upgrading my savage 308

Plant.One

Plant.One

Well-known member
have the opportunity to rebarrel my savage 10fp. its a flat back, pre accutrigger. riding in a MDT oryx.

ordered a shilen select stainless , 1:10. local smith is finishing the barrel blank.

primarily i plan to shoot 168's (amax / hornady bthp that i have a pile of) but i know i'm gonna wanna play with like 175/178 class stuff at some point. will be used regularly at 500 yds punching paper and ringing steel - the club has a 1½" challenge gong that i plan to be able to terrorize! - as well as hunted occasionally.

might even try to stretch it out further to 1k if i can swing a trip up to MTC this summer for their LR2 class *fingers crossed*

smith who's doing the work asked when i ordered it if i wanted a 168 chamber, to which i initially said no, for the above reasons of wanting to be able to play with some other things just to mess around. barrel hasnt shipped as of last friday and smith knows i am now potentially reconsidering my options on said chamber. we are going to discuss before any machining begins but i'm trying to educate myself a bit independently of him so i can make a better decision.

two things thing that's got me worried :

1) will i be leaving some accuracy potential on the table by going with a standard chamber vs a 168 specific cut?

if i were to choose a 168 throating, will that preclude me from experimenting with other stuff?

2) how much am i giving up by staying at 24" vs going to 26"?

i'm just trying to end up not having buyers remorse by making an uneducated decision. and the more i start to read up i realize the less i know about chambering something like this.

ive always just had factory rifles and dealt with what i had, vs being able to tailor something to my own wants/needs.

input would be highly appreciated.
 
Plant.One said:
1) will i be leaving some accuracy potential on the table by going with a standard chamber vs a 168 specific cut?

if i were to choose a 168 throating, will that preclude me from experimenting with other stuff?
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Hmmm not really throats wear and get longer as you shoot.
There is just a bunch of variations of the "168gr" cut out there. So this is a hard one to advise without opening Pandora's box of claims etc etc.

There is nothing wrong with a "standard" .308 chamber provided the reamer is SHARP. Do I prefer a NM or Palma reamer yep, but I don't double duty the build. it's either a Match rifle or a hunting rig. Doesn't mean I won't use a hunting rig for match or vice versa. Provided it not a thin pencil barrel (under a 0.750" muzzle dia. shooter fatigue !!! aka recoil as well as the barrel heating up is why)

What matters is the care in the reamer being used to be concentric and SHARP to cut the chamber. The less chatter the better. Don't under sell the "standard" reamer



Plant.One said:
2) how much am i giving up by staying at 24" vs going to 26"?
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24" will be stiffer than a 26" regardless of profile.
Two inches barrel loss approx. 300fps based on rule of thumb (old one) of 150fps per inch, reality pfft it's 50 fps approx so about 25fps per inch. The difference in velocity is nothing but the come up (amount of adjustment) at long range. As long as you stay out of the transonic range your good to go. Subsonic is better than transonic, supersonic is better than subsonic. Better bullet BC can over come the velocity loss at the muzzle with the correct powder selection. it's not uncommon for a sleek heavy bullet to be mediocre at the muzzle velocity, but be smoking in velocity at the 1 K. That bullet BC is everything at the long line.

What Is important here is the barrels profile (Sendero / Varmint? MTU? Magnum? Sporter?) to barrel length. And the desired weight of the rifle are you doing a hunting rifle or a match rifle? Is there a weight limitation?
Heavy contours / profiles such as the MTU (approx 6.9 lbs for 26" 0.930" dia @ muzzle) and some of the Palma (Heavy Palma approx 6.3 lbs for 30" 0.900" dia @ muzzle) do several things for you,
(1) less whip / more consistent harmonics usual rule,
(2) takes longer to heat up due to barrel mass
(3) less recoil because of increased weight vs a sporter contour/profile. Less shooter fatigue during long match strings
Downside is increased weight make it heavy to hunt with.

ALL of this is trade offs.
If I wanted both a match rifle and a coyote / hunting setup.
The 24" would get a nod, the Bartlein #13 contour aka Sendero/ Remington Varmint profile @ the 24" (4.95lbs , and a 0.820" dia muzzle @26" so would lose some weight at the 24" as well as the muzzle would increase by 0.014" so 0.834"ish )
But I have the feeling that your barrel is already profiled differently than I mentioned, which may be heavier or lighter. If so no big deal, it simply is what it is. That doesn't mean it can't be competitive!!! I've seen thin barrels shoot way above their class. What matter is the barrel quality and the quality of the chambering, not the reamer as much as the skill in the chambering.

Would I stay with a "standard" chamber and your proposed 24" barrel length, yes I would. The M-14 has a 22" barrel and will shoot the 1 K just fine with 175's . so yeah I think your fine and over thinking it. Just my 2 cents and thoughts. I think your choices so far are fine for your intents.

At the 1K line though what you will find is it's wind not bullet drop that will get you. You will need a balance in your bullet selection, some day XXX will do great other days when the wind is acting up not so much.
 
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Bob_Atl said:
I have one 26" MTU SAV 10 which is a heavy bench beast, doing it over, I would make it 24" fluted, fwiw..
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had asked about fluting, but apparently shilen frowns upon it. so its just gonna be a regular barrel.



some good points brought up that i forgot to mention... i dont remember what the profile cut was called, but from what the smith told me we should end up somewehre around >0.820 at the muzzle at 24". i *want* a heavy barrel. i dont recall exactly what diamater he said - its been a couple months at this point waiting on the barrel - but its gonna be a heavy profile in the 0.820-0.900ish size class.


this will be primarily a bench gun and occasionally hunted - just to say i've whacked a deer with it kind of thing. i have lots of rifles i can hunt with. so hunting will only be a 3rd tier activity for this build at best.

