shooting Barnes VOR-TX factory 120gr TTSX that show promise for a handload using the same bullets, brass and primers but different powder. Average velocity was 2,980 fps
vortx_120gr_groups.jpg
 
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LRDGCO said:
The patience of Job!

I don't like to quit on things and I couldn't in good conscience sell it. I should add that it was Savage's attitude towards the problems that bothered me the most. They should have sent me a return shipping label and fixed or replaced the receiver and I would have been a happy customer. It was interesting that Savage quietly changed the barrel twist rate the following year to the SAAMI 1:9.5. I kept a copy of the 2009 catalog in PDF format and you can see the 1:11.5 twist rate listed. It was my fault completely for ordering the rifle with that twist rate and I never complained about that since I could replace the barrel easily enough. I didn't even think to check on the twist rate since I assumed that Savage's reputation for accurate rifles meant that they would use whatever worked best. I haven't made that mistake again.

savage_fcss_specs.jpg
 
Wow that is quite the lemon story. Glad you finally got some lemonade out of it. My Savage 7mm-08 was a 2010-2011 vintage and would shoot federal fusion ammo into 3/4" groups at 100, and would stay on a clay on the berm at 300 yards.
 
That receiver is just nuts! Wow.

You can say that again.

Must have been “six sigma” QC vs. someone actually looking at it. In the “precision” world that’s unbelievable.

The 2nd photo isn’t like they mistook .0002 for .002, that’s a lot of movement for something even if they had poor heat treatment after machining.

I like to solve problems as much as the next guy but that one would have made a trip back to the folks that let it out the door in the first place.
 
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Walkalong said:
That receiver is just nuts! Wow.

What's equally nuts is that I never noticed how bad it was until I installed the TPS rail. Talley makes some of the best rings out there and my first assumption was that Talley didn't make good rings. You know what they say about assumptions. :p My neighbor bought a Savage Weather Warrior 116FCSS in .30-06 Sprg sometime after I discovered the receiver issue and I asked him if I could take a look at his rifle. You can see from the photo below that his bridges were off too, but not as much as mine. I don't know if it was a heat treat issue, grinding issue or something else but it sure was disappointing and not contained to just one rifle. I feel good now that the rifle is back together and I'll try a few handloads this weekend if time allows. If it shows any promise I'll clean up my shade tree grinding job and might eventually Cerakote the entire thing for extra corrosion protection.

I'll tell you who was stellar during this fiasco, and that's McGowen. I remember that I bought a heavy barrel since it was in stock and I wanted something that shot well. After installing the barrel I found it to be very heavy so I asked them if they could re profile it and they did just that for $40 if memory serves, and they did it well.

Savage Weather Warrior 116FCSS in .30-06 Sprg with tops of bridges in different planes.
savage_weather_warrior_fcss_30-06sprg.jpg
 
jmorris said:
The 2nd photo isn’t like they mistook .0002 for .002, that’s a lot of movement for something even if they had poor heat treatment after machining.

You make a really good point re warpage during heat treat … I hadn't considered that as being the root cause but it makes a lot of sense.
 
I am impressed with your tenacity and commitment. It should be reassuring to your girlfriend... not giving up when the going gets tough! Hope she appreciates this rare trait!!
 
You make a really good point re warpage during heat treat … I hadn't considered that as being the root cause but it makes a lot of sense.

Being a machinist I can’t really resolve your 1st and 2nd photos, if the product came out of a lathe, you can’t have one side right and the other side that far off. How can that not bind the bolt?

The only way it couldn’t is if the receiver is much better internally and maybe the parts are hand “finished” on a belt sander or something? I can’t think how, on a cylinder, you could machine one side correctly and get the other side that far off, over that short of a distance.
 
jmorris said:
Being a machinist I can’t really resolve your 1st and 2nd photos, if the product came out of a lathe, you can’t have one side right and the other side that far off. How can that not bind the bolt?

