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F T/R Competition Savage F/TR - Pet load?

Tempest 455

Tempest 455

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Mar 4, 2012
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Middle TN
I settled on a good load for my Savage 10BA last year when my son started shooting in F class. Now I'm changing to a Savage 12 F/TR 1-12 twist for next year. Anyone have a pet load for this rifle? Being a 30" barrel and different twist, I know I'm going to have to see what it likes.
 
I'm going out on a limb here and will guess a .308 Winchester and 1:12 twist for his Savage F-TR.

I don't have a Savage F-TR, or a 30 inch barrel, or a 1:12 twist; my rifle has a 1:11 twisted 32 inch barrel. The folks who have the short-barreled Savage F-TR shoot 155 to 185gr bullets, many of them using Varget.

The twist doesn't really matter when it comes to the load beyond the bullet selection. If you use Varget, look up the data from the Hodgdon web site and you will want to have something close to their maximum loads with that powder.
 
Agree with Denys on Varget being the powder to start with, and bullet weight selection. Pick a bullet and do a ladder test on your rifle, that will determine the best powder weight, then experiment with seating depth.
Loads other people shoot will not behave the same in your barrel.
 
mine is doing well with 168 Hybrids. It did NOT like Sierra 175s at all. Both tried with Varget and Lapua brass. In the few Berger 185 LRBT I tried it showed promise there too
 
Thanks for the feedback. Let me start over. This is strictly for 1,000 yard shooting.

We found 44.0g Varget, CCI 200, 175 SMK worked very well in my Savage 10BA w/ 1-10 twist and 24" barrel. I played with powder up and down and COAL and found a load that worked best.

Think it's OK to start there and develop for the 12 F/TR?
 
It's a place to start. You can then improve from there.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
 
twist is not the same but i use 155 amax lapua brass 46.0 varget, fed gmm 210's out of my 30" barrel i'm getting 2925 fps as always work up to a load what works in on riflew may not work in another.
 
175 smk, lapua brass, cci primer, 43.5-44g varget, I load mine .018 off the lands. Pretty accurate, one ragged hole at 100 off a bipod and can hit the target with all 70-80 shots @1000. Disclaimer***** do your own testing, your results may differ.
 
I had great luck with 178 Hornadys and 43.7g Varget in my savage. I also tried the 168 Berger Hybrids with mixed results.
 
I've only fired mine out to 500 with 168 SMK BTHP under 44.5 GR Varget and had good luck. If I was going to go out to 1k I would go heavier projectile....
 
168 SMK=bad at 1000 yards for competition.

I think if you start 43 and work up you will find your load. IIRC most loads with 175s are right around 44 as the accuracy load.

Run on OCW test and see the powder charge window
 
With the factory chamber (Obermeyer) its tough to do better than a 155 over a case stuffed full of either Varget or N150. Either of the 4895s are viable options as well.

There is a certain amount of convenience factor in using the same powder and bullet between both your 10BA and the 12 F/TR, and there is a very good chance that you will be able to find a load the gun likes with Varget and a S175MK. That said, its typically hard to get a 175 anything going fast enough to ballistically outperform a B155.5BT or similar designs (S2156, etc.) as fast as you can realistically get those moving with the powders mentioned above.

For the B155.5BT (which I have a good degree of experience with, in multiple 12 F/TR barrels), the throat is just long enough and the bearing surface short enough that the bullet may be near enough out of the case by the time you seat it to the lands. As a result I generally recommend seating the bullet 45-50 thou off the lands. Start @ 45 gn of Varget or N150, and work up. I usually end up somewhere as 'low' as 46.7gn and as high as 48.3gn depending on case (Lapua vs. Winchester), lot to lot variation, etc.

HTH,

Monte
 
Sorry Tempest, I didn't catch the 1000 yard shooting . With the 168 hybrid you should be around 1300 FPS at 1000. At 1250 yards the hybrid is transonic.
 
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My Savage F-TR likes both the Berger 155.5 FB and the Nosler 175CC/Sierra 175SMK. Currently shooting the 155s.

Berger 155.5FB (~3050 fps)
- Lapua Brass
- CCI BR2
- Varget @ 47.4gr
- .030" off the lands (~2.915" OAL)

Nosler 175CC (~2775 fps)
- Lapua Brass
- CCI BR2
- Varget @ 44.1gr
- .020" off the lands (~2.800" OAL)

I think your 44gr Varget load with the 175s sounds like a good place to start. Just make sure you don't seat them too long as I need to keep mine under 2.800" COAL to fit the chamber.
 
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You-Two said:
My Savage F-TR likes both the Berger 155.5 FB and the Nosler 175CC/Sierra 175SMK. Currently shooting the 155s.

Berger 155.5FB (~3050 fps)
- Lapua Brass
- CCI BR2
- Varget @ 47.4gr

Nosler 175CC (~2775 fps)
- Lapua Brass
- CCI BR2
- Varget @ 44.1gr

I think your 44gr Varget load with the 175s sounds like a good place to start. Just make sure you don't seat them too long as I need to keep mine under 2.800" COAL to fit the chamber.
Click to expand...


I have heard that the chamber is shorter than my 10 BA. Thanks for the confirmation. I will measure it before I load. Need my scope to show up before I can start playing with it.
 
You-Two said:
Just make sure you don't seat them too long as I need to keep mine under 2.800" COAL to fit the chamber.
Click to expand...

Not sure what 2.800" has to do with anything, since we are taking a 12 F/TR i.e. single-shot target action here, correct?

