Will not shoot

[Wahbi]

G'Day Fella's,
I recently purchased a mod 9322btvss L/H thumbhole stock with heavy barrell etc it really looks the goods but I  can't find an ammo that it likes. Best it has shot so far is 1.5 in at 50 meters.
I bedded and floated barrell but still the same, it seems to me, to be something to do with the marriage of stock to action. The front action screw has no timber surrounding it and the,(if you could call it this) bedding pillar only comes up to about a 1/4 of the distance from the action to the floor plate and floats in space. Consequently when you tighten the front action screw the floor plate made of a light metal or heavy tin bends which prevents you from creating enough pressure to prevent the action and barrell moving minutely when shooting etc. Has any body come across this and if so how the heck do you over come what appears to me as a glaring design fault.
I have 2 other savages in center fire and both shoot like stink but my poor new rimfire appears to be dud.
On top of this I have found the stock very hard to fit into and have to increase the height of my rings to enable me to be central to the scope, am I alone with this problem?

[JRSpicer426]

Bedding a .22 of any factory (nonspecialized) rifle wont net you anything noticeable IMO. As far as stock fit, they are easy to replace. How many rounds though so far? Are you using the hyper/stinger/5000fps rounds, or standard rounds? My experience with 22's is the slower the better for accuracy.

[Wahbi]

Are you using the hyper/stinger/5000fps  standard rounds? My experience with 22's is the slower the better for accuracy

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 Generally I would agree but with this rifle it prefers PMC Zappers but the groups are only an inch or so.
Don't agree with bedding etc as the harmonics with barrell touching timber etc.can have a great influence on preformance re accuracy no matter what calibre IMHO.

[shelbyfan]

Bedding a .22 of any factory (nonspecialized) rifle wont net you anything noticeable IMO.

Actually it is generally the opposite. Higher end rifles will have better bedding than a "non specialized" rifle. Bedding a lower end/cheaper rifle will most often give you more gains than doing a higher end as most of the work to make it shoot has already been done.

Bed the pillars and see what happens.

[dolomite_supafly]

You need to do some more testing with ammo also I think. PMC Zappers are good plinking ammo. Almost every .22 I have bedded has improved as far as consistency goes and consistency leads to accuracy. You will still need to do some testing to find what works and what doesn't. Any time you make a major change (bedding, headspacing, etc) to the gun you will have to do some more ammo testing.

When testing ammo this is how I test and has always seemed to work for me. I clean the rifle really well. I fire 25 fouling shots and at the same time getting settled into the "groove". After the 25 shots I fire 5 groups of 5 shots each and record the results. I clean the firearm again the same way as before. I then start over again with a different brand I plan on testing. I continue this until I find what shoots the best. The reason for cleaning between brands is I have found that sometimes when switching without cleaning the groups can tighten up or do just the opposite because the bullet lubes don't play well together.

As far as brands I would start with CCI, Wolf, Aguila, Federal and Remington/Eley. Try to stay with standard or subsonic as far as velocity goes. Most of the time a round that is subsonic when it leaves the barrel is going to be more accurate than one that starts out supersonic then drops in subsonic range before it gets to the target. When falling below the speed of sound the bullet looses some of its stability causing accuracy issues.

After finding what ammo shoots the best I fine tune it. I place a foam ear plug 1” from the end of the stock under the barrel. Shot a group then move the earplug back another inch towards the receiver. I do this until I find the sweet spot. The earplug acts like a pressure pad, tweaking the harmonics.

Hope this helps
Dolomite

[Wahbi]

Still haven't solved the problem will keep trying different things and see how I go. I have just spoken to another fellow in Aust that has had the same problem am going to try pillar bedding next.

[Wahbi]

http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223949

For anybody interested the above has a very informative post on bedding 9322btvss.

Dolomite,
the PMC Zappaers gave me the best group one that still wasn't acceptable after using numerous brands of target ammo etc, it supprised me and yes I do need to do more experimenting, but as I am finding out the fault with my rifle is not uncommon and appears to be attributed to a design fault.

