For about the last 30 years, I've thought I should try a single shot Savage action as the basis for a match rifle. Kind of a poor man's 40-x. Like so many of my projects, this one took place only in my imagination and I never did get around to trying it.
Early this fall though, I saw an ad in the CGN classifieds for a CIL950T. I decided I would buy it, try it out and, if it worked well, it would make a good entry level "F" class rifle.
When the rifle arrived it was, as advertised, in fine condition. My initial plan was to simply glassbed the thing and possibly recrown it but I am just a bit on the OCD side when it comes to this sort of thing and decided I should make some modifications which I felt were beneficial prior to testing.
The first mod was to replace the recoil lug. The stock lug is too thin and seldom are they flat or uniform in thickness. Sure enough, this lug was .003 thicker on one side. I was going to order a replacement lug but noticed a lug on the shelf behind my bench which looked pretty good. After puzzling over it for a while I recalled it had come from a RPA action. It was similar to the Savage with a little nub at the bottom which fits into a notch in the receiver. The nub is only 1/8" wide though while the notch in the Savage is 3/16. I decided to make a little block to fill the gap so I could be assured of keeping the lug oriented correctly if I swapped barrels. It was only a 1/2 hours work to set up a piece of 3/16 keystock in the mill and mill a 1/8 inch groove in it then cut it off to the right length. Only 1/2 hour but I already had spent more than a commercial replacement lug would cost. Oh well. The next thing I noticed was that the RPA lug had a hole which was a bit on the large side at 1.095". This was .040 larger than the Savage barrel thread so I made a sleeve to tighten things up. That commercial lug was plainly a good choice but too late now!
While fitting the little block to the receiver, I noticed the locking lug seats were pretty rough as were the lugs themselves. I decided to lap them rather than recutting since I would not be able to recut the threads anyway; not if I planned to use the factory barrel (I did). After lapping the lugs I decided I should at least check the threads for alignment so threaded a stub and screwed the receiver onto it. The threads were good but the face of the receiver wasn't so I set up and refaced the receiver. While washing out the bolt face after lapping, I noticed it also seemed a bit rough and also seemed a bit high in the center. By now I had gone too far to leave it alone so I set it up and recut the bolt face.
I had stripped the bolt to clean it and to do the bolt face and it was obvious the firing pin was bent. I set it up in the lathe to straighten it and decided to polish it up while I was at it. Looked nice and slid into place smoothly with none of the former stickiness.
I scrubbed the barrel out and it looked brand new. I thought the reamer marks in the throat seemed a bit rough though and thought I might just as well touch the throat with the my throater to smooth it up. Before doing that, I thought to check throat length. Wow. This thing was the original deep throat. If I seated a 154 Lapua to touch the lands, the bullet was only about 1/10 inch into the neck. Now the only thing to do was to set back the barrel and chamber with my Obermeyer spec reamer. This inexpensive starter rifle was starting to add up but I couldn't leave it alone.
With the barrel taken care of I turned back to the receiver. I had decided at the outset that the rifle should have three action screws for improved bedding. Now, it's easy to add a screw to a flat bottomed action. You just set the receiver up flat and level with a dial gauge then drill the hole. With a round receiver it's a bit more difficult to be sure all is as it should be. I turned out a screw on the lathe which was 1/4x28 but with a 3/8" shank. I screwed this into the receiver then used a dial guage to set it up so it was vertical in both axes and to center it uder the spindle. It was then a simple matter to move down and drill another hole equidistant between the existing holes. By now, I was wondering why I hadn't just shot the thing as it was and called it good! Sometimes, it sucks being me!
Anyway, the metal work's done now although I'm thinking I should fit a 6BR barrel just in case. No! Enough is enough! Now I'll just glassbed the thing and shoot it. I will have to make up two escutcheons for the guard screws so they will match. The stock, while not bad, could use a little refinement. I should be able to get this thing tested by March or April.
The point I was trying to make is that used Savage rifles are available all over. An intelligent person could probably just buy one and use it as is and do just fine or he can spend lots of time and/or money and have a great time rebuilding it. Regards, Bill.
