I am looking for opinions on Savage rifles. One of the main ones i am looking at is the Model 12FV in 22-250. Any opions on this rifle or other Savage rifles would be great. BTW i am planning on using the rifle on yotes and groundhogs and maybe some pdogs

Thanks
Marksman 22-250

savage rifles are very accurate. best bang for your buck. make sure you get the shapshooter trigger with your rifle.

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Originally posted by Marksman 22-250:
I am looking for opinions on Savage rifles. One of the main ones i am looking at is the Model 12FV in 22-250. Any opions on this rifle or other Savage rifles would be great. BTW i am planning on using the rifle on yotes and groundhogs and maybe some pdogs

Thanks
Marksman 22-250

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The Savage rifles shoot great.

A fellow came into the gun shop the other day for a light 223. We had a stainless Savage and a stainless Ruger. We put 3X9 Simmons scopes on each one and let him try them. With Federal Golden Eagle 50gr flat-base hollow-points, the Ruger shot 1 1/2 inches and the Savage shot 1/2 inch. Neither rifle had been fired before and groups were 5 shots.

Then, there's the price. You choose.

Welcome to the board.

Savages are like an ugly girlfriend. Can be a lot of fun, but you don't want your friends to see you with 'em. That said, they are probably the most accurate gun available for the money. You won't go wrong buying one. Jeff

I had a 112fv that would shoot almost every load tried into less than an inch at 100yds. With good handloads it would shoot .375"-.500" at 100yds. Thats pretty good performance for the money. Replace the trigger with a good aftermarket one, get a good scope and you will be all set to pop some chucks!

I "test drove" a 12 FV in 22-250 a few weeks ago. It had the 26" barrel.

I used some Acraglas to firm up the forearm, and some plumber's putty with bb's kneaded as a counterbalance in the stock hollow.

If you're careful, and know what you're doing, you can adjust the factory trigger to about 3 pounds. If you polish the sear engagement points (polish, don't heavily grind or stone, these parts are case hardened) you can get the trigger to a reliable 2 pounds. However, the Sharpshooter trigger is probably the best way to go. They cost around 75 dollars.

The rifle was extremely accurate, as I expected it would be. One particularly accurate load was the 55 grain Nosler ballistic tip with 34.0 grains of IMR 4895. Shot consistent 1/4" groups of three to five at 100 yards.

For prarie dogs out to as far as you can hit them and groundhogs and coyotes to about 300 yards, the 55 grainers launched from your 22-250 should be very effective, and *very* accurate...

Dan Newberry
green 788

Hey Marksman 22-250, I agree with the above posts that Savage rifles are well noted for being very accurate. And they "used to be" quite humble looking indeed, but you can get models today that look quite nice.

Met a guy last week at the Range who got a 308Win Stainless Bull Barrel & Laminated Stock Savage for Father's Day. I believe he had a Nikon scope on it, but I just don't remember for sure.

He was shooting it for the very first time with some Loads one of his buddies had made for his own Encore, so the Seating Depth Off-the-Lands was anybody's guess.

The Load was a 150gr Hornady SST seated deep enough that you could not see any of the cannelure. He had starting loads of IMR-4064 and CCI standard primers in "Range Pick-Up cases". No special Lots or weight sorting(like I do).

Most of his 5-shot groups ran around 1"-1.5" which was just amazing for a Non-Developed Load. Then all of a sudden, he hit 5 cases that apparently were well matched and he put 5-shots into the high 5s, a quarter covered all of them.

He was beaming and said he was looking forward to tuning his trigger and getting some Loads developed specifically for it.

Good for me to be able to agree with Dan on at least a part of one of his posts - the trigger can be worked on quite easily. If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself, let a local Gunsmith adjust it to whatever weight you want for half the cost of an aftermarket trigger.

But, it is really no big deal to polish the Sear Surfaces with a small "hard" stone. Just be sure not to change any of the factory angles. And you can replace the stainless "L" shaped spring with a smaller diameter "Spring Steel" wire that you heat quickly at one spot, bend quickly and quench quickly. The wire can be purchased lots of places, but I get mine through www.jannsnetcraft.com who has plenty of sizes.

Great factory rifles that are difficult to shoot against with other factory rifles.

Dang it Hot Core, you aren't afraid to be controversial once in a while, are you?

Before anyone without experience goes around "stoning" a sear, take a deep breath, have a few beers and sleep off the urge. Then, put some buffing compound on a buffing wheel, or Flitz, and buff those surfaces smooth, instead.
No, stoning isn't rocket science, but it's hard enough to get people to stone a knife blade without grinding it up, so let's leave sears out of the "learning curve". JMO, Dutch.

