SmallCaliberCentral

i have been offered a savage barrel for my .204, as the one i have is 18", and the one i have been offered is a 22" off of a savage
are there barrels any good?


tony

Is the barrel new , a new take-off or used?
What type firearm will you be putting the Savage barrel on?
Will you need to recut the threads on the barrel for the action?

Just some questions to help us

22Mag

the barrel is a new take off , and it would be going on my howa.204.
yes threads will have to be cut the barrel is 24" long at the min so he will cut the back and re do to fit my action and over all length would be 22"
all i was wondering is if savage put good barreels on the rifles and its a varmint as well .




tony

They are accurate rifles. If the barrel can be had for little, or no cost it may be worth the smithing fees. In my limited experience with Savage, they seem to foul pretty quickly. If you have to pay much for it I would wait and go with your' favorite custom manufacturer.

yes its cheap,
i was sold a rifle with what i thought was a 22" barrel as thats what in had asked for, and thats what they come as standard from the factory.
i really did not check the the length of barrel, i did ask again if it was 22" and he reply yes.
well when he left i keeped loooking at the rifle and i just thought i did not look right the more i looked at it, so out came the tape, and its was 18"
i was mad , so i phoned him, when he answered, he made an excuse, that he had customers ,and had to go and would ring me back, well i rang him every day for a week with no answer, it took three weeks before he answered the phone.
he agreed to get me a new rifle, but it would take time as there was none in the country, on that note i thought he was lying to me, so i rang the main importers, and they said that they had no idea as to when they would be getting any more.
so thats when i started to ask around to get a barrel fitted, as i need to get on with shooting.
the dealer has got to come and see me weather he wants too or not, as he left me with £250 worth of factory ammo to try, that i had not paid for as he would of came by the week late picked up the surplus ammo and i would pay for what i had used and the ones i wanted

If I was going to pay the smithing fees for a factory barrel I would wait and put on a custom aftermarket barrel. You will like the aftermarket barrel better than a factory and the cost will only be for the barrel, you will have to pay for the chambering and threading anyway no mater which barrel you go with.

22Mag

In my limited experience with Savage, they seem to foul pretty quickly. If you have to pay much for it I would wait and go with your' favorite custom manufacturer.

Ditto that. In fact, that's why my Savage .204 has a Douglas barrel. My 6.5/284 is very accurate, but fouled quickly until it was lapped.

In the Sept. 2011 issue of Rifle magazine there is a piece about barrel break in and on page 38 there is a part about a comparison between a Cooper and Savage barrel. Photos showed the Savage barrel having "full of perpedicular cuts and gouges (tool marks)" yet that Savage barrel produced .5 inch groups. I would guess if you had a Savage barrel like that one it would need to be really cleaned out often. There was probably a reason why the Savage barrel was a "take off".