Personal Critical Review - Savage Mark II FV-SR Bolt action .22 LR rifle

Personal Critical Review - Savage Mark II FV-SR Bolt action .22 LR rifle

Personal - I have posted in the past about how the lowly .22 lr is my "secret sin,” to this day the simple act of hunting, shooting or plinking with .22 firearms is my “hands down” favorite way to spend my shooting time.

In the last few years I have been spending quite a bit of money and time thinking about, researching, testing and shooting to find the “best .22 rifle” for prepping. I am never sure just what makes something “the best” because the subjective nature of our personal bias and the almost endless applications that could be applied to test “the best” it is an enigma.

Because I was never happy with the accuracy of the semi-auto rifles I got rid of all but two and replaced them with bolt action rifles two of them you see above. I habitually and continually end up with the bolt action .22 rifles again and again. Even with the recent and mostly successful try with the Marlin autoloading .22 rifles - the accuracy was just not in the same class with the bolt actions.

Function - Mongo grab bolt, Mongo turn bolt, Mongo pull trigger with bugger hook, fire stick go BOOM there is something elegant in the simple function of the bolt action rifles.

The top rifle is wearing a 3x9 one inch Nikon Buckmasters and the bottom rifle in green is attached to a fixed 6 power scope with a 30 mm tube. The rifles come with the plastic stocks shown, but the colors we added later. The Savage is simply excellent in it’s reliable function, the five round magazine fed without scraping or deformation and sent the rounds perfectly into the chamber.

This Savage .22 is similar to just about any other bolt action I have ever fired with one BIG addition, this rifle features an over-sized bolt handle that has proved to be worthy of mentioning and making a big review point about. Check out that Weaver/Picatinny type rail mount, that comes with the factory rifle.

Quality - Top notch high quality fluted barrel, the magazine release is a bit cheesy as is the cheep plastic stock. We were forced to use sand paper an a big dowel to sand out the barrel channel in the cheep stock to get a reliable free-float. The Savage Mark II FV-SR has a steel receiver made of good quality material as is the bolt itself. Both the receiver and bolt are a bit typical in the lack of refined edge de-burring, finishing work, and polish (I guess we just cannot expect what was normal in the 1950’s). The magazine is made of steel and is of high quality and as described works great.


Caliber/Ammunition - .22 LR is comparatively inexpensive ammunition with almost no recoil. Of course bulk-box .22 LR is available at any big-box store great fun for the range and can be reasonably accurate. If you choose target grade ammunition try out several types, speed, weight and brand for accuracy that is often hard to believe. High velocity .22 LR is effective for hunting and available in hollow points that actually work at shorter ranges.

Did I mention accurate - how about 10 rounds at 25 yards... I added that green square to gauge the measurement, that is an inch! This target was punched with a premium target-grade lead bullet selection, the best of 12 different brands, weights, and speeds (FPS) we tested.


Use - Easy to strip and clean, but the main attractant is the adjustable “Accu-trigger” I cannot say how impressed I have been with this addition to Savage products, it takes this little bolt action to the next level. One nice touch is that this particular rifle comes with a STANDARD scope mount already factory installed anything is better than the stupid air gun cuts that are normal.


Current production - Available now, have your local gun shop - order yourself one.


Additional points - This is a silencer ready rifle with threads at the end of the barrel for 1/2 28 and are machined true to the barrel (important to prevent baffle strikes). I was never a big fan of “silencers” I remember the ones from the 1980’s as heavy, easy to damage, and just not all that effective (far louder than any of the movie crap). I have several friends and two relatives that have become “converts” to the “brotherhood of science” and took the plunge and got the BATFE stamp - I am suitably impressed with the modern silencers available now that I am considering filling out paperwork myself. Below is the little rifle with a typical AR birdcage used here to protect the threads.

Swaging jacketed bullets a new skill for TEOTWAWKI

I make by swaging jacketed rifle bullets of several types and caliber and even more pistol styles and calibers using Corbin equipment (had other more expensive equipment available in the 70s to the 90s but have chosen Corbin for the superior quality and higher quality product produced). And just to be honest, I did use swaging for rifle as a business (class 6) and sold custom special product nation wide in the past but sold the business - I guess that makes me a former "professional".

I am a reloader from 1978 or so and swager from 1982. I guess cost to me was always relative, while in the business of making bullets for demanding customers the best tools were necessary... While I did sell most of my equipment I did cherry pick a good selectionof manual tools and a few caliber choices to continue as a hobby.

I can tell you without any reservations that it is much better as a hobby rather than a profession. I also note that reloading in general and casting (I still do some casting, but prefer jacketed bullets) and particularly swaging are rare, not particularly for saving money (yet that seems to be an issue again now) and appeals to a narrow personality type (my wife would call it a disorder). I am about the youngest swaging loader I know of (not 50 for some time yet).

As luck would have it swaging is not that hard to get into if you plan to swage small caliber or pistol bullets (lead or jacketed) as there are “reloading press” swage dies. Although I use a large array of expensive dies I have lots of respect for the CH/4D effort to keep home swaging dies within reason (cost) along with the limited selection of reloading press dies available from Corbin or RCE/Walnut Hill.