My original thought was that there was a secondary or tertiary operation that involved grinding and that was how they messed up the tops of the bridges. The bolt has always moved freely and never exhibited any kind of binding condition. Some of the operations on a receiver are done after heat treat so as to leave as much material in the receiver as possible to reduce warpage. There might be other reasons too such as the need to not make a firearm at a location that doesn't have a firearms manufacturers license (such as a vendor's machine shop). I guess I'll never know what really happened unless I meet someone from Savage who was in the loop back then.
 
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I would use Burris Signature rings on both of the rifles pictured. They are able to correct for misalignment of the receiver. It may take a bit of time to get the right setup with the offset Inserts but a lot less time than sanding the receiver down. Great job! I think you will be able to get the rifle to shoot.
 
It makes me wonder if the threads that were cut into the receiver were straight with the action. One the other hand, If the front of the receiver and the back of the receiver are that far out of line on top it could also be out of line on the sides which makes the barrel go to the side. I can't see any way that the barrel channel in the stock should be that far out of line with the receiver.

After I read your post I got online and read about Savage's heat treating process. It does say the receivers are heat treated after they are machined. Surely the threads for the tenon are cut into the receiver after the heat treating process. There's a guy who posts regularly on the forum that says that there is no need for the Leupold STD mounts with the modern receivers because the machining is so accurate. I hope he reads this thread.
 
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sage5907 said:
There's a guy who posts regularly on the forum that says that there is no need for the Leupold STD mounts with the modern receivers because the machining is so accurate. I hope he reads this thread.

Don't forget that I bought this rifle in 2009 and my neighbor bought his in 2010.
 
I bought a Savage in the late 90's. I only shot it once and returned it. The bolt failed first shot. I don't like them. A lot of guys do. Now days any company can put out a junker because quality control is nonexistent for many of them.
 
It may just be my imagination, but look at the picture of the barrel channel from the front. In the picture you can clearly see the toe of the stock, the center of the pistol grip of the stock, and the front of the trigger guard which form a straight line. Then bring this straight line forward to the barrel in the barrel channel. The barrel goes way to the side and is pushing the stock in that direction.
 
The stock really wasn't the main problem here, It's the top of the bridges being off and the 1:11.5 twist barrel. The replacement stock from Hogue was better than the first one I bought. The Savage AccuStock was garbage from the get go, and although the Hogue isn't perfect it's way better than the one that shipped on the rifle.

It looks like I won't be able to shoot the Savage with some handloads this weekend. I'm getting my truck/trailer ready for an eight hour drive tomorrow to pick up a cement mixer. I will report back with some handload results using 4895 or Varget since I have quite a bit of those two powders. I'm guardedly optimistic that this rifle will now shoot very well.
 
Should have sold it immediately, would have saved time and money.

I’ve owned 2 savage rifles and wasn’t happy with either. The first was a 10fp in .223 that wouldn’t reliably feed the next round. The second was a 12 vss in .22-250 that strung shots vertically.

Others like Savage but I had no luck.
 


It's been way too many years since I mounted scope on a Savage, but IIRC the front and rear bases were different height and hole spacing is the same???? You'd think Savage would have mentioned that when you called if it was the case, though, so I could sure be wrong on this. Above video might have saved you bunch of elbow grease, however.

I do have a Savage 10 short action and measured difference in height of front and rear Weaver bases as best I could w/o removing scope and looks like front base is .020" thicker than back base. Based on your picture looks like a lot more than .020" difference on your receiver. Would be interesting to have seen actual measurement of front and rear bridges OD before sanding down.

Regards,
hps
 
I admire your tenacity. I suspect I would have returned it shortly after purchase, but you have made it an interesting project.
 
Should have sold it immediately, would have saved time and money
And screwed someone else.......
I realize it's just sorta something we say, but it also seems to be a common sentiment, and I'd bet it's partially why companies are comfortable letting garbage out the door.
If we just pass it along, and never call them on it, why should they give a crap.

Well done on getting it running.
 
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