Early Christmas!

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charlesb
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Early Christmas!

Post by charlesb » Mon Dec 02, 2013 5:13 pm

Today I decided that I had been such a good boy that I deserved a bit of early Christmas.

I'd hate to have to defend that conclusion - but that's what I decided in any case, and I ordered some new gun stuff to mess around with.

I ordered a "barrel kit" for my Savage bolt gun that will allow me to remove the original 24" stainless "magnum weight" barrel in .243 for a standard contour blue barrel in 7-08 Remington.

The new barrel is 24" long but thinner and lighter than what I have. The gun currently weighs ten pounds, so it could be a little lighter with no ill effect.

The kit comes with the barrel, a Savage barrel-nut wrench, GO and NO-GO head-space gauges and some chemicals, bore cleaner in a tube and a small bottle of gun oil.

They say that all I need is a barrel vise to do the job, so I have a barrel vise on the way from Brownells. Since my rifle has the new style smooth barrel nut, I also have a grooved barrel nut on hand that will work with the special wrench.

The smooth barrel nut comes off with a pipe wrench and is never quite the same, after that. There is a special wrench for the smooth barrel nut, but it looks kind of dubious to me so I'm going over to the old style nut that has grooves on it. - The smooth barrel nut will wind up in the metal scrap box, with my welding stuff.

The Savage bolt action is the easiest bolt gun to replace the barrel on. Doing this will prepare me for the more involved task of re-barreling my 98 Mauser.

I've never owned a 7-08 rifle, and expect to have a lot of fun shooting it.

I figure that if I get tired of it, I can always put my heavy .243 barrel back on, or maybe try something different.

The story I get is that once you have the tools on hand, switching barrels on a Savage action only takes ten minutes or so. In the future, all I'll have to buy will be the barrels for my short action Savage. From what I can tell, most of the cartridges based upon the .308 case use the same headspace guages.

I'd like to try 6.5 Creedmoor and .338 Federal one day.

In a week or so when I get all the stuff, I'll post some pictures of the barrel swap process.

The gun will look kind of funny with a stainless action and blue barrel with lots of room around it in the stock. Maybe it won't be too bad, though.
Last edited by charlesb on Mon Dec 02, 2013 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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blue68f100
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Post by blue68f100 » Mon Dec 02, 2013 7:00 pm

Could you bore holes in the barrel nun and make a spanner wrench to fit on the smooth nut?

Taking pipe wrenches to any surface mar them up.

Years ago I was required to test pre-tension cable. When the cable is bad it always break in the grip area which makes the test invalid. catch 22 here. We tried all kinds of stuff. What we ended up using was some Al bar stock drilled then spit. We then put fine gain sand in the joint with oil to hold the sand and pulled. This worked 98% of the time. The AL provided a medium for the sand to bight into to while squeezing down on the cable. So you may be able to make a soft jaw so you will not damage the nut if you care too.

Sound like a nice project.

I'm debating on whether I want to build another 1911 in 9mm this time..... :?
David

SS MKIII 6 7/8" Fluted Hunter. Mueller Quick Shot, Bushnell 2x Scope, Hogue Rubber Grips
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bgreenea3
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Post by bgreenea3 » Tue Dec 03, 2013 2:54 am

You can try a strap style wrench on the smooth barely nut....

I'm interested in how this works out for you. I've been toying with putting a varmint/target barrel on my 308 win savage.
"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway."

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charlesb
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Post by charlesb » Tue Dec 03, 2013 10:22 am

I think I'll go to the gun club and shoot up my last ten rounds of .243 ammo today. Then I can bag up the brass and clear the decks for loading 7-08.

This morning I took a look at my bullet stock and only found 160 grain HPs in 7mm, intended for a 7mm Rem magnum that I sold a while back.

Today I'll order 50 rounds of brass, 100 139 grain bullets and a set of reloading dies. - I'm OK on powder and primers.

After I shoot all of the .243 ammo, I'll pull the action from the stock, set it up in the gun cradle and start giving it a few drops of Kroil around the barrel nut a couple of times a day until the barrel and vise show up.

