Savage 12 F/TR Adventures.

msg.drew said:
You realize this rifle comes tripple pillar bedded from the factory? I dont know if glass bedding it will improve it or not can't hurt probally.
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Pillar bedding has nothing to do with bedding. All it means is that the action bolt should not compress the wood when you tighten them down.

It does nothing for holding the action WITHIN the stock.

The inletting in most factory stocks (exception being Tikka which is very good) is far from adequate.

I would strongly recommend bedding as this will stabilize your groups and give you all the rifle is capable of.

Let me know if I can help.
Jerry
 
Central British Columbia has lots of large clearcuts, if stationed in the middle you can have views up to 700m in many areas. The idea is to set up and call, mule deer are active in day light hours as are moose. Black bears are foraging in these cut blocks at any hour of the day. Where we camp the view is 700m one way and up to 1000m the other. Thinking such a rifle may have some utility in these circumstances.
 
Well gents it seems like its been forever since I got to play around with the 12 f/tr... middle of October I stopped shooting to let the deer settle on our property for the November hunt... the November hunt came I got my deer and it seems like between now and then weekend where devoted to firewood and other things I finally got around this week to some serious shooting again...

Infront of my shooting bench there is a 3-4 foot snow drift lucky the snow drift its nice and hard to walk on... first started out by making the long treck out to my 725 yard target to retrive it... it was covered under the snow... dug it out and haul'd it back to 440 yards the longest I have ever shot with the f/tr. I set up my paper target at 200-220ish yards and began testing... wind was light and temp was 0 to -6 I still dont have a load down for this gun previous week I quickly resighted at 100 yards using my chrony data I dialed in according to my data and was pretty much on target at 200 yards then I dialed in at 440 yards first shot was a hit... I was getting pretty much 75% hits on my 6x6" gong in the wind... buy this time my hands where cold I had to go inside for a bit to warm up... it was getting dark.

Earlier in the day in the back field 15 deer ran by me like a shooting gallery game... they are bedding there and I have never seen so much crop distruction. They are bedding and melting the snow then eating the winter wheat below. They are taking over a 20 acre sheltered field are its unlike anything I have seen before. Every 10 feet you walk you end up walking in a bedding hole. I put up my game cam so I am sure next weekend I have a great video to post.

I got my Varget months ago I am going to test and see if this magical powder yeilds magical results for me too... Reloader 15 in the cold was running right about 2800fps in my 30" barrel... which never seemed to heat up.

My best 200 yard group was around .7 MOA getting a bit better if I could control my flyers a bit more I am sure I would be able to get .5 MOA groups

BTW my dad saw my F/TR and picked one up in 223 so I'll be able to experiment thru him with 80 and 90 grainers flying in the 223... he is already talking trash like the 223 will out shoot me on its own lol

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It would be interesting to see what charge of varget gives you the accuracy node with the 155 Amax. In my model 12 BVSS 45.7 to 45.9 varget gave best groups at 200 yards. This was using lapua brass with 155 Amax and Berger 155 VLDs both 10 thou off the lands. The Berger bullets won out on accuracy.

I'm always interested to see what works in different rifles.

Cool reports Andrew.
 
My gun really seems to like 155 AMAX... Ill be loading up some varget this afternoon :)

Starting to get the hang of this whole long range shooting... eventually once I get a set load I want to try shooting 1 shot at 200 then the next at 400 and then back to 200 untill you get a 5 shot group and see what those groups are like...
 
msg.drew said:
eventually once I get a set load I want to try shooting 1 shot at 200 then the next at 400 and then back to 200 untill you get a 5 shot group and see what those groups are like...
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Not sure if you will prove anything jumping around like that. Other than your a great shooter.
 
Actually there is an old story or maybe its a true account of a fellow that every morning got up at the same time and fired one shot each day for the month and then evaluated the accuracy of his rifle.

I am trying to make my shooting as realistic as possible... once I get a set load and know the drop at set intervals I am going to switch up my targets to random distances at a range you might get to shoot 100 200 and 300 yards but do you know how to shoot 137yards 269yards and 321 yards and make accurate hits.
 
