Timing and truing a Savage:
Savages are mass produced and designed to be put together in a production line from a bin of parts.
The bolt bolt bodies are chrome plated tubing drawn on a mandrel. The triggers, trigger hangers, and sears are forged or stamped out.
Their factory barrel, actions, and floating bolt head are the hear of their inherent accuracy.
Some of the things that are done to improve on the Savage rifles are bolt fit, alignment and timing.
The factory actions bolt race are .7015 ID and the factory bolt bodies are usually about .696 OD. Real sloppy in comparison to other manufactures.
The cocking ramps are cut with an end mill and the helical leaves something to be desired.
The main screw, compresses against the cocking piece sleave that compresses the firing pin spring. Slop and deflection in the spring adds to the friction in cocking.
Bolt lift on cocking is the major complaint about Savages. Bolt lift can be reduced by 50-60 percent by timing and truing Savage actions.
Some gunsmiths use a deprimed spent 38/357 magnum case cut to fit inside the cocking piece sleeve and insert a ball bearing in the primer pocket. The ball provides a smaller and slicker surface for the main screw to mate up against.
I drill and tap the main screw .250 X 28tpi and insert a .750 x .250 28tpi grade 8 cone point set screw. I also make a shouldered cap with a center indentation for the set screw to mate with. This does several thisngs it reduces the friction, it aligns the firing pin, and it allows for external firing pin spring tension adjustment.
The bolt handles are fit to the back of the bolt and held in place by the main screw.
Upon opening the holt handle rubs up against the ramp on the rear baffle this is where the bolt gets its primary extraction.
When bolt head lugs are turned or lapped they can move the primmary extraction out of timing. There for the bolt body must be shortened to bring the primmary extraction back.
I recomend that folks also replace their factory bolt body with a .701 PT&G bolt body that is precision ground form tool steel. this requires some turning and machining to make it fit properly.
There are several friction points between the trigger, trigger hanger, and sear that should also be deburred and polished.
The bolt lugs should be turned and lapped into 60% or better bilateral engagement.
During the same operation the bolt face should be machined.
For high presure cartridges the bolthead should have the firing pin hole centered and bushed.
I have not seen any significant difference in accuracy between barrels using the nut vs shouldered barrels. The nut just makes headspacing easy and barrels interchangeable between different actions.
There is no reason a Savage rifle can not shoot with the best and most expensive factory actions.
Nat Lambeth