If I can find one, I think one of those Hogue over-molded rubberized stocks might work out better with the standard contour barrel. The laminated thumb-hole stock I have now is a bit heavy, and the barrel channel is wallered out for the heavier magnum weight barrel.

My comment about using a pipe-wrench to remove the smooth barrel nut was picked up from the Savage switch-barrel aficionados, who look down on the smooth nut and can't replace it fast enough with one of the old-style grooved nuts that works with a special wrench.

They seem to take special pleasure in marring the smooth nut while removing it. - It's amazing how often I read about them resorting to a cut-off disk on a moto-tool in order to get the smooth nut off. In my case, I'm hoping that some Kroil, and judicious application of a pipe wrench will do the job.

Whatever happens, I'll document it all with my little digital camera and will share my experiences here.

A 9mm 1911 sounds good. - I've always wanted one with a long slide and 6" barrel in .30 Mauser, which should be do-able. - The hard part would be coming up with the barrel, otherwise 9mm components should work out OK.

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ruger22
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Post by ruger22 » Tue Dec 03, 2013 12:19 pm

Sounds like an interesting project, especially since it involves a barely nut and a barrel nun. Interesting combination of typos by bgreenea3 and blue68f100........... :lol:

I hope the barrel nun blesses the result so that a barely nut works well!
* 2 Ruger Bearcat stainless, w/ EWK ejector housings & Wolff springs
* Ruger SP-101 .22LR, w/ Wolff springs
* 2 NAA Guardian .32ACP
* 3 Zastava M70 .32ACP
* S&W 15-22 Sport (.22LR AR)
* 2 Ruger SR22 .22LR pistols

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bgreenea3
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Post by bgreenea3 » Wed Dec 04, 2013 8:07 am

You have a problem with boring a hole in a barrel nun or barely nuts?????? :P
"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway."

-John Wayne

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ruger22
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Post by ruger22 » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:18 pm

My wife thinks I'm barely nuts, and probably seeing a barrel nun on the side. The very jealous type........... :roll:
* 2 Ruger Bearcat stainless, w/ EWK ejector housings & Wolff springs
* Ruger SP-101 .22LR, w/ Wolff springs
* 2 NAA Guardian .32ACP
* 3 Zastava M70 .32ACP
* S&W 15-22 Sport (.22LR AR)
* 2 Ruger SR22 .22LR pistols

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charlesb
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Post by charlesb » Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:51 pm

Click images to see them bigger

Here is a picture of a Savage grooved barrel nut, next to a familiar object for scale.

Image

Another image of a barrel nut.

Image

It'll probably be Monday before any of my early Christmas shows up.

In the mean-time, I've been watching barrel-swap videos on YouTube, picking up a few pointers here and there. The YouTube videos are the most significant advance in gunsmithing in our time. Any time I am ready to try something new, I can watch several other fellows doing it first.

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charlesb
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Post by charlesb » Sun Dec 08, 2013 8:19 pm

The stuff for swapping the barrels was delivered, and I started off by installing the new barrel vise on my workbench, and getting the barrel clamped in.

( click images to see them bigger )

Image

As has been reported by others, getting the smooth factory barrel nut off was the hard part.

Image

As you can see, I have been struggling with it in the image above. Note that these pictures of the barrel vise were taken after I got the nut loose and had partially unscrewed the action from the barrel.

I soaked the original smooth barrel nut in KROIL, and went after it with various tool around the shop. Vice-grips hammered with a dead-blow hammer would slowly remove the surface of the nut by scraping but would it budge the the nut? - Nope.

Finally I did as others have suggested and used a cut-off disk on my moto-tool to make a groove across the largest diameter part of the nut, where it is threaded. - I did not cut through, instead using the groove I had created with a 1/2" cold chisel. - I put the chisel in the groove at an angle that would loosen the nut when the chisel was struck.

For this, I got a large ball-peen hammer and on the third strike on the nut, it started to rotate and after that, I wrapped it in a rag to avoid splinters and backed it off by hand.

