Chassis break in

[MartyK2500]

Hi guys, i recently started a thread in precision rifle forums, and decided i better ask here to get the true answer.

This april i purchased your ESS chassis for savage SA.
Which is advertised as no bedding required.
Installed per instructions, including having recoil lug contact before fastening action bolts to 60 in/lbs.
Right off the start i had very good accuracy for a stock savage pipe and action (0.7moa)
I perfected my reloads meanwhile and even shrunk it to 0.4/0.5 moa)

Fast forward 700 rounds later and i am struggling to get sub moa.
Decided to check action screws torque, still was at 60 in/lbs.
I pushed it further and fully dissassembled everything (scope from rings, receiver rail, chassis etc...) to reinstall fresh.

Noticed that the action and the chassis, have 4 elongated contact points.
On action the bluing wore off to metal, in chassis cerakote wore off.
And was a paste between action and chassis, kind of a mix of cerakote and bluing.

Cleaned everything up, reassembled to spec, and am magically back to 0.4moa again.

In this case, does your chassis require bedding?
Or did i break it in so to speak, and now that bluing and cerakote used i won’t have this sludge creating itself again and will retain my accuracy for a longer period?

Cheers

[TAC21]

No the chassis does not require bedding. It definitely sounds like you had some movement at some point. Did you happen to take some pictures of it?

[MartyK2500]

Unfortunately i cleaned up before thinking of taking pics.
Taking the rifle out of chassis is an easy task if you want pictures.
At this point do you have a recommendation?
By the way thanks for answering on a sunday!

Edit : a few specifics in case
Using instructions to the letter with a torque wrench in/lbs in hand
Chassis is ESS fde, 15” handguard
Action/barrel are factory Savage 10TR i just removed from original stock
Scope rail is ATRS 20moa, which i also torque to spec with blue loctite
Rings are spuhr unimount holding a razor 4-27 gen ll, once again everything torqued to specs

[TAC21]

Alright, this is what our diagnosis is:

What is happening is that the action screws holes in the receiver (or chassis) are slightly out of spec and are pulling the action forward when torqued. Depending on how tight you get them and how much recoil the rifle generates, it will slide back and forth and cause the rub marks.

Most of the time, the screw locations are correct, and when they are not, you have a 50/50 chance that they will pull the receiver rearward, which is a good thing.

This is an extreme case, and the solution is to either file the action screw holes (elongate them) or bed the recoil lug.

You can always get us to replace the chassis. But I'm afraid that there is a 50% chance that you will have the same issue due to the location of the action screws in your action.
Or you can send us the complete rifle and we will fix it here!(No charge)

[MartyK2500]

Thank you for the offer and detailled explanation.
I will handle the situation myself or with a smith, and will go the bedding recoil lug route.
Still appreciate the offer and makes MDT a first class dealer in my books, just that shipping a precision rifle cross country is not something i wish to do.
Thanks again!