Hey Dutch, I understand your position and agree there are a good many folks who need to avoid doing anything at all to a trigger. I even know an "alleged Gunsmith" I see post occasionally that I wouldn't trust to touch my firearms, let alone work on ANY of them.

But, you did get my curiosity up. How would you recommend that a person "gain experience" in working on his firearms if he doesn't try?

As I see it, he can try to work on it himself and there are perhaps three things that can happen:
1. He does a good job and ends up with an outstanding, totally SAFE, crisp breaking trigger at any weight he desires. And he can change the pull weight back at any time by simply returning the original "L" spring to the trigger.
2. He totally hoses it up and can either get the parts he messed up replaced or then buy any of the fine aftermarket replacements.
3. Perhaps somewhere in between.

I completely disagree with your suggestion to use a high-speed "round" tool to polish a "flat" surface. There is absolutely zero chance of being able to use that buffing wheel to polish the surface without "rounding" the edges if the compound is aggressive enough to do any good. The dynamics of the "soft edge" on the polishing wheel will simply not allow otherwise.

But, if you have good luck using it, more power to you(See #2 above! ).

I have 3 Savage rifles a 243,222,and 270. They all shot great.

Hot core, you are right as far as rounding it off if you over-do it.

I tend to use Flitz and a low speed, small wheel, and it keeps me out of trouble. Essentially, I just do a quick polish, which is all I really want for my purposes.

The reason I suggested using a buffing weel vs. stoning is simple. A beginner, using a flat stone and a flat surface, will round it a lot faster than a beginner with a wheel. If you've never really looked at a trigger, haven't really done any precision metal work, and don't know which grade stone to use, things can go wrong in a great, big hurry. One of these days, I'll tell you how I know that, provided you buy the first round.. .

Anyway, I think that starting out with an idea of "polishing" the sear is a good bit smarter than the idea of "stoning" a sear. JMO, Dutch.

Hello
I recently did my first ever home-brew trigger job that involved actual filing, rather than just turning screws. Was on a standard Ruger 77.

Here was my thought process. I looked up how to do it on the web. I was cautious, just took small cuts with lots of test fitting. But I found that an aftermarket trigger-setup would be on its way to me if I screwed up. This 6 pound creepy monster was barely usuable anyhoo, so I figured I might as well try. I could only save money.

Success. Now a nice light crisp trigger. And I am 85 bucks richer! And I have new knowledge that I can not put a price on.

Edit: PS it passed the buttstock-slam test too.

[ 06-28-2002, 20:58: Message edited by: JoeM ]

Joe, you did better than I did on my first one...... or two. Excellent! Dutch.

I have a Savage 110 and never messed with a trigger in my life outside of the ususal PM teardowns and such, but I wouldnt mind having a go at a bit of polishing to clean up the pull. Any suggestions on getting enough education to begin the task? Would some fine emery paper suffice?

Wstrnhuntr, you might check and see if yours is adjustable. The trigger on my 12bvss is adjustable and after reading the intructions online I adjusted mine down from 6lbs to 2.5 and it passed the slamfire and bolt slam tests. makes the rifle a lot more fun to shoot. If interested go to the GGVG board and look under tech tips and there is an article by Ken Russo that makes it simple to adjust.

What's "GGVG"?

Forrest

If you remove the trigger itself from the assembly (take out the pin holding it in), you can then use very fine automotive sandpaper (backed with a popsicle stick) to make a few strokes over the sear engagement point. This will smooth out the rough surface.

Go in the direction of the trigger pull. You can do this on the Savage trigger because of the way it is made.

CAUTION! If you plan to totally disassemble the trigger, before doing so, make a sketch and a mental note of how the safety leaf spring rides on the roller pin. Don't pinch this spring between the roller pin and the safety selector. The roller pin goes *between* the leaf spring and the selector. (The leaf spring and selector are basically the same part, and will come out as one piece. The leaf spring is attached to the selector with a phillips screw). If the trigger doesn't go back together fairly easily, you have a part out of place. There won't be any need to force anything...

When you get to the sear, you will have to smooth in a perpendicular direction. I used 400, 600, and then 800 grit sandpaper (get it from the automotive section where paint supplies are found) to do my trigger.