Widow maker 223 said:
Short answer I would stay standard chamber. With that quality blank and a good chamber job it should shoot damn good.
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this was kind of my thought when i initially said " just a standard 308 chamber"

Sgt_Mike said:
There is just a bunch of variations of the "168gr" cut out there. So this is a hard one to advise without opening Pandora's box of claims etc etc.

There is nothing wrong with a "standard" .308 chamber provided the reamer is SHARP. Do I prefer a NM or Palma reamer yep, but I don't double duty the build. it's either a Match rifle or a hunting rig. Doesn't mean I won't use a hunting rig for match or vice versa. Provided it not a thin pencil barrel (under a 0.750" muzzle dia. shooter fatigue !!! aka recoil as well as the barrel heating up is why)
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see this is the problem that caused this post... i *thought* i knew something, then started googling too much, got really confused, and then caused me to second guess my origional "just a standard" option i had selected.

i will make sure that i question how new the reamer is.



as a side note - this will not be a prefit style barrel going in. we are going to true the action face and shoulder the barrel to lock up to the action face directly. he believes this is a superior setup so that even if the barrel needs to be removed in the future for any reason, it can be reinstalled into the action with basically no fussing other than getting the torque right. not that its gonna come out for any reason thati can predict, he just feels better that its a better system than the barrel nut version and playing the headspace game that way. i had originally intended to go the prefit route, but the price is the same for either so might as well have this action trued if its included in the $ im spending :)
 
Widow maker 223 said:
This is exciting, cant wait for the range report !!!
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You and me both.

The super exciting part to me is I'm going to get to witness and experience all the finish work being done to the barrel and action in real time. I had originally wanted to do a prefit so that I could kind of learn how to do this. I fancy myself a decent ar-plumber, but have never messed with something like a barrel swap on a bolt gun. When we made the decision toswitch to a trued action and a shoulder set headspace Barrel he said I was more than welcome to come into the shop and he would have the base operations like cutting the barrel to the length done, the threading for the muzzle adapter, and possibly even part of the chamber already cut.

And then I would get to see the last several hours of Machining and fitting of the barrel into the action.

I put my deposit money down back in mid October.... 4 days after shilen took an order for 70 - yes seventy! - 1:10 308 blanks. To their credit they did warn of a 12-16 week possible backorder.

Mike (my smith) called me the Monday before xmas saying that he'd been notified my barrel would be shipping soon - but we're still waiting for tracking.

So unfortunately here I am and hurry up and wait mode try not to f****** and make bad decisions at the last minute LOL 🤦‍♂️
 
Plant.One said:
i will make sure that i question how new the reamer is.
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LOL ask him to have it sharpened if need be, as a reamer (standard) wears from sharpening it becomes closer to a NM reamer (in the body, not a true NM but closer) . Simply a "is it sharp" question will suffice. without it seeming to intrude into his area of expertise. New is not a issue, you would be surprised how many barrels one can cut and still be sharp when the grind angle is correct on the cutting edge.

Plant.One said:
i dont remember what the profile cut was called, but from what the smith told me we should end up somewehre around >0.820 at the muzzle at 24". i *want* a heavy barrel. i dont recall exactly what diamater he said - its been a couple months at this point waiting on the barrel - but its gonna be a heavy profile in the 0.820-0.900ish size class.
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hmm depending on the taper per inch and where that taper starts sounds like a Rem Varmint aka #13 Bartlein, aka Sendaro contour. Which is a good choice. And one I would select should net a stiff barrel without being overly heavy (4 to 5 lb range).

Sounds to me like your setting it up pretty much as I would.
I didn't go into the rifling geometry because that is preference I like the 5R, but any rifling will work great. My last one in a .30 bore was the "Palma" .298 bore and .307 groove diameter. With a slow ROT shoots absolutely great, way more accurate than me.
Fluting not a fan of while I do have barrels that are, my preference remains unfluted.

I agree with widow maker 223 yes exciting and looking forward to the range reports, Sounds like a solid choice without going overboard.
 
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Cut it for a standard chamber. For a 308 Win, id be SHOCKED if you got a 40 to 50 fps gain going to a 26" vs the 24". 24 would be max for me, particularly in a 308 Win. My 20" shoots well and still allows a suppressor without being a pike of a rifle.
 
alf said:
Why a 308?
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why not a 308?

a precision 308 bolt gun build was the whole reason i picked this rifle up in the first place.

i know these older 10fp's have a reputation to be shooters, especailly with good handloads. so i figured either its gonna be a real shooter and i'd have the barrel threaded, or a good donor action to build on.

its already in a chassis (MDT oryx). that was the 1st thing i did after optic was sorted out.

turns out that even breaking into my precious varget stash... the factory barrel just didnt want to really come together. i mean it shot just under half inch - finally - so totally respectable for a factory gun, but not what i was looking for.

so new 308 barrel it is :)
 
cropdamage said:
Laffn....

I figured as much, since it was going to be threaded. The 24 or 26" barrel question did have me wondering though. :cool:
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like is said.. this isnt intended to be a field gun. i will almost certinatly hunt with it, just to say i've taken a deer with it - as is my goal with every hunting capable firearm i own - and then spend the rest of its life at the range.

im fortunate to have access to a 500 yd berm at the club, and we do have this silly 1½" gong down there that i cant wait to terrorize with this rifle :)

yes said gong has already been terrorized by other of my rifles as well, i just want another to do it with :cool::cool:
 
I understood the original post. Both 24 and 26 are plenty long for a field gun with a suppressor . Since it's a bench gun and have to dial for 500 anyways ,I'd probably lean towards 24" with the given contour.
 
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