Most of mine run more in the 2.950-3.000" OAL range for a B155.5BT, and that's *with* jumping 45-50 thou...

...but more to the point, OAL (base-to-tip) is not a relevant metric for precision loading for anything not bound by magazine length (with one possible exception) - base-to-ogive is the correct measurement.
 
milanuk said:
Not sure what 2.800" has to do with anything, since we are taking a 12 F/TR i.e. single-shot target action here, correct?

Most of mine run more in the 2.950-3.000" OAL range for a B155.5BT, and that's *with* jumping 45-50 thou...

...but more to the point, OAL (base-to-tip) is not a relevant metric for precision loading for anything not bound by magazine length (with one possible exception) - base-to-ogive is the correct measurement.
Click to expand...

Well, I will need to look up the exact COAL of my 175 loads (based on a .020" jump), but the jist of my post was that I couldn't load much longer (if any) than the standard 2.800" due to the chamber freebore. Nothing to do with being a single shot or not. My chamber just barely (.005" jump) had room for the factory GMM 175 load. Off the top of my head, I know my 155.5 FB loads are longer, somewhere in the 2.9xx" range like you are milanuk. Just saying the 175 loads tend to be more "standard" length (at least in my Savage FTR chamber).

Tempest - I bought my FTR used and the previous owner had worked up a load with 175s and 43.0gr Varget. It shot very well for me, but I ended up looking for a little more velocity (and equal accuracy) for winter shooting here in the Central Valley due to the low density altitude.
 
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Good point... I shot very few 175s thru any of my FTR barrels, so with the different shape of the nose cone as compared to the B155.5BT they may well end up 'short'.
 
milanuk said:
Not sure what 2.800" has to do with anything, since we are taking a 12 F/TR i.e. single-shot target action here, correct?

Most of mine run more in the 2.950-3.000" OAL range for a B155.5BT, and that's *with* jumping 45-50 thou...

...but more to the point, OAL (base-to-tip) is not a relevant metric for precision loading for anything not bound by magazine length (with one possible exception) - base-to-ogive is the correct measurement.
Click to expand...

My 10BA chamber is short very short throated. I have to load 175 Sierra to 2.77 just to keep them out of the lands.
 
...and that doesn't change what I said. The topic at hand was a 12 F/TR, which as a different chamber. Even outside that, I would still maintain that OAL is not the measurement to be going by for anything other than 'will it fit in the magazine'? If your particular chamber is throated short enough that you can't even load to mag length, then you *really* need to be finding out what the distance to the lands in your gun actually is. OAL is imprecise at best, due to the variations in base-to-tip dimensions of most bullets (even match ones).
 
Only used OAL because I cannot remember base to give numbers. Savage chambers can be short especially in 308 and was only providing another perspective point for OP

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
 
Was loading a new batch of 155.5 FB ammo this week. With a .030" jump (which is the measurement I go by), my COAL is right around 2.915" in my Savage .308 FTR chamber. The bearing surface of the 155.5 is only in the top half of the case mouth.

Normally I've been using Lapua brass/CCI BR2 primers, but have a couple hundred pieces of FC brass I had already primed Win LR primers. Since all my Lapua has been fired 1x, but not yet processed, I did a test last weekend with the FC brass. Using my normal load of 47.4gr Varget my loads averaged right around 3050fps with both the 155.5 FB and the Nosler 155CC. Accuracy was good, but the SD was higher (14-15 fps) than with the CCI BR2s (<10 FPS). Either way, I think the load with the 155CCs is good enough for mid range matches and as practice to save the Fullbores for LR.

NOTE: My Lapua and FC .308 brass weights are close to one another.
 
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Update:

1st test at 500. I have a bunch of 175 SMK, so that's what I'm using for now. It REALLY liked 43.2g Varget and Lapua .020 from the lands. 1st time out it has shot better than my 10BA ever did at 500. Going to play w/ powder up and down and see what it likes best.
 
Here's my take (theory) on that...

As the rifles come from the factory... the 'pillars' are kind of on the small side - adequate, but not quite as 'beefy' as what you see in custom jobs. Combine that with the vagaries of a production setup, where you might have minute high/low spots in the stock inletting... sometimes fiddling with the torque settings works. Some people I know have set the gun up with extremely high torque and left it set that way for a while (not shooting) until they were satisfied that the wood fibers were done compressing as much as they were likely to. Once that was complete... torquing the screws a normal amount worked just fine. Others make a big deal out of varying/adjusting the torque to find the 'sweet spot', something I've personally never spent much effort on as I more or less uniformly bed any of my rifles that don't already come with some sort of bedding block or chassis.

My view is that if the dang thing is bedded properly, most of that variabillty goes away. There shouldn't be any high/low spots where the pillar is proud of the inletting (should be either flush or slightly below the bedding, so that the receiver is as fully supported as possible.

YMMV,

Monte
 
I noticed on my pillars in the FTR, the front two pillars have contact marks. And the rear pillar has none. I am not an expert but shouldn't they all have contact marks. This may lie some of my "issues". The contact marks are shiny spots of equal size and shape on opposite side of the pillar.
 
I have went up and down on length. So far my gun likes a .020-.030" jump.With a 175 SMK, 43.5g Varget seems to the ticket. I'm going to do a little more testing just above and below 43.5 but think it's pretty close.
 
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Sorry for Semi Hijack... Do you guys see much Recoil Variation from Lighter to Heavier bullet
.308 Loads in these F Guns? Thanks and sorry for a little deviation...
 
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