With much disscussion on the web and of course here i finnaly got a savage 12v low profile in .243. You are all correct about the savage as a shooter, not to mention three people here who handled it said its a beautiful gun. 10 lbs, 4 shot clip, beautiful laminated stock, 1 9 1/4 twist 26 inch barrel etc. All groups were shot with nossler premium brass, varget, win wlr primers, and loaded with lee zero error loader, necks inside turned etc.. loads were otherwise to sierra specifications for the 1530 85 gr hpbt at 100 yards on a not calm day.. after a 25 yard siteing, my first group was 9/16 inch with 35.5 grains varget. second group 15/16 inch three shots (all) with 36.0 grains varget, cleaned with sweets 7.62 rinse withhoppies numb er nine, dry, and with 36.5 grains varget shot halfway between 3/8 and 7/16 inches. last group of 37.0 varget shot 5/8 inch.. Im very impressed with savage, no promises, no hype, no bull from the factory, but the recieved product is as hopped for or most likely better.. Dave

congratz, I have the same gun in 223 and its very accurate also. Im thinking about either getting another of the same in 243 or getting the fv model in 243, wish they offered the FVSS in 243!

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Originally posted by The Derek:
congratz, I have the same gun in 223 and its very accurate also. Im thinking about either getting another of the same in 243 or getting the fv model in 243, wish they offered the FVSS in 243!

Why get another rifle when you can spend you money on just another barrel... a bolt face change is like $18.00 out of Midway.. and a barrel wrench is like $35.00...

you can get some good quality barrels for a low price... even Adam and Bennets shoot pretty darn well.. or ER Shaws....

key being.. the bucks you save on not buying an entire new rifle... you can invest in some better glass to sit on top of it...

I am doing the same as I suggest right now... for my Savage 12 BVSS I have a 260 barrel with a one in 8 twist and a 7/08 barrel on order from Shaw right now...the rifle came chambered in 223...I also have a 308 barrel I traded a local friend for.. he shot it for about a thosuand rounds experimenting with loads on it.. then went to a 300 Whisper...

also have picked up a 25/06 heavy barrel as a take off that I am going to have turned down to a 257 Roberts AI for some long range varmint fun..but that is going on the 116 Action currently chambered in 7 Rem Mag ( Sporter barrel)... and I also picked up the bolt face change for that to an 06 bolt face...

seafire:

I'm all for saving money, but I think that's is taking it too far. Let's see, you have to buy a barrel, and good ones aren't the ones you've named, a wrench, and bolt face. Not to mention, go, no-go gauges. THEN if you want to change calibers, you have to yank all the stuff off of one, (I'd feel better taking the scope off first as well) put it all back, re-sight it in, etc. Now, 3 days later your buddy calls up with a hunt for which you need the caliber you just took off starting the endless process all over again.......Geesh! In my opinion, that makes a second gun seem cheap to me. Some people like to tinker a helluva lot more than I do, obviously. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it for someone who likes that kind of thing, to each his own, but I think it's kind of a dumb plan unless someone is really, REALLY broke.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
seafire:
Some people like to tinker a helluva lot more than I do, obviously. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it for someone who likes that kind of thing, to each his own, but I think it's kind of a dumb plan unless someone is really, REALLY broke.

The barrel easy swap idea is a good one, but not for swapping back and forth. For building rifles in hard to get calibers it ain't all bad. Three of my barrel changes resulted in a deep throated 250-3000, a 6.5 X 55 and one of my wildcats ,7.62 X 41. I have 4 more Stevens Mod. 200s that may or may not be changed some day and a Savage 12BVSS-s that will only be swapped out should the barrel die before I do.My old Mod. 340,30-30 will never be changed in this life time.

The idea of changing barrels back and forth, back and forth does not appeal to me either, especially in true Varmint class rifles. There is a place for an EZ change barrel at a modest cost when it normally would cost you an arm and a leg to get something not readily available.

Just one man's opinion! roger

I want another rifle so I can take them both along when I go out shooting little furballs!