You need to be very careful not to over-do this. The parts are case hardened, and if you penetrate the case hardening you'll ruin the part. Check your safety after adjusting the trigger. One of the hex screws adjusts to engage the safety. Another hex screw adjusts overtravel of the trigger. You want the trigger to have *just* enough room to break before it is stopped by the overtravel adjustment screw.

IMPORTANT! On just about any trigger job, the Savage included, there will be a period of "settling in" during which the trigger will seem heavier than it's going to be in the end. If you aren't totally happy with the weight of the pull when you get everything back together, dry fire the rifle a few dozen times before doing any further smoothing. You'll probably find that it breaks in nicely. If it is very light from the beginning, it will probably lighten up too much after break in, and may cause failure to cock or slam fires. Work the bolt vigorously several times to be sure the trigger is remaining cocked. If it falls when you slam the bolt, tighten the sear tensioner (the piano wire spring) with the hex screw it fulcrums on.

The above method and materials have worked for me on two different Savage trigger jobs. The trigger on my 10FP has been pulled about 1000 times since I worked it, and it remains just as it was after initial break in. Instead of replacing the piano wire sear tension spring, I just put a slight bend in it to relax it a bit (the bend allows the hex screw which adjusts sear tension to seat tight against the spring).

Let us know how things go...

Dan Newberry
green 788

Thank You Russ.

Mike-OR, Could you please tell me were this GGVG board is located. I have a 112 bvss coming in next week. I have spent a hour loking for the GGVG.I am new here ,And could use some help please.

For GGVG board, try
http://www.varminthunters.com

Cheers

Bruce

[ 07-01-2002, 15:44: Message edited by: BIWOZ ]

Thanks Green788 and others! Im in the midle of restoring a Mauser right now but Ive bookmarked the info in here and will give it a go when time allows.

Dan,

I finally got around to the trigger and boy did it ever need it. Thanks to your information it is SOOO much better. I took a little different approach than you though. I didnt want to mess with the sear but instead I just polished the sides of the trigger which were very rough and also the inside of the bracket that the sides make contact with. Also the pin and the hole in the trigger that the pin goes through got a little 400 grit attention but I didnt want to over do that. Then all polished surfaces got a light film of nevr-sieze. This didnt take long at all and was a safe modification and it virtually eliminated the creep, the pull is still a little on the stout side but it is nice and crisp now and is definatley lighter than before. One other thing I did rather than bend the spring was I used a dremel to put a small notch in the contact point where the spring rests on the trigger, but I think that smoothing the rough sides of the trigger made the most difference.

I then tackled the adjustments you described, they were all way out of whack except for the tension screw. The saftey adjustment was frightfully out of proportion. I discovered that because of the way it was adjusted that the saftey could not be completly engaged and it was barley catching the trigger to stop it from firing. The overtravel screw was also horrible. I would reccomend checking those adjustments for anyone who has a savage and hasnt done so yet.

I dont have a pull gage but I can tell you that the improvment is dramatic. Thanks Dan! Got any pointers for a home brewed glass bedding job?

Byren

All you have to do is ask.....

http://www.snipershide.com/blackrifles/savage_bedding101.html

HTH, Dutch.

[ 08-06-2002, 18:38: Message edited by: Dutch ]

Hard to beat a Savage 12 FV with a sharpshooter trigger in 22-250. If accuracy is your goal with the least outlay in cash Savage is the answer. My 12FV 22-250 Savage will shoot fantastic groups with the 55 grain bullet and 34.0 grains of Varget powder. IMR 4064 powder also gives very good results. When the barrel on my 22-250 Savage goes away I will make some minor changes when I replace the barrel. The Savage rifle is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds.
The Remington action has the reputation of being the best. Any master gunsmith worth his salt can tune A Savage action just as well. The Savage headspace lock ring can be eliminated and altered with ease.

I just finished the work on my 12FVSS, the end result is FANTASTIC! smoother and lighter
then at first. Considering how green I am when it comes to working on guns I must say this was quit easy of a project. I got a diamond stone and began to polish the sear surface. The project took an agonising 3 hours, but I have no doubt that it was gone as well as I could do
it myself

I also have a 12FV in 22-250. Having good luck with Sierra 60gr HPFB.
I would like to try speers 70gr semi-spitzer. Do you guys think the 1-12" twist will stablize this?
What overall case length are you guys having luck with?

[ 09-12-2002, 02:04: Message edited by: bearlake ]

hi,
I am waiting for my new Savage 112BVSS in 7mm Mag. to arrive. I'll try and let you guys know how it shoots.

Kyle