Hopefully the pictures loaded. Finally I got some picures taken of my Savage 22-250; my first build. Take a look and tell me what you think; I have been very pleased; it has turned out to be a real shooter.

Doc

I'm not the best photographer in the world.

doc

Looks like a fine rifle to me Doc. How's it shoot?

I have yet to step into the rifle build camp, but working up the courage to do so!

Thanks Shawn,
It was a lot of fun to put together; I enjoyed it so much I'm now gathering parts to build a .308. I set this gun up as a target rifle (heavy), but my .308 will be a carry gun with a lighter barrel and will be painted in full camo. The 22-250 has a 26" SS Shilen barrel in 1-8 twist. I have been shooting 68grain Hornady HPBT, and it has allready turned in some pretty impressive groups at 100yards. I will take some pictures of some of my target and post them.

Doc

Looks great, walk us uneducated folks through the steps of the build process.

Looks great, walk us uneducated folks through the steps of the build process.

I agree :D

I can help here as I just finished building a Savage in 338-06 and am starting on a 20" .270win for my son. I will be starting on a 338 Edge as soon as my 300 RUM gets here.

Anyway, the first, and not always obvious step is to decide what the rifle will be used for. This will dictate everything that goes into the build from caliber selection, stock, optics, even scope mounts.

Step 2: Choose a caliber based on the design criteria from step 1. This will determine which action will work best for your needs. There are quite a few different Savage actions out there so make sure that you choose the right one. The main things to consider is long or short action and bolt head diameter. If you select a caliber based on the 30-06 case like a 270, 25-06, etc, you will need to start with a long action with a .473" bolt head. A short action based on the .308 would require a gun that began life as a short action with .473" bolt face.

Step 3: Choose the action. There are essentially three designs. The old, staggerfeed, pre-Accutrigger that has a flat rear receiver, the newer, staggerfeed, Accutrigger with round rear receiver, and the newest, centerfeed with Accutrigger. Now that you are settled on use and caliber, you will have a good idea of what action you need. If it will be a hard use field gun in .35 Whelen, you will need a long action, .473" bolt face. You may want to consider stainless steel. This gun may have started life as any caliber that is based on the 30-06 case. That means that if you find an unbeatable deal on a used stainless .270win, grab it! It will work. A 35 Whelen should feed flawlessly from even a 25-06 magazine because the case is identical in dimensions as far as what will be in contact with the feed lips. If you will be building a 1000yd elk slayer like the .338 Edge, you will want to start with a long action gun with the .532" bolt face in any RUM chambering. Some people prefer a "large shank" action for such intense chamberings so be aware that some of Savage's RUMs were made on a large shank action while others were built on the standard shank size. Another thing if you are building a strictly target, bench, varmint, or other precision gun chambered in a short action cartridge, is to consider building it on a long action gun if you will be using long bullets and want to seat them out to the lands. Also for the precision guys, there are special target actions offered by Savage that have the ejection ports available on either side in both right and left handed models I believe. You can also opt to have the action trued and whatnot at this stage. Oh, last note on actions, Savage recently released a new action known as the centerfeed. The old ones are staggered feed. There are currently very limited options for aftermarket stocks for the centerfeed actions so you may want to select the action based on availability of the stock.

Step 4: Decide on what barrel to use. Consider things like barrel length, finish, contour, and manufacturer. Cheap pre-fit barrels in common chamberings can be purchased from Midway and are very serviceable for many applications. If you are building an F-class gun or demand the best accuracy, you may want to try a Shilen or Pac-Nor or other custom (high dollar) barrel. I have an Adams & Bennet (Midway) 24" barrel on my 338-06 and it gives me 1.5" groups at 100yds pretty consistently with 210gr Nosler Partitions at 2750fps. Sufficient length, accuracy, and velocity for a 300ish yard elk gun. I will be ordering a 28" Shilen for my 338 Edge. This will be mainly a long range bench gun so the added weight of the extra barrel length will not be a detriment. The added length will also ensure that I get all the added velocity that a high intensity cartridge burning 100 grains of slow powder has to offer.

Step 5: Select a stock. There are offerings in walnut from places like Richard's and Boyd's. Both also have the ever-popular laminate stocks for reasonable prices. They come in various stages of manufacture depending on how skilled you are at woodworking and your budget. Choate has several very nice options for someone who is looking for a synthetic. A higher end option in synthetic stocks is McMillan. You may find that the stock that you just can't live without is not available for your chosen action so make sure that you watch for this before you order.

Step 6: Select a trigger. Many people REALLY like the Accutrigger. Others don't. The pre-Accutriggers can be adjusted reasonably well but are not believed to be as nice as the Accutriggers. Both types of action have very nice aftermarket triggers available from places like Timney, Riflebasix, Sharpshooter Supply and possibly others. If you like the Accutrigger, buy an action that has one. If you don't like the Accutrigger, or know that you will be buying an aftermarket trigger either way, you can save some money by buying a pre-Accutrigger action to begin with.

step 7: Select other incidentals. There are aftermarket recoil lugs that are machined instead of stamped. There are aftermarket trigger guards that are made from real metal instead of the factory plastic ones. Muzzlebrakes. Pretty much all the stuff to personalize the gun.