Well gang,

most of what I am doing is range duty rifles, so your arguments against it, are not the inconvenience to me that it seems like to you above...

watching a few local benchrest shooters that have quite a bit of mileage under their belts... they do this with push feed winchesters now...

and do so without head space gauges.. they just tighten the barrel down onto an unfired case and they are good to go...

It appeals to me for the time being...

I remember a member on this forum quite a while ago, answering a poll about how many rifles one has...

he told of having 3 rifles and two pistols...

That was what he could legally have in his native South Africa....

however the 3 rifles were Savages.... he also had laid out on a rug, something like 50 different chambered barrels for the 3 actions and like 5 stocks...

that is the appeal in nations where they limit what you can own... and with Obummer in the white house.... well I trust Stymie about as far as I can throw Texas....

so one action and multiple barrels for it... well that appeals to me... and they probably are not going to limiting the number of scopes you can have... and Weaver Rings are pretty darn good at bringing optics pretty close back to zero....

so it may be a pain to others, but I find utility in it...plus I tend to shoot a particular caliber for a while, and then shoot another....so I am not speaking of having to change barrels 3 times a day....

and as Roger put so eloquently." one man's opinion"....

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
seafire:
...you have to buy a barrel, and good ones aren't the ones you've named...

Funny, I know several people that have had very good experiences with the barrels named.

You don't have to spend $600 on a good barrel, but you can spend $600 on a barrel that shoots as good as a $250 one.

If you are shooting benchrest or some other competition, that may make sense, but that is not always true either. I have seen $3500 custom rifles beaten by a $400 Savage.
And I guarantee the barrel on the $400 Savage didn't cost $600.

Well, only if it wasn't built by the Government.

quote:

Funny, I know several people that have had very good experiences with the barrels named.

Of course, and I know several people who wish they'd never bought one. If a MOA or slightly better barrel is what you HOPE you're buying on the cheap, then they're fine. Like in most things, good things cost more. What's the old saying, if you want first quality oats, then they are expensive, however, if you want oats that have already been through the horse, they come a little cheaper.

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:
The idea of changing barrels back and forth, back and forth does not appeal to me either, especially in true Varmint class rifles.

You have just given me an idea! Given my obsession with Lee Enfield’s, what about a quick swap barrelled action! I'll start a new thread under Gun Smithing.

Well they are going on my rifles and my luck with them so far has been excellent... every bit as good, really surpassing, factory barrels...

for my needs, a Krieger is not going to give me any more for my needs than the Shaws are going to do... and if they suck, I'll send them back...

Just for the record. Of the three Shaw barrels that are on Stevens Mod. 200s none are better than the barrels that came off but are of desent hunting repeatability.

Of three Mod. 98s that ware AB barrels only one is MOA and the other two are about 1 3/4" at 100 yds.

Two of the Shaw barrels arrived with mucho rusty hand and finger prints. The Shaw response to this was "that it had been very hot and humid in PA. when they were produced." Ahhh OK roger

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Originally posted by Gatogordo:

quote:

Funny, I know several people that have had very good experiences with the barrels named.

Of course, and I know several people who wish they'd never bought one.

Well send them to me if they don't want those nasty POS barrels!

I will be more than happy to use them, at my own risk of course!

Like I said before, the $400 Savage didn't have a $600 Shilen, or Kreiger, or Lilja, or Pac-Nor, etc.....

Flippy:

Most of them that I know about are being used as tomato stakes. If you think barrels that often deliver OVER 1 MOA of "accuracy" are ok, then you're certainly right, you should buy all the cheap barrels you want or need. I don't and won't but I will admit that those levels of accuracy are perfectly fine for most hunting uses, they just aren't acceptable to me. If I'm going to the trouble of putting a new barrel on, I want it to improve or at least equal what I had, not go the other way. Sure, sometimes you can get lucky with a cheap barrel but most of the time you get what you pay for. There's nothing wrong with cheap barrels if you expect mediocre results in your rifles.

Most Savage factory barrels are far better than most of the cheap barrels mentioned so far. Again, there are exceptions to everything but I repeat, you usually get what you pay for.

Finally, I'm not trying to insult you or your buying habits.......I don't care if you shoot rocks down a drainpipe, if it makes you happy, then by all means, go for it.