Thought I would share some pictures from my reloading session this afternoon. I can't wait to try these new rounds out. I trimmed and deburred and chamfered all my cases taking the Winchester brass from out of the package to near match quality brass. Every piece was trimmed on my case trimmer and then had to pass thru my caliper to ensure they all where identical. Then I hand chamfered and deburred the cases, press primed them and then charged them all with the exact same load of varget. These are by far the most precise ammunition I have made so far... I have a good feeling these will cronograph in at +/-10 FPS

This is 50 rounds of precision :) just about as good as it gets.
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Freshly trimmed brass
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Tools of the trade
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Left side is deburred and chamfered right side is freshly trimmed
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Holy grail of powder Varget... I expected a bright light and choir singing when I cracked this stuff open...
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Reloader 15 Vs Varget. Only difference I can see is varget is green maybe its chemically superior to Reloader 15
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Freshly made :)
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did you fall off the face of the earth.. i'm enjoying your posts, i just started reloading for my .308 savage fcp-k, really happy with it so far. much better groups then what i was getting with factory.
 
Yep... busy trying to fix up stuff around the house... got way to many projects on the go... trying to run a business... and the general business of life now a days.

I been playing with varget a bit but didn't stumble on anything great yet. I let my dad try the f/tr the other weekend because I was starting to wonder if it was the shooter or the rifle since I have only been producing 3/4 Moa at 200 yards... my dad never firing this gun or any high powered rifle for a long time probably since he went moose hunting back when I a was a kid. Fired a 5 shot .71MOA at 200 yards first 5 shots ever... he was complaining about the cheek piece not fitting him right so he couldn't do any better :) I got him a 223 F/tr but he is so busy we haven't got a chance to buy a scope or time to really shoot it either.

I just picked up a 50 cal muzzle loader I am going to try shooting at 200 yards to get ready for deer season in the fall. So the f/tr will probably stay in the safe till mid November as the crops are getting too tall to do any shooting right now.

I love rifle shooting I could spend all day every day on the range but my shooting property is an hour away and the ranges around here max out at 300 yards... and are half an hour away so I haven't joined, plus on ranges you have to wait for other people... I like to shoot on my own and check targets when ever I feel like it.

I also plan on ditching the Nosler bullets as I think they are the weak link in my quest for 1/2 moa accuracy.
 
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I have shot with the fellows from Team Savage, and I have also seen many of these rigs show up at local and even national matches. Other than the stock, which i am not huge fan of, as it is not optimized for pone shooting, these guns shoot very well indeed. Like the OP, I am very much a Remington guy, but that has nothing to do with it. These guns are the only ones of their type being made for guys like us to go out and be successful.

Add a scope, bipod and ammo, and you are away to the races.

Team Savage shoots these internationally, and they kick serios a$$ with them.

Unfortunately, wanting a hunting/target rifle means big compromises. Buy a dedicated target gun and then pick up a half-dead bubba'd 303 to do your hunting with. Seriously.

never mind bullets, velocities etc. Canadians have been killing every type of North Americal (and British Empire-based) game for over 100 years with the good ol' Lee Enfield, with old Mausers, and with ancient Winchesters.. Take the time to be an accurate shooter, and you don't need a 700 nitro.
 
We can't use hi power rifles for hunting in this area of Ontario... plus I am sure you have picked up an F/TR with a Leupold scope mine is darn heavy I would never lug it around all day its impossible. Where I hunt in Ontario its shotguns and muzzle loaders only and I wanted a longer range alternate to my sabot firing shotgun. Those darn Hornady slugs are to expensive... I like to do alot of practice... plus it would be crazy if the black powder muzzle loader shoots tighter groups then the F/TR at 200 yards...
 
well great that your still around, i was searching some threads about reloading for the 308 and i came across your last one, from a last year , really a enjoyable read and this one too.

i just started loading for my savage model 10 fcp-k in .308

I shot it a bit with factory loads, it shot okay but i really want to tune it to shoot better groups, and my self to shoot better groups. I know that it can shoot better then i can.

