Changing Barrels?

[nevanevan]

I recently in the last year bought a great remington Bench gun that I love. I have the LR bug and am now thinking about building, you guessed it, a SAVAGE. The main reason is that I'm curious about doing all the work myself. I have seen lots of great threads involving regular gents building very accurate rigs at home. My questions are;

Are the prefit barrels nearly as accurate as one installed by a gunsmith?

Is it worth it to buy the barrel change tools to do this yourself, or pay a gunsmith I'm guessing less money than a remington to switch the barrels?

STOP, go back to the remington platform that I'm used to and pay the $600 to get a new barrell installed once?

An aside note, is it possible to say build a 243 platform using a long-action? Thinking about making a single shot using a mag follower so that It doesn't matter the what the OAL is for any particular bullet I may choose to put through it.

Thanks in advance!
Evan

 

[guntech]

To change a barrel on a Savage action requires a barrel vise, and action wrench and a nut wrench and headspace gauges to set where you want the barrel to headspace.
To change a barrel on a Remington action requires only a barrel vise and an action wrench.

Simply have barrels pre-fitted to your 700 and buy the vise and wrench and change them around as often as you would like... no headspace gauges required.

There is no great advantage to 700 short actions over 700 long actions... less than 1.5 ounces weight difference.

 

[sunray]

"...pay the $600..." Shouldn't cost anywhere near that. A ready to use barrel costs $150 plus the cost of the barrel at Epps.

 

[elkhuntr]

To answer your questions OP.
Are prefits accurate. Yes, I have installed and achieved low 2s from a 223rem shilen prefit recently.
Is it worth the tools. Bench/barrel vice, barrel nut wrench required. Action wrench optional and preferred and concur with guntech. However I have done without the action wrench to date but it would come in handy. You will soon find yourself buying barrels in different chamberings and changing them on a whim. I've installed/removed an estimated 30 barrels this year on various savage actions....practice makes perfect. So a big yes IMO.
Yes, the centerfeed long action will feed 243 win nicely. And is a great option if you are playing with long throated 260s or the like. If you are going bench gun with a follower then it doesn't matter as much. But some will say the Short action is a stiffer action and may be beneficial to accuracy. FWIW I run a 260 on a Long action and a 223 on a short action. But I could swap bolt heads and run them visa versa. The likelihood of seeing any percevable difference is slim. IMO, I would estimate 90% of the precision is in the Barrel and 90% accuracy is in the shooter with the savage set up. Elkys two cents.

 

[nevanevan]

I think I like the idea of a one action multi-caliber design elkhuntr. The caliber i`m thinking really strongly toward is the 260rem or 243. Either one should be a good gong ringer.

To answer Sunrays response. The reason I was thinking $600 is because a match grade Krieger after tax is likely 500 and I`m sure it would be at minimum $100 for a gunsmith to headspace etc, plus shipping its probably closer to $700.

Evan

 

[maynard]

"...pay the $600..." Shouldn't cost anywhere near that. A ready to use barrel costs $150 plus the cost of the barrel at Epps.

Sunray, when was the last time you had a barrel installed? I think the OP is looking for a match barrel, prefit or otherwise.

 

[guntech]

Depending on cartridge and other variables, I believe many gunsmiths charge from $200 to $300 to correctly chamber, thread, crown and fit a match quality barrel to an action. Many match quality preturned barrels cost $450 and up.

 

[muckwa]

I'm getting a barrel switch done and the smith charges $200.00 to do. He is pretty good so $150.00 is close. Bartlein barrel M24 contour 6mm cal $425 from a CGN'er so $625.00 to do it all.