Savage Stealth action parts gun

[DHuffman]

I'm going to give this rig it's own thread. Anybody whose been watching knows I've sold off a pile off Savage stuff lately.

This Stealth action is one of the smoothest Savages I've ever had and I had a couple very good large shank barrels i didnt feel like giving away so i took the barrels and had them set back into fresh throat and better rifling then had them threaded for muzzle brakes as well.

The barrels are the Criterion full bull in 6.5 Creedmoor and a Rock Creek 6 Dasher.

I've got several Chate Tacticals one of which is cut for bottom metal detach mags. Bottom metal on the way, link below.

https://accurate-mag.com/product-category/bottom-metals/

Any way I pulled a couple posts out of the TL3 thread to start this one.

[DHuffman]

Got her running for Sunday's practice session with Wyatt. Shout out to @gman47564 for helping pick a powder charge sight unseen. Wyatt picked up the barrels and action at the Smith's on Friday so he brought that and I brought the stock, scope and some ammo and I put it together out there.

With out the barrel in hand I loaded 142 SMKs seated at book 2.810" in New Alpha brass, Fed 210 match primers and a mild 40.5g charge of H4350, incidentally I plan on switching to RL 16 because I have a pretty fair amount of it and I'm going to run it slow so it should have a better case fill.
Grant says r16 runs about .6g less than h4350 at the same velocity in his 6 Creedmoor I'd be interested if anyone has any data in a 6.5

[DHuffman]

Weighed 14.6# as shot Sunday, very muzzle heavy.
I added just short of 3# weight in the butt bringing it to 17.4# and it balances on 2 fingers at the recoil lug.

Shot very well at 2730 ish with high hit % on steel in a tricky wind. I'm going to do something different with the bipod to extend it forward off that Anschutz rail in the Choate and the bottom metal coming will help anchor a mag into a bag.

[DHuffman]

Here's an idea I'm going to try that's the reverse of my normal routine. I usually measure to the lands then start about .015" on a field or hunting gun and do a seating test working farther. The 2.810" book COAL put the pressure ring just above the neck. So im going to measure my DTL so I have a reference and start working towards the lands to see how it acts.
I've heard people say the nodes are much wider and more forgiving the farther off you get so I'm going to test it in this barrel.

[gman47564]

Dave when you switch to the rl16 I would start at 40 grains.. pretty sure you will hit that 2730 node before reaching 41 grains.. far as seating goes try to get your powder tuned as good as you can first and I bet you won't have to move your seating more than a few thousandths one way or the other.. just my .02cents

[DHuffman]

Dave when you switch to the rl16 I would start at 40 grains.. pretty sure you will hit that 2730 node before reaching 41 grains.. far as seating goes try to get your powder tuned as good as you can first and I bet you won't have to move your seating more than a few thousandths one way or the other.. just my .02cents

I agree on the seating but I think I'll load 10 sets of 3 going closer .003" at a time to see if how it acts on this end versus down close to the lands.

[DHuffman]

COAL to the lands, 2.856"-2.857"

So at 2.810" I was only .046" off so there won't be any crazy jump testing without putting the pressure ring into the body of the case and I'm not doing that.
The gunsmith asked what bullet I was going to run and I told him 140 ELDMs, he said he'd throat accordingly so I'd have plenty of room to chase the lands. I'm not sure I even have a 140 ELDM yet but he sure nailed it on a 142 SMK LOL

I'll have to test in reverse on another barrel. With the 30 round test I'll be able to cover from book COAL to .016" off if I want.

[DHuffman]

Dave when you switch to the rl16 I would start at 40 grains.. pretty sure you will hit that 2730 node before reaching 41 grains.. far as seating goes try to get your powder tuned as good as you can first and I bet you won't have to move your seating more than a few thousandths one way or the other.. just my .02cents

Sierra data, im running 150 fps faster

[gman47564]

Sierra data, im running 150 fps faster

Bet that would be real close if you were running a 24 inch barrel and hornady brass..

[autoxforfun]

My experience with Alpha Creedmoor brass is that it's case capacity is significantly less that say Peterson, Norma or Hornady.  For example, with my 30" Criterion bull barrel, in Peterson brass I run 40.6g with an MV of 2830.  For Alpha, I need to be in the high 39g range for the same performance.  Just sharing what I discovered.

[DHuffman]

My experience with Alpha Creedmoor brass is that it's case capacity is significantly less that say Peterson, Norma or Hornady.  For example, with my 30" Criterion bull barrel, in Peterson brass I run 40.6g with an MV of 2830.  For Alpha, I need to be in the high 39g range for the same performance.  Just sharing what I discovered.

So 4" less barrel and I might be in that low to mid 2700 range. Thanks

[DHuffman]

I'd call RL 16 .9g faster in my gun on similar conditions.






Laid down a 4-5" group at a thou with the 40.0 load running 2750-60

[autoxforfun]

Agree with your findings.  RL-16 will give you some additional speed for the same powder charge.  Looking good !!

[DHuffman]

Accurate Mag bottom metal came in late last week and was for a long action, sent it back and received the SA set today and they threw in a 5 round mag with it.
Great service! They said up front it would drop in the Choate and it did. They also said there may be fitting required to get it feeding right and there was.

The floor of the Choate was too thick so I milled away on it until I got it running. .130" it may be a little low yet but I wanted to run it before I went ahead and took too much off.

These pics are before the mill work. It sits deeper into the stock now.

[DHuffman]

Must be a ND trigger guard for gloves in the winter LOL