PTG Fluted Bolt Body for the Savage 10TR

Got a new bolt body for the Savage 10TR. 

PTG Bolt Body Savage 10 Short Action Spiral Fluted

 

  Got this for my Savage 10TR, couldn't believe what a perfect fit it was.  It literally just dropped right in with no gun smithing, fitting or massaging whatsoever.  I read the description that it requires gun smithing, or other's comments saying best left to a gunsmith, but for my particular rifle, not true.  Found a youtube video and it helped me get it done in less than 15 minutes.

Took up the slop that was present with the factory bolt body, working the action feels smoother now.

As far as finish is concerned, it's fine the way it is.  I suppose you could polish it further, but it really isn't necessary.  Really, really happy with the PTG bolt body for the Savage 10.

Rifle-length G36 handguard for my Ruger 10/22

So I picked up an H&K G36 rifle-length hand guard for my Ruger 10/22.  I had a bunch of stuff bolted on to my shorter one but it was pretty cumbersome and heavy enough with the chassis and heavy-profile barrel.  

Unfortunately the hand guard was not a perfect fit for my Archangel kit so it required some modification.

 

Besides the fitting issue, the new hand guard, much like the original Archangel one, would actually contact the barrel.  To have a truly free-floating barrel, the hand guard had to be totally clear of the barrel.  

 H&K G36 hand guard

 Archangel G36 hand guard.

 There's a faint rub mark on the stainless steel barrel where the old hand guard was contacting the barrel.

 Next to the original hole, I had to drill a new one.  It was messy, I eyeballed it, and therefore the end result was ugly and imperfect, but it worked and I was able to mount the longer hand and still free float the barrel.

Compared to before, the new hand guard looks virtually the same except it is slightly longer, has two additional vent-holes, and no rails installed.  I think I'm just going to leave it looking like this.  Looks a little cleaner than before.

Plinking at 300 meters

It was our buddy Benson's first time shooting his Savage 10TR.  He'd never shot it before, and also, he'd never shot a rifle with optics on it.  Until today, the furthest he'd ever reached out to was no more than 50 meters.  

Jay helping Benson get his rifle bore-sighted.   It's the simplest thing, taking the bolt out and just looking down the pipe to see approximately where the sight-picture should be, then dialing in your scope to approximately the middle of what you were looking at through the bore.  It's a quick and simple way to get your rounds closer to zero without wasting too many of them. 

I can't stop taking pictures of my own rigs, haha!  

So, I'm pretty new to shooting bolt action rifles, but I discovered two things for this weekend that really improved my game:  bubble levers and ballistic calculators.  The bubble leveler is a $30 add-on to insure that your rifle is straight up and down in relation to your glass.  Even shooting at 300m, I found that it was probably very helpful because every time I let off a round, I reset a little and found that sometimes my rifle was canted a bit left or right.  I was also using hold-over rather dialing-in my zero for every distance so if my rifle was titled, I may not have hit my targets.

I used to think these things were complicated to use and probably took more thinking than my tiny little brain was capable of, but it took a lot of the guess work out and saved me a lot of rounds.  Basically, I put in the basic information like range to target, the type of reticle, the grain of ammo I was using, and it would tell me where to hold on the reticle.  I didn't believe it until I tried it.  I was able to put rounds basically exactly where the app said they would go.  It was amazing. 

The targets from 100 meters away.

The targets from 100 meters with 26x magnification.

Zeroing at 100 meters.

 

 

Benson after his Mini-14 was zeroed.

 

After zeroing at 100 meters, we moved out to the 300 meter mark (well, about 298 or something)

 Our friends Roy and Paul came out with their M14s and 700s.

 

It was a Savage 10TR day.  My 10TR.

 

Benson's Savage 10TR.

 

Jay's Savage 10TR.

3 jars of peanut butter from about 235 meters.  I managed to nail all three jars with the help of my new bubble leveler and ballistic calculator. 

 Just like last time, the rest of the afternoon just turned into us obliterating the gong from 300 meters.

Mysterious Roy shooting his M14.  Nobody's seen what he actually looks like, even us.

Benson's Mini-14

From 300 meters, the gong is barely visible.

From up close and personal, the gong looked pretty unhappy.