Honestly I loved reloading so much that I accidentally got into swaging when I was taking a hunter education course. The older gentleman who was teaching the class was an old buddy of my grandfathers and he had an old swage set from Ted Smith that would do jacketed and 3/4 .357...

I was hooked and then saved up to get my first M style press (I still have it) and started with .224 and then .308 then 9mm, .357 and on.

Swaging like reloading is for the most part not for saving money but rather doing something others cannot produce. A nice thing about making .224 bullets (what the .223/5.56 uses) with old .22 shells is the thin jacket great for varmint shooting, the .22 LR makes a particullarly thin jacket and the FPS that thin jacket can take is almost maxed out with the .223/5.56. For shooting pests and non fur gathering coyote shooting you can't beat a frangable .223 with a thin jacket .22 lr conversion, the bullets are often ugly and great care must be taken not to fold the jacket over (heat-treating helps) - so to make the point again, money savings is killed by the higher labor/time nessassary.

Looking over the Corbin website I was checkig the .22 lr conversion dies (work with a reloading press) to iron out the rim on a .22lr is $130 then you could add the reloading die type set to seat the core and form the point that set is $348.00. That is a 2-die set for .224 cal and makes an 6-S ogive. 6s is a standard ogive, a middle of the road point curve with 3-5 good for heavy hunting bullets with a more rounded nose and 8 plus reserved for target/long range shooting. When I got my first set of conversion dies I jumped full in and got dies and the special press along with the reloading press dies for ironing out the .22 lr rims... the entire set cost less than the above together...

    

My first MM style press was the "gold" series press (the shortest run ever made) cast from an industrial non spark bronze (and gave it the gold color - now with a nice patina green/brown/gold). If you wanted to cut lead wire or cast cores to weight and seat the core or use "sand shot" to make frangable cores the reloading dies work well as long as you have a good strong press like the Lee Classic Cast Press, RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme (both minumum), or the CH4D Heavy Duty Champion Press. I would not recomend any speciality press or turret press for this operation.



Just to be fair CH4D also makes dies for swaging, but most are made for jacketed pistol bullets, the dies are based on some of the older Herters reloading die thread type of dies. That CH4D press is also a great monster reloading press! For swaging I prefer the Corbin or Walnut hill type press (can double as a super heavy reloading press). The CH/4D dies also require a mallet or a drag-down frame that pushes out the bullet when you return the handle on the press.


The Corbin press with the CH/4D dies and the ejector frame device attached (the threaded posts)

When I ran the business I had a knack for creative bullet design and sold to a specific group of markets - Benchrest, Varmint shooters, and Special demands... All three markets, at least for me represented a demand for frangible bullets (come apart on impact, one of the most popular was a low penetration frangible that had a lower chance of deep penetration in walls and was very good at breaking glass windows without having large heavy parts continue to go past the glass - that was a very special use bullet. Now I make jacketed bullets for my own use, I make just regular lead core target bullets, bonded lead core bullets for hunting, and frangible bullets for shooting coyote (pest removal, as frangible tends to ruin the pelt and I like to use .308 for coyote frangible in .308 would not leave enough pelt to make it worth the work).

I have even produced powder tungsten core bullets for special applications by custom order, but the material is too expensive for general use. I never bothered to make or even atempt much with solid gliding metal or copper bullets because the need for higher level hydraulic equipment was never worth the investment in light of the market availability of higher production run products (like Barnes).

If a a budget is the issue.... I was looking at the RCE site for reloading dies, it seems Richard wanted to make available swage equipment for reloading in a mass-market way to keep the prices down and have items in stock... Both Corbin brothers are notoriously behind in production and rarely have much in stock a crop of new producers are springing up and this is GREAT news. BTSniper Custom Tools and Dies is one such producer.

Prices are lower, and the .22lr dies for the conversion are listed at (Rimfire jacket maker .224 caliber RFJ224-1) $60.00 not a bad price... The two die set for making jacketed bullets (pre cut and weighed core -no core swage (that takes the larger special presses) is listed at (22 .224” Flat base, 6S TOS224-1) $175.00.

So the total with a bottle of lube (this is important - lube and the properuse is one of the keys nessassary) would be about $240.00 for .224 jacketed bullets (not counting lead wire or cast cores) using a good pre existing reloading press ...

Not bad, as far as cost. $240. (Note: prices are now out of date and products may be unavailable)

I though a few would like a simple overview of the swage process with some drawings I made...

The drawings are deliberately exaggerated to explain the process...

The process is based on making cold flow lead swaged jacketed bullets, other materials take a different procedure. The Drawings are also based on the special equipment I have that is designed only for swaging, the reloading press dies work in a similar way but not in the exact same way and also have fewer steps... Swaging is a process of expanding up not squeezing down in diameter, a smaller thinner (but taller) product is expanded under pressure to fill a larger diameter...

Step one.



You need a lead core to place in the jacket...