[dolomite_supafly]

Dolomite,
the PMC Zappaers gave me the best group one that still wasn't acceptable after using numerous brands of target ammo etc, it supprised me and yes I do need to do more experimenting, but as I am finding out the fault with my rifle is not uncommon and appears to be attributed to a design fault.

I don't think it is as much of a design fault as it is that people are wanting more out of their rifles. 99% of the people who buy rimfires are happy with how they perform so why should the factory "tune" their rifles from the factory to squeeze every little bit of accuracy out when the average user won't see it. If it was a design flaww you would read or hear about it much more often as well as the fact they would not be selling them anymore.

We are the 1%er's, those that try to get every last bit of accuracy out of what we own. Keep working at it because you will find that magical combination that brings a smile to your face.

Dolomite

[Wahbi]

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[Wahbi]

See below






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[Wahbi]

Dolomite,
I want it to be known that I am in no way bashing Savage rifles I have and do own a couple of Savage centerfire rifles. One being 50 year old 110 and the other an all Weather Warrior and I can' t fault either, though the early 110's had their design faults which have been corrected ie the modifications made up and until we now have the rifles of today. With Savage's reputation I don't think it is unreasonable for the owner of a Savage centerfire or rimfire to expect a fair degree of accuracy from a factory rifle and I don't call 3MOA at fifty yards a fair dgree, particularly when using target and high end ammo.

Mate pull a MK11BTV LSS a part and have a good look at the bedding then put it back to gether and apply some pressure to the bedding screws. Firtsly the tin plate, representing the floor plate, will bend, secondly as pressure is applied to the rear action screw you will hear the laminates begin to either crush or seperate, this as you will find out takes very little pressure. The forward screw is unsupported and will continue to bend the floor plate and the rear screw to crush the stock till it became U/S. You are telling me that is not a design fault? The action and the barrell virtually sit on the timber (notice that I said on and not in) with very little if any friction holding them in place. Under recoil the action is able to move about similar to you wearing shoes two sizes to big.

I am all for progress and new designs but I beleive Savage need to rectify this design, and it could be done easily and cheaply by providing two pillars for bedding. I don't want them to fine tune the rifle as you put it, that would be cutting into my fun and I don't want that.

As for not reading anything about this fault that is not true you have read my compaint and if you would like to look at AHN ( AUSTRALIAN HUNTING NET)forum site you will see others. Certainly not many but they are starting to appear which is to be expected as this item is realitavely new to the market in my country.

As for being in the 1% as you call them that may be but I  beleive if the one percenters see a glaring fault or any fault it is the resposibility of the 1% to tell it as they see it. Though this was not why I first posted this tread, it was to see if I had a lemon or was the fault common ( I now believe this fault will manifest it self more over the next 12 or so months).  And to find a solution to my problem.

[dolomite_supafly]

I didn't take it as Savage bashing.

In fact I do not even own a Savage rimfire, never have but I do know what it takes to make rimfires shoot. Most tips and techniques that work for one rimfire will work on others. 3 MOA is definately not what I would call accurate so your concern is definately justified.

From the sounds of it the rifle could be improved upon. Any flexing or flimsyness is never a good thing for any rifle regardless of make. If the wood is seperating then there definately is an issue and the flexing metal is an big issue.

I suspect a decent bedding job with pillars will fix the flexing which in turn will increase the consistency leading to a more accurate firearm. Something you might try in the interim is placing a washer under the metal place to take of the slack. Other than that I am not sure what else you might be able to do with the factory stock. There are a few makers of aftermarket stocks for Savages and almost any of them will be better than the factory one.

I don't want you to think I was impying it was anything with how you shoot. I was just giving tips that I have found to help.

Dolomite

[Wahbi]

Dolomite
Never took it as anything else, I am very appreciative of your time to reply to my thread.

My real complaint is that gun writers who write reviews need to be more honest in their assessment of items they review. I understand that magazines editors rely on advertising to pay the bills and with liable laws like they are would be hesitant to really bag a product. But the average punter relies on these writers and their reviews to make their decisions to purchase a product as well as many other things such as Company reputations etc. As I have when I purchased this 22.