Everything went very easily, after that.

I turned the action by hand and unscrewed it from the barrel. Then I screwed the old barrel nut back so that it covered the threads on the barrel, and wrapped that area with electrical tape so that the .243 barrel's threads are protected for storage.

Then I removed the .243 barrel from the vice, put the new barrel nut on the new barrel as far forward as it would go, and mounted the new barrel in the vise.

An important point here is that I remembered to put the special wrench for the new, grooved barrel nut on the nut before I screwed the action onto the new barrel.

I also put some anti-seize stuff I had for my motorcycle on the barrel threads.

Then I prepared the bolt by removing the extractor and ejector. The extractor comes out easy, it is held in by a detent ball that you cant see until you remove the extractor. The detent ball and perhaps the spring is gonna fall out when you remove the extractor, so hold it over a bucket, or in a plastic bag so you won't loose anything.

The ejector comes out when you depress it slightly and drive out a pin. Here's another good time to watch out for ittle-bitty parts trying to get away.

Now with the bolt stripped, I put it in the action and put the GO gauge into the chamber - then chambered it by closing the bolt. Headspace is set by screwing the barrel down onto the chambered GO gauge, loosening it very slightly so that there is only a bit of light pressure on the GO Gauge, then tightening down the barrel nut.

Most Savage recoil lugs have an index mark that holds the lug in the proper place as the barrel is screwed in. Mine did not, and the action of screwing the barrel in rotated the lug out of position.

I noted how far it was out of whack, and utilized "Kentucky Windage" by unscrewing the barrel, placing the lug too far the other direction by the same amount as it moved the first time. - Then when I tightened the barrel again, it moved the lug into perfect alignment.

Three taps with the dead-blow hammer tightened the nut.

Then I checked and sure enough, the GO gauge would chamber but the NO-GO gauge would not. - The bolt handle would not go down into place on the NO-GO gauge, but it acted normal with the GO gauge, just like it is supposed to.

So then it was just a matter of re-assembling the bolt, putting the barreled action into the stock and putting the scope back on.

I used thread-lock on all of the scope mounting screws, and a Wheeler inch-pound torque wrench that looks like a fat screwdriver.

Now the gun was all together - but it was too dark to shoot by then, so the range report will have to wait for another day.

Image

Image

Image

It fits the barrel channel much better than I had expected. - It also handles much nicer with the lighter barrel. I haven't weighed it yet to see what the difference is. With the original heavy .243 barrel, the gun weighs ten pounds even.

Looks funny, but I can live with it. Am looking forward to see how it shoots a box of Remington 140 grain factory loads that I found.

I have 50 rounds of Nosler brass coming, and 100 rounds of the Hornady 139 grain SST bullets to try handloads with, but I probably won't see those until tomorrow afternoon.

The Viper barrel vise from Brownells just cost 60 bucks and it did a great job. I wrapped the barrel with a square of computer paper, to give the aluminum barrel-vise a better bite on the barrel. It worked well for my occasional use, but for shop use I would want to have a hydraulic barrel vise.

The special barrel nut wrench from E.R Shaw had sharp edges as others have reported. Five minutes with a file fixed that. - I wouldn't use it without going over the edges with a file, sandpaper or whatever you have on hand that will break an edge.

Over-all, the only really hard part was getting the smooth factory barrel nut to loosen up. The proper wrench would have made that easier, but it would have also cost another 40 bucks or so.
If I had resorted to the moto-tool and chisel earlier, it would have gone a lot quicker.

I was going to throw the old nut away - but it makes a great thread protector for my old .243 barrel so it didn't get thrown away after all.
Last edited by charlesb on Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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bgreenea3
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Post by bgreenea3 » Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:22 am

Nice write up! Sounds about as easy as putting a barrel on an ar15. ...
"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway."

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Post by blue68f100 » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:21 am

Sounds like it went pretty smooth once you got the old barrel off. Was there any Loctite on the threads?

