Ken Campbell Iowa wrote: i wonder if we have enough data to say that some barrels shoot better than others ??

if so, me personally i would hand lead lap your barrel in an effort to make it even better .

i always lead lapped my shilen y douglas match grade barrels and the never got worse ...which is important ( g ) . some barrels cut the groups in half . maybe they would have eventually shot better anyway ....

pretty scary stuff ... and remember i collect barrels, so that might account for my having no fear of you putting grit in yours ( g ) .

slightly more radical, although i would do it, if lead lapping is too much hassle ( takes 2 hours ) you could shoot 6 only firelaps with a mj bullet with 280 grit ground in .

I don't remember ever lead lapping a barrel, but maybe when I was very young. I got a kit from NECO and fire-lapped a few barrels, other guys barrels, and it seemed to improve accuracy. I don't think I dare trying it now, even with this $50 barrel.

since you asked ... you might consider rethroating to about 1/2 degree or so ....makes common sense, right ??? what could go wrong ???

I'm not a machinist, did it a few times with a hand held reamer, on Contender barrels. While getting firmly disgusted with Contenders and barrels, there was a fellow who would lend throating reamers, several calibers/pilots. But, I'm not a machinist...

just trying to help ...honest ...

ken

edit :  oh, how is the thread fit in your savage ....before you tighten the nut ?? 

The Savage barrel threads are long...just went and measured one, ~1.6” is threaded. I use synthetic disc brake grease on barrel threads, so both the nut and the action are kinda firmly on and there's resistance to turning. Barrel and action and nut threads seem to be about as large/small as reasonable.

also i forgot ...is your savage really well bedded...as in pillar bedded ???  just checking ...

As I understand it from Marlin Bassett, who invented pillar bedding, it's about oily/squishy wood replaced by pillars. And non oily/squishy wood. All the recent plastic Savage stocks are pillar bedded, with/but there's plastic ABOVE the pillars a bit. I believe that the plastic won't compress, and tighten action screws so: I don't want the action to rest on ANYTHING but the front and rear pillars and surrounding plastic. I put the barreled action in the stock upside down, pull it back so the lug stops it, and make it go up and down. I want ONLY one lift each way, as the action lifts off the front then rear pillars. When that is OK, I put the screws in and barely tight. Butt to left, I hold my right hand on the barrel /forend, and tighten the screws. I DON'T want the barrel to go into or out of the stock, NO MOVING! This means that the action is held by the 2 pillars/areas only. My M10 does this fine. My M12 has a magazine in the stock, and something hits the action between the 2 pillars, there are 2 movements up or down. I fixed this with masking tape, taping the plastic near the pillars, lifting the action up until nothing was touching between the pillars, no barrel/stock movement after the screws are started. I don't epoxy/devcon/wondergoo pillar bedded stocks, it makes no sense to me. (I've spent hours with the M12 trying to find what's hitting, no luck so far. I'm thinking about taking the magazine out and making a ctg supporter thing-I shoot all single shot, haven't put a cartridge in a rifle magazine since Sh-Boom.) 

Did I mention that yesterday's bullet were dropped on the concrete floor before loading? Cleaned each off, loaded them all, 83. I'm dropping things a lot more lately, if only there were a competition!