Shorten and recrown barrel???

G

Ginner

Guest
Can the barrel on my factory Savage 17HMR be shortened 3" and recrowned without alot of fanfair or is it a major job? By the way the barrel is profiled very poorly(humps) and appears to be bent but seems to shoot okay; is that common with these rifles?:confused:
 
Any competent gunsmith can shorten and recrown your barrel. Since it's a Savage it's easy to pull the barrel, chuck it in the lathe and do the work. Don't know about headspacing, though. I don't have a gage for that caliber.
 
Sorry,....

I forgot to mention that the 17HMR is a model 93 rimfire. So it doesn't have the easy barrel nut assembly of the the centerfire Savage.
I saw a few cutters available from Sinclair(I think?) that were self-piloting off the bore. Can they be chucked in a drill to recut the muzzle after the barrel is cut off then finish the bore with a ball/compound arrangement or am I way off base.
I have some limited machine shop experience and I don't see how the barrel can be chucked to make an accurate cut perpendicular to the bore due to the sorry job that was done at the factory with the barrel cutting the profile. The barrel actually looks a little like corrugated pipe on the exterior on the last few inches before the muzzle. Also when you pull the bolt and look through the bore, the little circle of light at the other end cannot be made to look concentric. That leads me to believe that the bore is crooked. Somehow this gun still shoots close to MOA but not like a Savage 17 typically does which is 1/2 MOA or better with the few others I have shot.
 
Ginner said:
I forgot to mention that the 17HMR is a model 93 rimfire. So it doesn't have the easy barrel nut assembly of the the centerfire Savage.
I saw a few cutters available from Sinclair(I think?) that were self-piloting off the bore. Can they be chucked in a drill to recut the muzzle after the barrel is cut off then finish the bore with a ball/compound arrangement or am I way off base.
Click to expand...

Unless you just want a shorter barrel, I wouldn't waste my time and money with one of the piloted tools. You probably will not end up with a better crown than what you have unless yours has a visible ding in it.
 
I do actually want to go to 18" from the factory 21" for several reasons. A shorter barrel is stiffer and lighter. There is no velocity gain after 18" for the 17HMR and the SD is far less. Lastly, most of the ugliness is in the last 3" of this barrel.
 
Depending on the diamater of your barrel you maybe able to leave the action on and shorten the barrel by feeding it thru the headstock and cutting off the 3 inches. A spider setup on the outside would help but may not be necessary for what you want for a field gun. Then finish with a straight cut recessed crown. Maybe one of the professionals can comment on this.
 
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