Let us know how it shoots.
David

SS MKIII 6 7/8" Fluted Hunter. Mueller Quick Shot, Bushnell 2x Scope, Hogue Rubber Grips
Custom Built 1911

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charlesb
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Post by charlesb » Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:53 pm

I didn't see any loc-tight but the original nut sure was on there good.

I smeared some anti-seize lubricant on the barrel threads so the next barrel swap ought to go a lot smoother.

Some of the guys cut out a 30-45 degree section of the barrel-nut wrench so that it can be slipped on at any time. I think with the wrench modified that way, I could do a swap in fifteen or twenty minutes, leaving the scope mounted.

I fired it at 50 yards this morning, popping off a 40 dollar box of Remington factory 140 grain loads. It had quite a spread at first, but toward the end of the box of shells, I was getting the bullet holes to touch each other.

Before I left to fire its first few rounds this morning I bore-scoped the new barrel. Like every new barrel that I've looked at, there was an amazing collection of little dust bunnies in there. This E.R. Shaw barrel was apparently button rifled - but it had the least amount of chatter that I've ever seen in a button rifled barrel. - I really had to look for it, to see it.

I'll bore-scope it again before I clean it, to see how much copper it picked up. At the range, I ran a bore-snake wet with Hoppes#9 through it every two or three rounds.

The gun handles much better with the sporter contour barrel, and feels a pound lighter, though I have not weighed it yet to be sure. Recoil was noticeably stronger than with the heavy-barreled .243, but it was still quite tolerable.

I don't really expect it to settle down and start shooting until I can get another 40-60 rounds through it. Today I got it hitting just above the bull and saw some improvement toward the end. Next time out I'll be shooting reloads, getting a start on developing a load for it.

I am not familiar with the 7mm-08, but from what I gather it is sensitive about the overall length, and tinkering with the bullets seating depth is supposed to make a big difference, depending upon how your barrel is throated.

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charlesb
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Post by charlesb » Fri Dec 13, 2013 9:50 pm

Today was way too cold and windy for shooting, so I tried to find things to do indoors.

I have 50 rounds of 7mm-08 ammo loaded up now, with 20 rounds using AA 2495, 20 rounds using 760, and ten rounds with Varget. All utilize new Nosler brass, and Hornady 139 grn 7mm SST bullets at the recommended COL. All use Winchester large rifle primers.

The Hornady bullets have a bright red tip. I used a "Sharpie" permanent marker to make the AA2495 loads black on the plastic tip, and the Varget loads are two-tone, red and black. - The 760 loads are plain red.

When I put the reloading stuff away, I still had time on my hands so I took borescope images of the barrel after 20 rounds which showed some copper smears on the lands as one might expect, then I thoroughly cleaned the barrel and took another series of borescope images and was gratified to see that it had cleaned up well.

That left me with nothing gun-related to do, so I watched a movie, did some ham radio stuff and now I'm playing on the internet. The wind has died down, but now its dark out.

I think its supposed to be calm tomorrow and up in the 50's, so maybe I'll get a chance to visit the range and see how the various loads work out.

I really shouldn't be surprised at all, but every time I pick up the rifle I am amazed again at how much better it handles now, with the sporter contour barrel.

Range report soon, I hope!

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bgreenea3
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Post by bgreenea3 » Sat Dec 14, 2013 4:46 pm

50? thats shorts and t shirt weather! heck it felt like a heat wave at 25 yesterday.....
"Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway."

-John Wayne

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charlesb
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Post by charlesb » Sat Dec 14, 2013 5:36 pm

It's supposed to be up in the high 60's and low 70's here, in a couple of days.

On the other hand, the night-time temperature drops 20-30 degrees here, year-round on account of the altitude.

I usually sleep better when its cold, so it works out OK for me. We got through the entire summer without having to run AC at night, and just three or four times during the day.

I'm looking at the Hogue overmolded rifle stock for this gun, the one with the full-length aluminum bedding block, but that will have to wait until the holidays turn over. - The kids and the grand-kid get priority now.

There's a fellow asking about my M1A, but I've learned not to get excited about that until I have the check in the bank.

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