Step 8: Optics and mounts. Select these based on the same criteria that you would use for any other rifle. Things to watch for would be tube length for long actions, eye relief, will offset rings or bases be necessary and are they available?

Step 9: Assembly. A special wrench is available for about $30 from Midway, Sharpshooter Supply, Wheeler Engineering, and may be available from Brownell's or others. A barrel vise, clamp, or action wrench will also be necessary. The factory barrels are installed to like 20,000 ft pounds or something ridiculous like that so be prepared to work at getting the factory barrel off. Some things that help are using rosin on the barrel surface when using a barrel vise or clamp, or heating the barrel nut a bit. So you have removed the old barrel. Now install the new one, ensuring proper headspace. There are two ways to headspace the rifle. You can use a set of go/no-go gauges or you can use a full-length sized piece of brass from your reloading dies. If you use factory ammo, you will need to use the gauges. If you use the sized brass method, you may not be able to get factory ammo to chamber. Thread the barrel nut onto the barrel shank leaving lots of threads at the chamber end. Slide the recoil lug over the shank. Thread the barrel into the receiver. Chamber the go gauge and screw th barrel in until it stops against the gauge. Tighten the barrel nut. The commonly accepted torque for barrel installation is "hand tight". That means that it is not necessary to use breaker bars or hammers on the barrel wrench. Attempt to chamber the no-go gauge and the bolt should not close. If it does, break the nut loose, rechamber the go gauge and perform the headspacing process again until you get it right. Once the barrel is properly installed and headspaced, the rest of the assembly is really straightforward just like any other rifle. You may choose to bed the stock, which I won't cover here as there are many articles all over the web that cover that. and that's it. Be very careful though, this IS an addiction.

Here she is:
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/ctrout/Gun%20stuff/Savage/Savage4.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/ctrout/Gun%20stuff/Savage/Savage3.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/ctrout/Gun%20stuff/Savage/Savage2.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/ctrout/Gun%20stuff/Savage/Savage.jpg

Very nice, thanks. If you put pictures to the work steps Marshall might put it in the archives. Now you've given me something more to think about.

Regarding the process you described around the Savage action - is use of the Savage actions simpler because of the barrel nut and are there special considerations given to ordering the barrel because of the action? For example, what difference would there be in the barrel if I used a Ruger or Remington action as opposed to the Savage action?

Yes, the Savage action is much easier for a novice to build because of the barrel nut. Headspace for rifles with a shouldered barrel are headspaced by taking material off of the shoulder with a lathe. This makes it difficult for a novice builder to accomplish. When ordering the Savage barrel, the only consideration that I am aware of is whether the action is large or small shank. I believe that the target actions and "most" guns chambered in the WSM and RUM are large shank. There are ways to tell by looking at the barrel that was originally installed. There will be a step in the barrel right in front of the barrel nut on a large shank barrel. Also, the measurement will be larger.
<!--Click here for Ruger Barrel Contour Information (http://www.shootersforum.com/rugerBarrels.html#rugerChart)

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-->http://www.shilen.com/images/savage.jpg

Standard Shanks - 1.060 x 20tpi
Large Shanks - 1.120 x 20tpi - There will be a step in diameter right at Dimension A.

Also, there is a wealth of info on how to build Savages at www.savageshooters.com (http://www.savageshooters.com)

I believe ctrout said it very well and his information is pretty much what I ran into. I would never had attempted this without the help on this site. I didn't even know you could do this yourself; I had picked up my savage action years ago at a gun show for pretty cheap because someone had cut the barrel off short. I had always intended on having a new barrel put on it and then started reading about how I could rebarrel it myself. I did a lot of research on this site before I orded anything, and asked alot of questions. My action was a .243 so I was looking for something in the .308 family. I then got side tracked onto going with .223, and you can read in the thread about rebarreling a savage all the problems I had trying to change bolt faces. I gave up on the .223 and went with 22-250 because I could use my existing bolt; I ordered a 26" SS 1-8 twist bbl by Shilen. I would suggest to anyone attempting this to go ahead and order the needed tools; it will save you alot of heart ache in the future. I started out with just the tools around my father-law's shop, but as ctrout stated; the factory barrels and nuts are on tight. I removed the old barrel nut with a hammer and chisel but scared it up pretty bad, and the old factory barrel was really tight and had to be heated to be removed. Before I went any farther I ordered a barrel nut wrench and new SS barrel nut from midway, along with a go-gauge. When I received all the components I carefully threaded the new barrel into my action, and it went on pretty tight. I was using a standard shop vise, with my barrel wrapped in leather. It held pretty good, but still wanted to slip when I got very aggressive with it. As you can see it turned out ok, you really need a solid go-gauge so you can set the headspace without worrying about case compression as when using a brass case. I currently have the components ordered for a .308, a 24" 1-10 twist E R Shaw barrel, 5X15 Bushnell 3900 elite tactical scope. I bought a new Stevens 200 in 22-250, I'm going to remove the 22-250 barrel and save it; then put on the .308 barrel, scope and then paint the entire rifle in a camouflage pattern. I will post some pictures of this rifle when I'm finished. I warn everyone that this can be very addictive, I find myself thinking about my next rifle. Being able to have a greater part in building your rifle adds alot of enjoyment to shooting; its nice to go out and shoot a tight group with a rifle you built.
Thats a great looking rifle ctrout and cool couch.

doc