Savage 220 slug gun

[Taylor]

Biker , that was a thought. The only other scope I have available is a Weaver K4, (without spending money). I did give thought to the Nikon Prostaff. Talked to Leupold again this morning. Want me to send it back...again. He said they would mount and shoot it this time. If it were a lemon (the gun), which I did give thought to also. Why did it shoot so good in the beginning?

[Tripplebeards]

I have a stainless camo version. I installed a DMZ scope mount and a Nikon monarch 2.5x10 optic. I also turned my trigger down to the lightest pull weight. I bought every plastic tipped loaded ammo to try. The best group I reviewed was 1.3/4”...the widest was 4.5”. I removed the action from the stock. The barrel was touching one side of the stock. I free floated it and then drilled dozens if little holes in the tang area and then acraglassed it. The only place I needed it was in front and back if the tang area. About an 1” to 1.5” in front of it. It looked like a crappy job but worked very well. The first three shot group at 100 yards was in one little ragged oblong hole with 3” Remington accutips. It will shoot this tight consistently with the 3” accutips when I do my part. All the rest of my ammo that shot 2.5” to 4.5” tightened up to 3/4” to 1.75” being the largest group out of all seven different loads I tried.

When I bought my first Boyd’s stock for my 1903 A3 I shot huge groups with it as well. Around 4.5”. I then acraglassed it. It tightened it but not great. I ended up re glassing it two more times with the last time using business cards under the barrel to make sure there was free floating space between the barrel and the barrel channel. The best after this was .5” groups. At the same time I did this (20 plus years ago) i literally glued my buddies enfield in place with acraglass in a sporter stock. I glasses the front and rear part of the tang, the rear mounting screw area, and three pressure points throughout the barrel channel. I was very GREEN at the time with the bedding process as this was my third rifle I did back then. Anyways, the enfield wouldn’t come out if the stock needless to say( It’s the gun I just restored...it finally came apart last fall,lol). Long story short, the glued in action and pressure points rifle shot tighter than my 1903 A3 that was glass bedded and released so I could remove my action. I would guess your action is not perfectly mated to your stock. If you have your old stock, if it were me, I’d float it and bed it, and see how your gun shoots again with the same loads. I bet if you put it back in the original unaltered stock and shoot it you’d be surprised. At least it’s one more variable to rule out. If it still shoots large groups with the original stock back in place you can start testing it with different optics,mounts, etc. I know my POA jumped up a few inches on mine after I sighted it in. I haven’t messed with it after I bought years ago and used in IA deer hunting. It’s been a safe queen ever since. I also have a case of 3” accutips I have sealed and stored in an ammo locker being they were impossible to find at the time and I feared they were going to discontinue them.

[Optimist]

Okay. You put it back into the OEM stock and got one good group out of it before things opened up again. That is suggesting a bedding problem to me, rather than a scope issue.

[Taylor]

No, I have not shot it yet with the oem stock. I got good groups with the aftermarket stock. Then everything went to crap.

[Tripplebeards]

No, I have not shot it yet with the oem stock. I got good groups with the aftermarket stock. Then everything went to crap.

Taylor humor yourself and put it back in the OEM, unaltered stock, and shoot a few groups out of it and see if any thing changes before doing anything else. Most guys I know who own these 220’s shoot one ragged hole at 100 yards with the correct factory load without doing a single thing to the stock rifle. Mine didn’t so I floated the barrel and bedded it fixing the problem.

[Taylor]

That is my plan.

[pcarpenter]

I've got a 220f in the factory stock that I've had for several years. Usual great accuracy with Sabot slugs. I had a 210F going back to the mid 90's when they were still available and also had good luck with that. In addition to lots of other rifles, I have a 10-MLII that had a way-out-of-round front receiver ring. I was using a two piece base and finally put a straightedge on it and figured out the issue. They were finishing the receivers with a belt sander and it's easy to get things out of round. I eventually fixed by epoxy bedding the front base after making a fixture to hold the two parallel on the receiver. Since that time, I've had to epoxy bed one piece rails on other rifles for the same reason. You could set them on the receiver with no screws and rock them just a bit. In short, if the bases are tight, but not square, you are going to torque a scope tube and the erector tube inside is not going to track properly and can jump around. If it's bad enough, you can permanently damage a scope. I am also a fan of the Burris Signature rings which do much to solve minor alignment issues.

