300 Savage Remington 722

[blixen]

Thanks. It had a Leupold scope on it and not much finish left on the stock when I saw it in a hock shop, $450. Clerk said all the value was in the scope and rings. He said the 300 sav. was an obsolete round. I hadn't planned to buy it, but I half jokingly asked what he would take for just the rifle.

!!!

I scrounged some money and came back, pronto. I didn't know a thing about 722s and was afraid something was seriously wrong with the rifle. Put a new spring in it to fix misfires, and refinished the stock with some tung oil I had in the shed. So far, so good, but I haven't found a good CB load for it yet.

let me know what works in your dad's.

[358 Win]

I've got a 722 from 1949 in .300 Savage and a 721 from 1951 in 30-06 and truly like them both. Don't know the history of the 721 but the 722 I bought from a gentleman who had a terminal disease. He hunted all over the US and even into Mexico. His record of big game with that .300 Savage was impressive to say the least, from elk, deer, black bears and the last animal he took was on a Utah mountain lion. He used only one load, the Remington factory 180 grain round nose core-lokt.

My best friend really liked my 722 in .300 Savage and told me if I ever run across one for sale to let him know. I found a 1948 vintage 722 in .300 Savage at a LGS in better shape than mine and called him. Of course he purchased it. The receiver was only drilled and tapped for a scope on the rear bridge only and not the front bridge. He researched the history of the 722 and found out that the first handful of 722's built in 1948 were all drilled thusly and sent out to gun writers of the period who immediately groused at the fact that only the rear bridge was drilled and they could not mount a scope. My best friend is now the owner of one of the very first 722's built. Mike already had a receiver site for a 722/721 and our mutual friend, a stock maker cut the stock to fit the receiver site. With the Lyman receiver site mounted it looks like it left the factory with the receiver site mounted.

358 Win

[richhodg66]

"He said the .300 Savage is an obsolete round."

LOL. It'll do anything a .308 will for all practical purposes, deer can't tell the difference. It's been my experience that the short neck is not nearly the problem people make it out to be either.

[blixen]

BTW, my 722 came with athe bottom half of a Williams receiver sight already on it. I guess I'll look on EBay for a top. Once I find a load for it, I may pull the scope off. The stock seems suited for open sights.

The barrel isn't floated, anyone done that to a 722?

[Hardcast416taylor]

About the .300 Sav. round. After WW 2 when the miltary was looking for a different cartridge for their main battle rifle, the .300 Sav. was given a hard going over to possibly be the one. The thing about the cartridge case that went against it being chosen was the short neck. It was found to not feed reliably through automatic weapons! The velocity of the 150 gr. JSP in the .300 Sav. factory round and the velocity of the 180 gr. JSP factory round in a .30-06 were so close together that the .300 was nicknamed the "Baby .30-06".

I have found that my .300 Sav. has a love for 150 gr. JSP bullets in handloads, it also likes 130 JHP for crows and woodchucks. I still haven`t got it back yet from having the Sako type extractor system installed. Just got an E-mail from Al at NOE that I can order my RD 310 - 165 gr. HP .300 Sav. mould now, hope I can get my rifle back ASAP now.Robert

[blixen]

Let us know how that NOE mould works out.

[richhodg66]

I have one of those NOE molds coming too. Looking forward to trying it out.

[blixen01]

I shot the 722 today on a 75 yard range. I shot an assortment of loads. The best groups I got were about 1.5 inches with 7 grains of Red Dot--Lee 173 flat point, wheel weights. sized to .310.

The rifle has no space between the barrel and the forearm. I'm wondering if floating would help. That 722 bump where the rear sight dovetail is seems to complicate things.

[frnkeore]

The barrel can be easily floated on most bolt actions, including the 721/722 by, just putting a thin piece of card board (like a match book), under the front ring. You then check with a dollar bill to see if it will slide back to the receiver. If not, add heavy paper shims, until it will.

You can shoot it like that, for a short time, to see how it improves the grouping (at least with cast bullets). You can then glass bed, just in front of the recoil lug (3/8 - 1/2") and to the rear. Then pull it out, remove the shim, and run a more bedding to fill the rest in.

Regarding bullet seating:

1. The freebore of the cartridge is .165 long and should be (factory specs) .3095 dia. So, from the front of a 1.875 long case, the bands can protrude .19 (approx. 3/16) if, they are no larger than .3095. You might be able to squeeze .310 in with the bolt but, NO larger than that, forward of the case mouth. Your bullet can be any size you like, in side the case neck, so long as it will chamber.

