savage barrel nut

[ken snyder]

A friend of mine wants a heavier barrel on his long range savage. the barrel nut has no provisions for removal or replacement. savage says this is for liability reasons. is machining the nut off and replacing it with a new nut and barrel a straight forward swap or will I find other concsrns along the way

 

[geargrinder]

A friend of mine wants a heavier barrel on his long range savage. the barrel nut has no provisions for removal or replacement. savage says this is for liability reasons. is machining the nut off and replacing it with a new nut and barrel a straight forward swap or will I find other concsrns along the way

No need to machine that new style nut off. A pipe wrench works just fine. If you want to re-use it, SSS make a special nut wrench for the new style nuts.

Or, once it is off, you can always use the older style grooved nuts. They can be purchased from Midway or Brownells for pretty cheap.

 

[shortgrass]

Evidently, Savage is seeing too many barrels not installed properly that have been installed outside of the factory. Headspacing a chamber/barrel should never be taken lightly. It's not just about how it affects the brass or accuracy, it's about safety.

 

[geargrinder]

In my opinion, they went to a smooth nut for looks. Most people know that Savages shoot well out of the box. But some object to the looks of the "ugly" nut.

If Savage were really doing it to limit liability they would put smooth nuts on the Stevens 200 and "Edge" rifles.

If all else fails, you can use a Marlin XL or XS nut. Same grooves and same thread.


BTW...This isn't the first time Savage used smooth barrel nuts. I had a long action J rifle from the mid-70's that had a smooth nut.

 

[hammertyme]

I do not believe for one second the barrel nut has anything to do with liability. When the Short Mag and the Rum were already on the market, Savage is the only company I am aware of that went to the large barrel shank concept. I can buy, Margin of error", on this one!

When Savage came out with the new Accustock and the new bolt release concept the spent a lot of money following some idea or concept and lost a lot of new Savage customers.

The smooth nut came out a long time ago and some of us brought it back before Savage and it looked good. The Spanner nut looks good but I am shooting Savages as most I know are because the of ease in which we can change calibers without spending coin for a new gun. The Accustock concept is not user friendly for those who want a nice new pretty stock.

So what I am seeing is they have engineered OUT the reason many of us went to Savage.

Neal

 

[Rustystud]

I rebarrel most of my customers Savages w/o the Nut so they can have a shoulder against the recoil lug. they are not switching the barrels between multiple actions. Savages work well with a 1.250 barrel turned to 1.125 and threaded 20 tpi. I use precision ground after market lugs made by Dave Kiff at PT&G.
Nat Lambeth

 

[ken snyder]

WOW! I thank you folks for all the information. THIS IS COOL.

 

[tigmaned]

that ugly nut, (LOL) is another reason i got a 700..

 

[Fergal White]

The one thing that nobody thought to mention is that you dont need any barrel nut wrench to remove the action. Just use an action wrench to loosen the whole thing. You only need the nut wrench to put it back on. I always encourage customers to leave out the nut whenever I rebarrel a Savage rifle and headspace of the shoulder.

 

[geargrinder]

I always encourage customers to leave out the nut whenever I rebarrel a Savage rifle and headspace of the shoulder.

Why? What's the advantage?

I'd rather spend $25 on a nut wrench and some wood blocks for an action wrench. Then I have all the special tools to do everything on a Savage.

That's the tools I used to turn this short action 308 to a 338 Edge. Yes, it is small shank, still has the barrel nut, and can still go back to 308, 223, 30-06, or anything I want in less than 15 minutes.

 

[Fergal White]

Its more of a personal thing with me really, I just dont like the Savage barrel nut thing at all. I also have something about the small shank and leaving out the nut allows a much larger shank. Really probably doesnt give any huge advantages though.

 

[Rustystud]

Having rebarreled several hundred Savages some with and some without the barrel nut I see no difference in the accuracy of barrels of the same make.

There is a huge difference in timed and trued actoins, precision ground lugs and high end custom barrels.

Yes, there is the occasional prefit that shoots lights out but that is a crap shoot.

Custom barrels that are set up and indicated with a tenths (.0001) indicator and turned, threaded, and chambered in the same set-up will always shoot better than the mass produced barrel that is turned, threaded and chambered in seperate set ups or operations.

Nat Lambeth

 

[bpmoss1]

Just came across this old post and wanted to reply. I'm building a custom varmint rifle based off a barelled action from shillen. When I placed my order they offered both shouldered or barrell nut styles. Now they only offer barrel nut style. I originally ordered mine with barrel nut liking the idea of of being able to buy additional pre threaded barrels and having no need for smith. However after talking with my smith, who is an avid benchrest shooter, he explained to me why the barrel nut is not the best choice for a high precision rifle. In order for a barrel to be as closely square to the action face as possible (in order for the bore to be inline with the action, which the scope is mounted to, and for the breech face to mate squarely to the bolt face) you must first have a square action face (i.e. custom action or trued factory action) and a square shoulder on the barrel (i.e. as said above a barrel that has been shouldered, threaded and chambered in one accurate set-up. The barrel nut riding on threads will self adjust to what ever the action face presents it with. This is no way to square a barrel to an action face with precision. However Savage and Shilen use a floating bolt face (head) to somewhat solve the breech face to bolt face issue. Thus is why I changed my order to a shouldered system. They stated it will be the last shouldered barrel they will do. What a shame. All this being said, it seems to me that a accurate rifle with a barrel nut system and floating bolt face may shoot very well at one distance say 100 yds, but move out to a further distance adjust for bullet drop shoot and you may just find that windage adjustment is also neccessary (and not caused from the wind). HMMM!

 

[7magcreedmoor]

If you have to do a windage adjustment at longer range when there is no wind, and you've already accounted for spin-drift, then your optic is not plumb above your bore. Linear alignment between receiver and barrel wont change from one distance to another...