In none of the reviews I read did I see anything mentioned about the problems I have discovered. These were found when I first bought the rifle and I pulled it a part to give it a proper clean, if I as an amateur can recognise these as faults and how they might manifest them selves you would expect the professionals in the industry to recognise a glaring fault and report the same as below :
"Though the firearm I reviewed preformed as it should and shot good groups etc I am unsure of the bedding arrangements of this particular model and would imagine that as the rifle wares it may develop a problem" or something similar. Instead we get the normal diatribe of how great this rifle preformed etc etc and the poor old punter is faced with solving the problem or passing it on to some other unsuspecting individual.

[shelbyfan]

In all honesty you have most likely gotten a lemon. I have owned about 6 of the MK/93's in all the variations over the years and have had no issues like you have said. I have read about other people having issues similar to yours.

Why don't we start from the beginning.
Number 1 issues is bad accuracy. There are multiple things that can cause accuracy problems. #1 is usually the shooter, #2 is the barrel. After that you have more in depth items that can cause the problems. Sloppy action (bedding), heavy trigger, sights/scope.

Start with the cheapest/simplest test.

Have someone else shoot the rifle, this may sound like I am insulting you but I am not. When you get frustrated with something that does not work correctly you can skew the results.
Try a lot of different ammo. Don't go cheap. I myself love the Zappers but I use the CCI Blazers as they are always consistent and decently accurate, buy a box of Wolf MT if you can. Cheap ammo will shoot cheaply.
Go through the sights and make sure they all are tight and working correctly, and make sure the scope mounts are inline and tight. Savage rimfire mounts are the biggest joke around.
Release the pressure of the take down screws. Screw them both back in so they are snug but not tight, tighten the rear to 15-20 inch pounds, then tighten the front to the same. If you do not have a in/lb wrench put your finger on a scale and get an estimate of how much that is, only about a pound and half of pressure.

A bit more in depth.

Check the crown. Put white out on the end of the crown to check the muzzle blast pattern. It should look like this. Nice and even. If it does not you may need to polish the end. It is super easy and cheap. All you need is a screw gun, polishing compound, and a round headed brass screw. Chuck the screw in the screwgun, smear it with polishing compound and stick the screw in the muzzle for a few seconds. If the crown is not to bad then it will polish away any imperfections. Clean it good and reshoot. I did this with a friends 93wmr and it really cleaned the groups up, helped a lot.


Check the action/barrel. Yours is wiggly but I don't know how much that will effect the accuracy at that short of range. Make sure the barrel is fully floated. You have a wood stock so if the barrel is hitting the sides you can either sand out the channel or if there is a lot of room you can hog out the action and bed the rifle so the barrel is aligned correctly.
Lets got the easy way first. Wooden dowel and sandpaper to sand out the barrel channel, don't worry about the action. Take it slow and do it right. When it is floated reshoot.
If it still does not work you have two choices. Easiest is to call Savage, http://savagearms.com/contact.htm, tell them what the problem is and see if they will check it out. This is the easiest, cleanest, and slowest method. You can do this at any stage of the process, preferably after you have done all of the non invasive procedures.
Second choice is to bed the action, might as well pillar bed it. If you are not comfortable with going this far into your rifle any competent gunsmith can do this for you. If you are adventurous or brave, I'm just plain to dumb and cheap, you can do it yourself. It takes a couple of days but is well worth it. http://www.6mmbr.com/pillarbedding.html

After that if it still does not shoot, go to your local smith, have him get hold of Savage and take it from there. Then go purchase a CZ

[Wahbi]

Thanks shelbyfan
I have been down all those tracks used good quality ammo, had somebody else who can shoot etc the only thing i havn't done is polish the crown as you suggested but I am now in the process of pillar bedding. Though our tempratures here are to high and the bedding materials are going off to fast so I ' ll wait for the temps to come down.
Wahbi