2. The distance from the leade, where the rifling starts (or front of the freebore) is .414 so, if the length of the bands are no longer than that, you can fully support your bullet, with all the bands & GC, still inside the case neck.

I like the 300 Sav, a lot, especially it's 30 deg. shoulder. I resently extended the neck, in the chamber to 2.05, so I have a 3/8 long neck and can use 308 brass, as is. I call it a 300 Savage LN and will add LN to the barrel markings. No worry, I bought a barrel on Ebay to do that to . I still have the 300 barrel that came with my rifle.

Frank

[Hardcast416taylor]

Got my 722 back from having a Sako type extractor system done to the bolt. WOW!! Talk about positive extraction and ejection of a cartridge! I bought this rifle back in 1963 as a used rifle for $50, this included a 3x Weaver scope, Williams sling swivels and carry strap and 1 1/2 boxes of Rem. JSP ammo in a gun case. I now wonder why I waited so long to get this work done to cure it dropping the empty case on the magazine area when extracting it? I`ve got the RD .300 Sav. mould Al at NOE. I`m getting over another case of pneumonia so it will be a little while till I fire up the pot to make some to try.Robert

[nekshot]

I vowed(with crossed fingers) no more gun purchases but if I find a 722 in 6mm, I am gonna talk my son into buying it. When I was a 18 year old kid a distant relative would buy guns (a dealer sold them at a couple bucks over cost) and rent them out to the plain mennonites. He was getting up in age and gave all renters option to buy or turn in the gun. One day I stopped in and he had about 15 721's and about another dozen 722's. He offered them to me I think 120 dollars each but I didn't have the money. I never forgot that pile of 722's!

[blixen01]

Frank, thanks for the food for thought. I plan on trying the cardboard trick next time out.

I'm going to have to sketch out your info about seating to understand it.
I understand (or thought I did ) chamber, throat, bore, but leade is a new one. I looked up the terminology, and see leade and throat and freebore used interchangeably.

I like your idea about adding more neck to the 300 savage, but why not just rechamber to .308?

[frnkeore]

More later but, the quick answer to the "why not 308" is 2 fold:

1 The SAAMI neck is way to large @ .346. The 300 neck is .340, same as the '06

2. The 308W freebore is .310 or more, in some chambering and while the 300S FB is .3095 I prefer it. The leade angle is the same on both.

3. A neck and throat reamer is much cheaper than a chamber reamer. PT&G's N&T is $66

4. I like the 30 deg shoulder over the 20 deg. of the 308W

Frank

[frnkeore]

I looked up the terminology, and see leade and throat and freebore used interchangeably.

It can be confusing and I consider it anything that the bullet can come in contact with, once it starts moving but, this is how I define it:

1. The throat is every thing forward of the chamber neck

2. The transition from the case neck diameter forward to the next part of the throat. It can, in fact can be the totality of the throat, such as the 30/30, 32/40 and many of the older calibers both larger and smaller than those two. If that hasn't confused you, there are many transition angles for chambers that have freebores and/or just leads. 45 deg is the most common, modern angle but, there are lots of others 35, 30, 12 degrees and more.

3. The freebore (if present) will be a cylindrical, parallel part of the throat, just ahead of the neck transition at bullet diameter or larger.

4. The leade will be a angular cut, that starts at the end of the freebore or the neck to throat transition and runs all the way through the rifling (lands).

Throats don't have to have a freebore area,'06 for example and they can also have a double leade angle, as in the 303 British.


One of my fire formed 300 Sav LN case, has a case capacity of exactly 55 gr of water. Most sources give the case capacity of the 308 Win, as 56 gr. I just did a search for 308 capacitys and found a source that gave 56 gr for Lapua and Federal and for Win cases, 57.2 gr. The differences in case capacity between the LN and 308, when measured to the top of a empty case, is 1 gr of water less.

1 Gr water = .0648cc not much difference.

Frank

[frnkeore]

I just made this drawing. It's based on the 308 Winchester. I hope it helps clearify what I'm talking about.

Frank

[blixen]

Thanks Frank,
I also did some research online. I think I've got the nomenclature now.

I plan to do something similar to your long-necked 300 Savage in my 7.7/300 Savasaki I mentioned at the beginning of this thread. Because the chamber is just a set back 7.7 Japanese there should be room for a longer neck on the fire-formed .308 brass. Of course, it will fireform the 7.7 shoulder, which is about the same as the .308's. As I said, the Arisaka in .300 Sav isn't pretty, but for $75 dollar gamble, it's a good shooter.