If you are using the reloading type dyes the core is made of pre cast lead or cut lead wire and filed or whittled to the correct weight. If you are using die sets that contain a core swage then this the first step is to cut a lead wire just slightly heavier than needed. Take the cut wire and place it into the core swage, pull down on the press handle and apply pressure to the lead until it fills the die and starts to squeeze out of the bleed hole, once adjusted the core swage will make all of the cores the exact same weight and size. Proper pressure resistant lubrication (I use a lanolin/castor oil based lubrication) is applied to the lead before forming or the core will get stuck. The lubrication must be removed with a solvent like alcohol before the next step.

Second step.



The second step (or first step for reloading press dies) is to place the clean, weighted core into the jacket ready for the core seat die.

Third step.



This step is where the core is expanded into the jacket, note that the core when compressed will flow around the punch (and in this case the hollow point is pressed into the lead) until the expansion is stopped by the jacket as it is pressed against the inside of the die.

Note that this punch is made slightly smaller than the inside of the die to fit INTO the jacket to produce a true hollow point with an ogive (curved part of the front) that is covered by the jacket.



Note that as the punch comes to it's final position the jacket has expanded to the inside of the die with a hard pressed lead core on the inside. As before proper lubrication is necessary or the lead seated into the jacket will lock the jacket into the die, lubrication only on the outside of the jacket.

Once fully seated the jacket and core is ejected from the die.

Fourth step.



The last step in making this jacketed bullet is to form the point or ogive.

Using the ogive or point forming die, the seated core is placed into the die and will form a point and slightly expand as pressure is applied.

The hollow point is forming under the jacket as the ogive is folded over the open lead.

Once formed the final finished bullet is ejected by a punch.

It takes longer to read that than to do each step...

About the time and force of forming .357 cases and seating a bullet...

For reloading die type swage dies... CH4D

Look under "bullets" from the left hand list...

Go to 101 bullet swage dies...

This is a two step swage die (no core swage) for a jacketed HP...

101410HP 10mm/40 S&W Hollow Point Swaging Die Set - $ 185

Or the soft poont...

101410SP 10mm/40 S&W Soft Point Swaging Die Set - $ 185

The folks at CH4D are great, I have used their "speciality die" custom services before and were great to work with, they make a great product...

The dies they use are the older style Ted Smith type for reloading presses and they can be broken if not uses correctly (in fact all dies can be cracked when using the wrong lead it must be the lead hardness it was designed for harder lead larger holes).

A part of RCE, makes dies for reloading presses...

They also make the special dies for the swage presses (like I use).

I will post more on the CH4D dies and my .355 hollow point set I have.

Slow Motion video of bullet impacts from Werner Mehl

Slow Motion video of bullet impacts made by Werner Mehl from Kurzzeit. These are by far the best slow motion bullet impacts available anywhere. Watch for the hollow point rounds in the ballistics gel.

Metallic cartridge reloading for beginners

A simple list and some beginner advice I make standard, prompted by postings on the web.

The question that prompted this post was about beginning kits, and the viability of a particular hand-powdered progressive press.

The Lee 1000 would be a BAD choice for a beginner...
If you want a fast press, think about the Lee classic four position turret, faster than single stage presses and less complicated to set up than a full progressive.

The 1000 from Lee is notorious for finicky setup (as noted by many others) and poor production - IT IS NOT A BEGINNER PRESS!!! it has a reputation for problems with even the MOST EXPERIENCED reloader/handloaders, in fact ANY of the turret presses would be a challenge for a new person.

The Lee Classic Turret Press, it is my most used press in my collection, it will load any pistol and rifle cartridge of "regular” size up to about .308 (and larger without some features).

Using the automatic powder dispenser will only work with an extra part and only up to .308. Larger cartridges will work on the press but the auto powder dispenser will not actuate (you will have to charge by hand). Setting up this press is easier than an automatic press, but that is difficult enough...

I have used automated units for my past business (hydraulic and electric tools far beyond even what most would see) and I dislike the automatic hand powered units, I do use the turret press, I consider it fast enough without automation.



I am a BIG supporter of Lee products for the market, I use them myself, and I like the lower prices (even though my best press is a Corbin a SINGLE STAGE $600 press) ...

I would suggest the Lee Classic Cast press, I have that model also...

I would strongly suggest that you start with a single stage press, that is one operation at a time, this is particularly good for reloading rifle cartridges and obtaining the best in accuracy.

As I listed here the term "classic" with Lee is used similar to "premium"...



Also many of your tools you can get from secondary sources like Harbor Freight for a set of measuring calipers and a vibratory polisher and walnut hull media (if you want shinny brass cases.

Without a doubt you could call me a former professional because I not only had a license from ATF for the manufacture of ammunition but I also made from lead and copper the bullets, not just any bullets but premium jacketed bullets for hunters, police, and benchrest shooters (premium bullets are often priced at $1.50 each or more - just the bullet).

With all that said safety is the main issue...

Reloading mistakes, even simple ones can be catastrophic...

It is best to learn slow on a simple strong quality press, like the single stage models.