FatCat:

Over on another web site where John Barsness posts, he gave the Shaw barrels some very favorable ratings, especially since they have installed much newer equipment several years ago...

My 223 barrel from Shaw is not a benchrest shooter and doesn't necessarily show real cutesy tight groups either... but it seems to be able to nail little pop can sized sage rats at 250 and 300 yds with about an 80 to 85 % success rate.. which is about as good as ANY 223 I have ever owned...so that is 'mediocre' enough for me....

Savage does so sweet barrels.. I was reading an article last night on a semi recent article in one of the gun rags, where they were testing a bunch of tactical rifles in 308... the cheapest and second most accurate was a Savage 10 FP...for about 1/3 the price of the other rifles...

My preference on barrels is definitely Pac Nor sor even such a thing as a Krieger or Hart.. but ya know, for a "daily driver" without spendy trendy big name boutique match bullets, so far Shaw barrels have completed the job I have needed of them, as well as about any factory barrel, and better than most...

heck I am sure we all wish we had $3500.00 custom rifle, with $1500 to $2500 glass on top of them, and $700.00 customer big name stocks underneath and shooting spendy match bullets.. but there are a lot of us that do pretty darn well without all of that...

not to detract from the original post but from what has been said since i'll include some input.

Seafire has the right idea but i'm too lazy to keep swapping barrels and I don't have any use for more tha 2 or 3 calibers so I went and bought $300 stevens. take the barrel off sell it mod the stock or replace it if you want and throw on a shilen prefit barrel for $300-$400 not $600 check out the website. pretty cheap if you're handy. and you can get whatever caliber you want.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
Flippy:

Most of them that I know about are being used as tomato stakes. If you think barrels that often deliver OVER 1 MOA of "accuracy" are ok, then you're certainly right, you should buy all the cheap barrels you want or need. I don't and won't but I will admit that those levels of accuracy are perfectly fine for most hunting uses, they just aren't acceptable to me. If I'm going to the trouble of putting a new barrel on, I want it to improve or at least equal what I had, not go the other way. Sure, sometimes you can get lucky with a cheap barrel but most of the time you get what you pay for. There's nothing wrong with cheap barrels if you expect mediocre results in your rifles.

Most Savage factory barrels are far better than most of the cheap barrels mentioned so far. Again, there are exceptions to everything but I repeat, you usually get what you pay for.

Finally, I'm not trying to insult you or your buying habits.......I don't care if you shoot rocks down a drainpipe, if it makes you happy, then by all means, go for it.

Most Savage barrels are as good or better than most custom barrels.

My friend builds custom AR platform guns and has built probably close to 100 over the last 10 or so years. He currently owns about 30 himself in every configuration imaginable. He built a 20” shorty AR with an upper from Model 1 Sales (ER Shaw barrel) a couple years ago for himself as a cheap “plinker.” It cost $700 to build. This is one of many AR’s he has built with these “cheapo” barrels.

A few months later he built a “no holds barred” AR with every high dollar part he could for a customer that had to have everything high dollar (the custom Kreiger barrel cost $900). His $700 POS AR was more accurate with a multitude of factory and handloads than this $3500 wizz bang everything cost like gold AR (oh yes, and then add the $1200 scope).

After getting his a** handed to him at the range, the customer asked how much the “el cheapo” gun cost.
My friend told him, “your barrel cost more than my whole rifle.”

You can’t insult my buying habits. I buy what works, not what costs the most. Bragging rights are for the best shooting gun, not the most expensive.

quote:

Originally posted by crout:
not to detract from the original post but from what has been said since i'll include some input.

Seafire has the right idea but i'm too lazy to keep swapping barrels and I don't have any use for more tha 2 or 3 calibers so I went and bought $300 stevens. take the barrel off sell it mod the stock or replace it if you want and throw on a shilen prefit barrel for $300-$400 not $600 check out the website. pretty cheap if you're handy. and you can get whatever caliber you want.

You can get a Douglas for right at $300 also.

But it wouldn't be a $600 barrel, so it can't be any good...