Speaking of damaging a scope...I have little good to say for rests that prevent all movement of rifles that recoil pretty hard....and a slug gun makes lots of recoil energy. If firing a gun is a physics experiment demonstrating Newton's third law of motion, the Lead Sled and others are a demonstration of how to use it to tear up a scope. The gun and scope start to recoil together, with the gun having far more mass. It would otherwise dissipate the bulk of the energy but it's abruptly stopped from moving. The scope on the other hand tries to keep moving and has to bear far more than its normal share of shock. Think of it as the crash dummy in a car that hits a wall at 60 miles an hour.

As others have mentioned, having the scope out of its optical center won't help either, so it's worth solving major amounts of misalignment using something other than the adjustment of the reticle.

I wish you luck. Frustrating as it can be, I am convinced this hobby is not for folks who aren't willing to do some problem solving and I believe you will find the answer. Check your base for tight and square with the scope off. Check to see if it fits squarely without being bolted down. Try another scope if needed too....a "known quantity" that has worked fine elsewhere.

Paul

[W.R.Buchanan]

I was going to say take the scope off and shoot it with the iron sights,, but then I realized it doesn't have iron sights.

The gun has a 3" chamber, so maybe you should only shoot 3" shells instead of 2 3/4" shells in it? Sometimes that makes a difference, but it is seldom a night and day difference.

Does your gun have separate bases or a full length rail to mount the scope on? I'd go with the Full Length Rail.

If this gun still won't shoot then send it back to Savage, I've already read all possible solutions I'd have tried on this thread and if there's still no results then the gun has to go back.

No Magic Boolit here,,, Sometimes you just get a Lemon.

Randy

[Taylor]

2 bases. I'm going to exhaust all recommendations before contacting Savage. Most I have already tried, some I still need to play with.

[Tripplebeards]

If you look at some of my past posts I had my POA keep shifting on my Ruger American 450 BM. I found the factory weaver style rail was loose causing vibration. Ruger exchanged it with the updated Picatinny rail. It came back from the factory with it mounted loose! I removed it, acraglassed bedded it, and loctited the mounting screws. If you’re removing your bases and rings again make sure you apply loctite to the bases or acraglass them in place like I did...one more thing to rule out. Oh, I also sprayed 3M 77 adhesive inside my scope rings and let them dry before placing my scope in them to prevent slippage. I wrecked one optic with it from slippage and mounted the second one with rosin and used my wheeler torque wrench...it still slipped! I haven’t tried shooting it with the 3M 77 adhesive but I already know it will not move now after the optic barely wanted to move in the rings when the mounting screws weren’t even installed yet. After I did the 3M adhesive application on my 450 BM I checked my colt andaconda. The red dot slid a good 1/4” so I applied 3M adhesive inside the rings on that one as well. I went through about a half dozen red dots in the mid 90’s on that pistol for the same reason. No matter how even the torque was the optic always came loose and destroyed. I believe 3M 77 adhesive will be the holly grail of saving optics in my house. I have to do both my ultra mags next.

[Taylor]

Good idea with the glue. They seem pretty solid as is. I'm replacing the 2 base set up with a single base. My schedule now is hunt Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Range on Tuesday, mow grass on Wednesday. Start the hunt all over on Thursday. I sure hope I can get this thing worked out.

[garandsrus]

Did u clean the barrel?

[Taylor]

Yes, and I will again before I go to the range. Just noticed something. I bought a 1 piece base this morning and put it on. While bore sighting, when I would make an adjustment, I would tap the knob with my finger. The reticle's would move. If this is happening to the scope with just a tap of the finger, what is recoil doing? I'm sending it back.

[tomme boy]

I use liquid electrical tape on my rings. Plus I use 3 screw rings. They don't need the tape but I do it out of habit from using standard rings.

[Hogtamer]

I would say the single base is asking for trouble. The scope needs all the support it can get banging around in the woods.

[Optimist]

No, I have not shot it yet with the oem stock. I got good groups with the aftermarket stock. Then everything went to crap.

Sorry I misread your post earlier. My reading is apparently outstripping my understander....

[Taylor]

I would say the single base is asking for trouble. The scope needs all the support it can get banging around in the woods.

But I can move it where I want that way.

[Tripplebeards]

Dmz makes a bullet proof 1 piece mount that's pretty light. I have one on a remington 7600 and my savage 220.

[megasupermagnum]

So it did shoot good at one time, then just went to heck? I have a hard time believing anything with your stock could cause groups to go from great to off paper at 50 yards. Unless your barrel is really jacked up, you have a bad scope or mount.

[Taylor]

Shot great, man I was one happy camper. Then bam, everything went crazy. Would not group for love nor money. I changed the base today and the scope is on it's way to Oregon. I have lost all faith in it. I may buy the Nikon Prostaff or the Leupold VX Freedom. When I tapped it with my finger and the cross hairs moved..well something is wrong.