I was thinking about getting a pac-nor barrel chambered and threaded for a savage rifle (they do offer this correct?) and was wondering how installation goes without the barrel nut. Will the barrel be loose in the action? How do you keep your barrel tight where you want it? Ive changed barrels on savages before and know about headspacing and the locking nut, but wondered how to do it without that nut. Thanks in advance.

Scott--

The barrel is cut with a shoulder by measuring from the receiver face to the bolt face. Of course its not loose. It's just as tight as with the nut.

The nut is there to save a LOT of time for the factory.

Scott,

It is as JBelk says.

Savage uses the nut as a sort of adjustable shoulder on the barrel. Were you to take ofF a barrel and reinstall it without the nut, it would be loose.

Since the nut is ugly as my fourth grade teacher, smiths installing a new barrel on a Savage discard the nut and cut the threads so there is a shoulder where the nut would have been.

Think of the barrel as a big machine screw being run into a threaded hole. You can make it really tight either by putting a jam nut on the threads and tightening the jam nut or by using screw just the right length for the head to come in contact with the surface and put tension on the threads.

Would it be safe to assume that pac-nor cuts and threads their barrels without this taper for the barrel nut?

You can email them and ask, but I dunno of nobody outside the factory who uses the nut.

Scott, the only reason you can buy finished, chambered barrels for the 110 / 10 series is BECAUSE of the nut. It allows you to headspace correctly.

Without the nut, you have to headspace the same way any other action is headspaced -- and if you have to ask, I'll go out on a limb and say you aren't able to do that yet.

There are LOTS of people that rebarrel Savages WITH the nut. Gunsmiths don't, because there really is no need for a gunsmith. Which is, IMHO, why gunsmiths hate them so passionately -- they shoot well, and if the barrel is shot out, a phone call gets a new barrel. Gunsmiths really like Remingtons: they are easy to work on, and there are lots of aftermarket parts they can put on them to make them shoot well. FWIW, Dutch.