I'm only shooting 100 yards on paper and 200 to a 8 inch gong, i can hit it all the time but no idea what the groups are yet.

i seem kinda sporadic with my groups, thought i found a charge one day then the next it was the worst one out of the group of loads that i had.i do believe that its allot of shooter error, i seem to create this flinch every now and then, think its from the time i forgot my hearing protection, ears rang for 5 days

I understand that I'm not giving my self the best chance at the moment. new to reloading, don't have a case trimmer yet, so I'm just using cases that measure under the max length. slowly running out of cases to use :)
but i have to say that the groups are much better then with factory.



msg.drew said:
Yep... busy trying to fix up stuff around the house... got way to many projects on the go... trying to run a business... and the general business of life now a days.

I been playing with varget a bit but didn't stumble on anything great yet. I let my dad try the f/tr the other weekend because I was starting to wonder if it was the shooter or the rifle since I have only been producing 3/4 Moa at 200 yards... my dad never firing this gun or any high powered rifle for a long time probably since he went moose hunting back when I a was a kid. Fired a 5 shot .71MOA at 200 yards first 5 shots ever... he was complaining about the cheek piece not fitting him right so he couldn't do any better :) I got him a 223 F/tr but he is so busy we haven't got a chance to buy a scope or time to really shoot it either.

I just picked up a 50 cal muzzle loader I am going to try shooting at 200 yards to get ready for deer season in the fall. So the f/tr will probably stay in the safe till mid November as the crops are getting too tall to do any shooting right now.

I love rifle shooting I could spend all day every day on the range but my shooting property is an hour away and the ranges around here max out at 300 yards... and are half an hour away so I haven't joined, plus on ranges you have to wait for other people... I like to shoot on my own and check targets when ever I feel like it.

I also plan on ditching the Nosler bullets as I think they are the weak link in my quest for 1/2 moa accuracy.
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Interestingly today under a quick time line I was able to shoot one of the best groups with my Remington 700 VLS since I have had it. Must have got lucky with a fluke powder and bullet combination... its been probably 2 years since I fired the 223... I have been playing around with Remington 700's and the Savage f/tr in 308 for the last little while.

I am wondering what barrel twist rate it has because it was able to Stabilize 69 Grain bullets :) its an old school beautiful VLS before they started putting on that ugly fat for-end laminate stock... mine is a very nice laminate with rose wood cap kind of modeled off the BLD but more beefy.

I am ashamed to say that the F/TR has not produced a grouping this small so far and its also probably one of the tightest real world 5 shot groups I have ever shot

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This group was shot off the hood of a truck... not to shabby
 
Well its been forever since I posted anything here about my F/tr shooting I haven't been shooting much over the last two years just been busy with things...

Finally got that 223 F/tr out of the safe and fired it for the first time I think my dad bought it back in 2010 or maybe in 2009... I let him take the first few shots...

Its either all in my head or just got lucky with the first load out of the gate but I think the 223 F/TR rifle out performs my 308 F/TR

I used 69grs to get it zeroed in and on paper my dad shot a few three shot groups I kept telling him he is gotta do 5 or more but he was happy with shooting 3 shot groups.

We didn't have much time to shoot because we thought it was going to rain but it cleared up in the afternoon so i really wanted to shoot this gun so we went out.

I loaded up some 80 Grain Amax probally a month ago but ever weekend something came up and we never made it out to try it till today. It was windy, and I shot fast off the hood of the truck but I was able to shoot this group... the rifle had probably fired only 25 shots before that... I'm impressed to say the least

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The load was actually not published in any of the manuals I had... powder was Reloader 15, dies where forster benchrest dies, brass was 10 year old Remington that had been shot thru alot of semi's and bolt actions over the years primers normal small rifle nothing fancy...

I am still wondering if we just got lucky or if the dies made the difference in the ammo because up until this point I always used lee dies, I also loaded some 308 with forster bench rest dies so I'll see when I get around to shooting them thru my F/TR if the dies are what made the difference.

The lack of kick and less noise makes me consider getting a 1-7" twist 223 as well :)
The test will be can this group be replicated next time I get around to shooting it.
 
I love the mod 12 precision.
this 5 shot group was shot 3 weeks ago at 700 yards with my 6.5x284 with a 6-9 mph cross wind. One got away from me but the other 4 is under an inch an half.(the holes next to it, is 1.25" wide) This rifle has 1300 rds through it already and still hold it accuracy well.
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This is the 3shot group from my 6br at 100m.
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These rifles are so accurate, it will make an average shooters look good.
 
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