Super Budget build - Savage Axis .223 Heavy Barrel

AdrianM

AdrianM

Regular
Rating - 100%
38   0   0
Hi All,

For a while now I've wanted a .223 target/coyote rig. I do a bit of my own smith work and I wanted to gain some more experience, but I wanted something that I could set up cheap so that if I made a mistake it wouldn't be a great loss.

Enter this savage Axis with heavy barrel. Picked it up on the EE. I've seen a lot of Savages and haven't seen many that didn't shoot.



As soon as the rifle was in my possession I ordered this. It's a Boyd's Varmint Thumbhole and I'm super impressed with the quality, fit and finish. I had to do a minor bit of trimming in the mag well but the gun sat in perfect and as I found out later, the action set tight to the supplied recoil lug perfectly.



I had planned on glass bedding with an Acraglas kit so I borrowed my Father's Dremel and removed about 1/16" from the area where the action sits. I then took a 1/8" drill bit and made a series of shallow holes to provide a mechanical lock for the bedding compound to adhere to the stock.



Here you see blue and green play-doh filling the voids. I also put a tiny bit in each groove in the barrel nut to prevent a mechanical lock. I was worried about the recoil lug area but I just used plenty of release agent.



Put the compound in carefully and stuck it together.



And Voila! Turned out almost perfect. This is before trimming. The ridges from the barrel nut are actually mostly play-doh and trimmed off easily. To my delight the recoil lug was no issue and as I said the action rests tight up against the front, so tight no compound could squeeze in there at all.



Here is the finished rifle with a Weaver picatinny rail, a set of unknown rings, and a crap Tasco 6X24 I had kicking around. I am going to start looking for a decent scope to put on it.



I also planned to put a timney trigger on it if it shoots half decent. But since I'm a budding smith, I decided to try a mild trigger job on the existing. Nothing to lose! I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH THAT I KNOW IT IS RISKY MESSING WITH TRIGGERS AND I READ A LOT AND WENT IN SMALL STEPS VERY SLOWLY AND TESTED THE FINISHED JOB REPEATEDLY FOR FAILURES. So I trimmed the spring in 1/4 coil increments until I was happy with the weight. Then I simply took fine emery cloth and very slowly polished the trigger and sear. I was careful not to remove much more than the finish and just polished the surfaces to get rid of most of the creep. I ended up with a lighter, more crisp trigger that I can live with for now. It's still no match trigger!

So Cost break down:

Brand new Rifle - $415 shipped
Boyd's stock - $202 shipped
acraglas kit - $60 shipped
weaver rail - $30
Tasco scope with rings - $100 used

So for a little over $800 I have what should be a fun little rifle to play with. I'm going to sight it in and try for a couple groups with some cheap Federal FMJ ammo today and I'll post a couple targets to show what it's shooting like.

Adrian
 
Thanks guys, I'm very happy with it. Hope it shoots. Now I feel much more confident in tackling a higher quality build. I almost bought a new to me target rifle last winter and walked away because the stock wasn't great. Now I would grab it and stock it up myself.

Yes the Honda is pretty sweet JayCarver, it's waiting for my children to get a little bigger.
 
800$ I wish I has loaded enough to have that kind of budget for a build... Hope it shoots well, might have to ask for some trigger job pointers, as my brother has a axis he wants me to tighten up.
 
This looks pretty awesome, I was going to do the same thing but I think the money is going to go to something else. Have fun shooting it man, and don't forget to post groups! I'd love to see how it shoots.
 
I would advice not to use playdough , or at least be cautious. You normally use extra bedding compound, so that it squisshes out the top( to enshure no air pockets). The problem with the playdough is that being soft itself, when the bedding is squished the playdough will often squish out as well, leaving posability for playdough being trapped between the substrate and the bedding compound.
 
The play-doh wasn't the best, it did the job but I did notice the bedding compound squeezed by it but luckily not in any places where it caused an issue.

I shot the rifle today and it did not go well. I had just a little time so I went to my wood lot and because the grass and seasonal growth is so high I shot off the harris style bipod and rear bag off the hood of my Jeep. Not the ideal test position but it was just a shake down run. The trigger is good but the safety wouldn't work, have to investigate that. May be from interference with the over travel screw. That's a big issue but I'm sure it's an easy fix. What was really troubling is the awful group I shot. I had a hard time sighting in and when I got it close I had 5 rounds left to shoot one group. I was shooting Federal UMC with 55 grain FMJ bullets. It was cheap. Anyway, I'm really hoping it is the scope cause the group was about 2 inches at 50 yards. I only shot 50 yards cause I initially thought that would be just to get it on paper and I knew after a few shots that it was all over the place.

So a bit of a set back but stay with me. I'm going to change to a different scope and I'll try again and keep posting results until they are good.
 
When you bed a savage axis action do you use a method to hold the recoil lug forward in the action before bedding? If so what do you use?
 
That was my dilemma Hawk-i. There are a few theories on how best to do this. One method is to use tape as a spacer in the rear and on the sides and temporarily epoxy the lug to the action before bedding. In my case I got lucky I guess. At the advice of some one I trust I did nothing special and Boyd's must do a pretty good job cause the lug was left in the stock and I bedded it with longer bolts to act as guides and the lug fit snugly up against the action with no compound at all between the front face and the receiver.

On a good note, I pulled the action from the stock and fixed the safety in 5 minutes. I had a hunch and it was right. The safety is kinda crappy on this rifle in my opinion. The screw that I thought was only for limiting overtravel is also an important part of the safety. When you slide the tange safety button back, you're simply sliding a tab underneath between the screw and the upper part of the trigger assembly. When I turned it in, it wouldn't allow the safety button to slide back fully, effectively disabling the safety. If you turn it out too far, it also disables the safety by letting the trigger move back and firing the rifle. This is why Savage puts a little dab of something over the end of the screw. Kinda scary though, it flicks off pretty easy and it's easy to mess up as I did. Glad I checked it. Good lesson.
 
Before discounting the optics i would say try some higher quality ammo. I recently did some testing with a semi custom 223 and my first groups with 2 brands of cheep fmj averaged 1.5 inches i then switched to some vmax loaded by fiocci and my groups were almost under 1/2 inch.
 
Nice job on the bedding. The Axis design with the recoil lug in the stock does pose a bit of a problem (or at least is different) as compared to traditional bolt actions. Glad it worked out for you.


My first project was a Savage 12, turned out really well. Have done a Winchester, Howa, and Remington since then, always a bit of trepidation when you go to pull it apart.

Last job was a Ruger 10/22, bit of a pain in the butt because of the design of the gun. Wish it would stop raining here so I could try it out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom