Bore scope

[Plasmaboy_au]

I got my entry level borescope delivered today and its an eye opening experience.

260AI – match barrel but getting on in round count, no fouling after carbon then copper cleaning , fire cracking makes the first 5cm or more look like reptile scales
Tikka 223 factory barrel – about 800 rounds, looking pretty good with only minor pitting, internal surfaces look smooth and almost as nice as a low end custom barrel
Savage 208 factory barrel with 90 rounds – holy crap, barrel is rough as guts, I’m amazed it shoots at all and no wonder there is a lot of copper fouling

Savage.jpg

[Julian D]

A friend asked me to see if I could sight their Savage rifle in for them in .223, they could not seem to get it to group.
Best I could get was about a 6" group at 100 metres. I checked the scope and it was tight, I then looked up the barrel with my Hawkeye. Holy crap ! It looks very similar to those pics you have put up. We took it back to the place of purchase & asked if they could send it back because it seemed to have a defective barrel. We were told later that Savage barrels are broached & that is what they look like.
I then looked through 6 of my rifles, and not one of them has anything like what I saw in that Savage.
They did recrown it though & sent it back with a target claiming it was shot at 150 metres & would be about a 1.5" group.
I have purchased some premium ammo & will get back out there to see if it will group soon. But I am not holding my breath.

[Plasmaboy_au]

I sent a WTF? email to savage, asking where I need to send it to in Australia for a barrel replacement under warranty. I'm expecting the response to be " nothing wrong, that's normal, goodbye"

[tachyon]

That's one of the roughest barrels I've ever seen!

It's not "broached" - it's been button rifled which is why the circular drill marks in the lands and grooves line up.

[Plasmaboy_au]

Yep, it looks like someone just got a solid blank, drilled a hole through it with a damaged drill bit and then just yanked a button through . The groove (gouge) is in a helical pattern and is the entire length of the barrel!

Hahaha .. Im expecting Ill be told its fine and since the projectile is only touching 1/2 of the barrel is should be, due to all of the gouging, its a low friction / high speed barrel, your welcome

[Old Trev-39]

My stepson's .223 looks the same. Shoots reasonable, but amazingly, not a lot of copper and cleans up rather well with Eliminator.
It must be the way Savage produce all barrels. Years ago a number of M.A.B. rimfire barrels came t N.Q. at the same time. All looked horrible internally, but they shot well. Another respected N.Q. contributor to this forum will vouch this.
Cheers,
Trevor.

[Matt P]

Yep, it looks like someone just got a solid blank, drilled a hole through it with a damaged drill bit and then just yanked a button through . The groove (gouge) is in a helical pattern and is the entire length of the barrel!

Hahaha .. Im expecting Ill be told its fine and since the projectile is only touching 1/2 of the barrel is should be, due to all of the gouging, its a low friction / high speed barrel, your welcome

That looks like a good one, Savage by name .....
Matt P