Savage bolt action problem

[Shuz]

Folks, I tried to resize some cases for my elk hunting pardner that were shot from his Savage bolt action chambered in 7mm Rem mag. The cases sized fine, and all measurements fell within SAAMI specs, with the exception of head to shoulder dimension which has to be "estimated" with a set of calipers. Anyhow the bolt closes very hard on these empty resized cases. These same resized cases fit easily into my Rem 700 in 7mm Rem mag. How can this situation be corrected? Thanks for any suggestions.--Shuz

[StarMetal]

Folks, I tried to resize some cases for my elk hunting pardner that were shot from his Savage bolt action chambered in 7mm Rem mag. The cases sized fine, and all measurements fell within SAAMI specs, with the exception of head to shoulder dimension which has to be "estimated" with a set of calipers. Anyhow the bolt closes very hard on these empty resized cases. These same resized cases fit easily into my Rem 700 in 7mm Rem mag. How can this situation be corrected? Thanks for any suggestions.--Shuz

One thing you might try first is to cam your press ram over hard and see if that does the trick. If not take a little material off the top of your shell holder. That will let the case go deeper in the die. You have to watch because I'm not sure how much the die is relieved for the belt.

Now I'll tell you what I did when I owned a 7mm mag. I sized them all to head space off the shoulder rather then the belt. Probably the biggest cause of head separation in belted magnums is that they head space off the belt and the rest of the case has slack so it can expand and stretch forward. I've even machined the belts off of some of my cases. I forget what gun writer it was that recommended that.

The only real reason for a belt was for cartridges that were straight walled or didn't have enough shoulder to head space off of. The other reason was to sell it to us making us thing because it has a belt it's a super super round.

Almost forgot to mention...you are lucky you have a rifle with a tight chamber.

Joe

[felix]

Ray, does the bolt close all the way? If so, and for sure the belt is not your hang up, use moly powder (or grease) on the lugs and shoot the cases. That is what moly is made for, anyway. No moly? Use anhydrous lanolin, and perhaps that is even better. The cases will fire-form perfectly, and not hang up for the next loading. I do this extra neck compression intentionally when making 222 cases from 223 for my BR gun. Granted, the BR gun has an action heavy enough for 50 Browning and is easy to close in comparison to your gun. ... felix

[44mag1]

I would guess your not pushing the shoulder back far enough. Ive had .223's do this where I had to have a lot of resistance from the shell holder to the die. sometimes theres a little play in the press and screwing your die in that little extra bit does the trick.

[Shuz]

Guys--The dies were set(two different RCBS f/l 7mm Rem Mag dies) and 3 different shell holders, to "cam over". The press used, is an old Herters M-3 so it is stout! The press ram cammed over fairly hard. The belt mics OK. The bolt closes all the way but hard, on new factory rounds according to the owner. I think perhaps his chamber is somewhat OOR as the sized cases sometimes fit fairly easy when oriented differently.

[pdawg_shooter]

If this was a non-belted round the fix would be easy, just loosen the barrel lock nut and reset the head space. On a belted there is the problem of the belt clearance.

[Buckshot]

..............Paint an empty case with a magic marker, base and all then chamber it. When you extract it you'll see where it's dragging (or whatever). Also check the base for boltface polishing.

..............Buckshot

[Char-Gar]

I may be simple minded, but it sounds like you just have not run the case far enough into the FL sizing die. Follow the makers instruction on the die by screwing it down on the shell holder enough to take any slack out of the press linkage and you should be just fine.

Sounds like your friends Savage has a hair longer chamber than yours. If the above doesn't work, the rifle has too much headspace and it is any easy fix with A Savage. Loosen the barrel nut and screw the barrel in tight with the proper headspace gage in the chamber and reset the nut.

This is the place where a Wilson full length case guage is worth it's weight in gold to give the answer you need. You can find out if the problem is the rifle or your die pretty easy with this gizmo.

[rvpilot76]

If you want, use the tight fitting, resized cases as your headspace gauge. Loosen the barrel nut, unscrew the barrel maybe a half turn, and screw the barrel in on that case with the bolt completely closed, and tighten the barrel nut. The thread pitch on the barrel will allow for 1.5 thousandths headspace when the nut is tightened. You'll have the dies perfectly set for that particular barrel. One more thing: keep that particular case and use it for setting headspace in the future if you decide at some point to remove the barrel.

Regards,

Kevin

[StarMetal]

I may be simple minded, but it sounds like you just have not run the case far enough into the FL sizing die. Follow the makers instruction on the die by screwing it down on the shell holder enough to take any slack out of the press linkage and you should be just fine.

Sounds like your friends Savage has a hair longer chamber than yours. If the above doesn't work, the rifle has too much headspace and it is any easy fix with A Savage. Loosen the barrel nut and screw the barrel in tight with the proper headspace gage in the chamber and reset the nut.

This is the place where a Wilson full length case guage is worth it's weight in gold to give the answer you need. You can find out if the problem is the rifle or your die pretty easy with this gizmo.

You must have missed the post where the fellow said he cammed the ram over quite hard. So he's not going to get any more out of that die unless he uses or makes an undersized shell holder.

Joe

[454PB]

I agree with StarMetal. I'd suggest you mark that modified shell holder so it isn't used unintentionally.

Another thought would be to try a small base sizing die. I just happen to have one for 7mm Rem. magnum if you're interested.

[Shuz]

I took this gun to a local smith who found that the real problem was that the forward screw that holds the action into the stock was protruding so far that it was impinging on the bottom of the bolt!! The simple fix was to grind a few threads off the screw until there was clearance. Now all of the brass that I had resized for this gun works flawlessly, because the bolt closes without any resistance that I previously thought was a "headspace" issue. I hope this may help someone else that runs into one of these Savage 116's that may have the same problem.--Shuz

[MtGun44]

I bought a Savage 110 cheap at a gun show because of this same long screw problem.

Bolt wouldn't close properly, the owner said it must be the scope ring screws, pulled the
scope rings while I watched. Made no difference. I was going to leave and he offered to
knock $100 off the rifle - "since it doesn't work right" which it definitely didn't. I like a challenge
and decided that I had a pretty decent chance of finguring out what the problem was
and fixing it for less than $100. Finally found the long screw, ground off about 1/16" and
hve never looked back. Good rifle, now has an extra bbl, too.

Bill

[carpetman]

I bought a metal trigger guard from Sportsmans Guide---directions just said use the old screws. One is too long--think front one if I remember correctly. Cutting it down about 1/4" fixed it--about same problem you were having.