Savage ML2 barrel

[nsb]

I've never been able to get my ML2 to shoot very well. I looked at the muzzle today with a good light and noticed that the lands look very rough. The surface of each land looks like a file surface and even the grooves are a little rough. This gun hasn't been shot that much. Is this the normal appearance of a Savage ML2 barrel? I don't own any other guns that look like this. Any comments? To me, it looks like tool chatter when the barrel was cut.

[tar12]

Believe it or not that is the way it left the factory. Try .458 bullets with BCR sabots and your groups will tighten up. Other than that get you a Pac-Nor barrel ordered.

[muznut]

I had two 10ml2s that would not shoot both bores were loose, rough and larger at the bore than the breach.

[muznut]

I should have said the bore was larger at the muzzle than at the breach, still working on my first cup of coffee.

[nsb]

Did you get that resolved with Savage? Did they make it right?

[muznut]

No I didn't I traded them both for center fires. I had the syn. stock blued about five years earlier then the laminated stainless. I was going to do a pacnor on the last one but it just rubbed me the wrong way for what I paid for it it should shoot, Guys on this site would have loved that one it was mint not a ding or scratch on it I traded it for a gun that was worth about $400 I couldn't take the gritting teeth and blood preasure to the moon factor.

[dirtbug]

first message just wanted to say sighted in my savage ml yesterday i bought it in november for a december ml hunt but could not get under a two foot group after a thousand dollar investment i was ticked off i had noticed that while seating the bullet it would always stop about six inches from muzzle so i took it apart and noticed what looked to be a groove where the bullet always stopped in the rifling this was a new gun from dealer sent it back to savage they replaced the barrel no questions asked and now it shoots- just wanted to say that even with this factory defect there was never a safty issue gun performed just would not hit nothing

[mountainam]

nsb, Mine arrived the same as yours. I fire-lapped it using Lee R.E.A.L. slugs with valve lapping compound slathered in the grooves. Ten shots each starting with 280 grit to 320 to 400 to 500 to 600grits. It smoothed it up nice. I used 30grs T7 and a bore button felt wad. It loaded smoother and I used .458" Rem 300's with a MMP orange .50x.458"sabot and 67grs of Re7. Seemed to cure the problem. Yeah, the first look down my bore made me ill. I was thinking that I was the 12,000th guy that had that button tool used on my barrel. The fire lapping did the trick. Good Luck!

[Savage Shooter]

I stroke every new Savage barrel I put on the table with about 3 - 400 strokes of JB paste from the beginning. Then make 30-40 strokes at normal cleaning intervals or until I see or mostly (feel) improvement.......

tool marks inside the barrel will NOT hurt accuracy unless you feel it load like a "zipper" or have tight / loose spots on the way down. Then it is damaging to the sabot which will affect accuracy.

When you make it FEEL smooth and consistent when loading it will generally shoot just fine.

The sabot is all that is riding the barrel (not the bullet) so super smooth lapping is not needed.

I have actually seen lapping hurt these barrels and make them very load dependent on upper pressure loads with really tight fitting loads to shoot good. You will see this if gets too easy to load, then you have trouble getting adequate pressure rise to maintain consistent burn rates which moves velocity all over the place.

[muznut]

S.S. is right don't let tool marks scare you, I have a Knight Disk Ext.45 that you can see circles in the bore from the deep hole drilling and the gun is a tack driver.What killed my barrels was the taper if they were tapered the other way choked at the muzzle they would have been ok but you know after its all said and done I wish I kept my last one and did a Pacnor, it was a heavy duty rig.