eral of the other stiff receiver actions. I had thoroughly gone over the stock bed- ding on these two rifles, leaving nothing to chance. The heavy, laminated stocks were used, adding additional bedding pillars where I could. This, in itself, got very involved. In the scope mounting depart-
ment, I used the Picatinny-style bases with Brownells 8-40 mount screw con- version kit to replace the 6-48 standard mount screws for added strength on both rifles. The Model 12 wore a Fer- rel Picatinny-style base, topped with Leupold’s tactical style scope rings. On the long action Model 112 I used one of Brownells Picatinny-style bases, also topped with Leupold’s tactical-style rings. I vacillated between scopes, end- ing up with a 6.5-20x SII Sightron scope on the long action Model 112. The short action Model 12 now wears one of the older Redfield 8-32x Target scopes. The entire scope mounting sys-
tem was thoroughly checked with Brownell’s scope alignment rods as a means of identifying any stresses in the scope mounting. These 30mm/1 inch, sleeved alignment rods totally remove all guesswork in co-axial alignment of the scope rings. Barrels could be removed and
re-installed in well under 10 minutes while repeating perfect bullet impact and grouping on target. With proper gunsmithing, the Savage 12 and 112 have the inherent accuracy capable of being wrung out along with the best of them, including the famous Model 40-X Remington. In my experience, that is saying quite a bit for a non-custom, factory action. At the time of this writing, the
two Savage switch-barrel rifles were chambered for the .220 Swift and .223 Remington as factory barrels and .257 Improved 40-degree in a Douglas barrel, .22 PPC in a Shilen barrel, and 5mm/35 SMc in a Krieger barrel. Then, after no small amount of contemplation, I cham- bered the Model 12 to .308 Winchester. I had in mind here to put together a super-accurate .308. The extra bolt for the Model 12 helped in making this decision. I talked with Tim North, presi- dent of Broughton Barrels, and there was a barrel in the works. A 1:12" twist Broughton barrel later was installed. Manson Precision Reamers made up a special reamer with a 0.342" neck
Page 32 October — December 2011
diameter and 0.3085" x 0 x 11/2 degree throat. I would be testing some of the Lapua cases with small-size primer pockets and the Hornady Competition cases as well. I fitted the new barrel to the Savage Model 12 action with an integral shoulder in lieu of the Savage- style lock nut. Actually, the barrel fitted in this way headspaced perfectly in both the Savage Model 12 and Savage Model 112 single-shot rifles. The barrel was stamped accordingly. With all the work I had done in
preparing these rifles, my expectations for accuracy ran pretty high. My first testing involved the two Savage factory barrels in .220 Swift and .223 Remington. With all my rifles I keep very detailed performance records, along with targets representative of the accuracy on each and every rifle and/or barrel. I was not surprised when noticeably improved ac- curacy emerged from each of these two factory barrels in their much-worked- on actions and stocks. The convincing results were right there before me. As I got into testing the other bar-
rels, it was evident these two Savage rifles were delivering accuracy every bit as good as I had come to expect from my best target and varmint rifles, including the more than a dozen Model 40-X Remington rifles. Each of these Model 40-X rifles have been converted to switch-barrel use with more than a score of premium barrels in a good va- riety of cartridges, so I had many rifles to compare the two Savage rifles to in my evaluation. While I have other Savage single-
shot actions in use, it was the Model 12 in caliber .223 that I used at the 2003 writers’ conference that inspired me to pursue the Savage rifles as switch-barrel candidates. As mentioned earlier, the Savage barrel lock nut system really didn’t fit into my scheme of switch bar- reling until I locked the barrel nut into position at proper headspace. This was a necessary move. It would be hard for the average rifleman/hunter to imagine two rifles, each with three barrels, delivering the level of accuracy I would later get from these two Savage rifles. What I had in mind for these
two switch-barrel rifles was delivery of both target and varmint shooting performance. I knew the inherent ac- curacy was within these rifles — all they needed was a little coaxing. With
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