By Will-j

December 14, 2014

Last year I built [more like refurbished] a Savage 110 .30-06 for my neighbor, who happens to be my hunting partner. A family member (my brother) had told me some time ago that William (we share the same name) was wanting something other than his Marlin .30-30 to hunt with and that he liked the -'06 chambering but his shoulder couldn't take the recoil of full-power loads. He is a tree surgeon and hurt it sometime back, and even the Marlin's recoil was starting to get to him. I loaded them too, and they were a 'little' on the warm side.

So I contacted Hornady and spoke at length with a tech on several occasions about their Reduced Recoil loads and being an avid reloader decided to load Wm. the 125gr. SSTs at about 2700-2750, hoping to match the their factory loads. With Winchester brass and primers, and RL-15 powder I got the load to 2720 avg. and 5 shots covered with a quarter at 100 yds.

After going through the Savage and replacing the bolt head, firing pin w/ spring, extractor, new mag follower w/ spring, (basically a general overhaul), and checking with go / no-go gauges, I gave it a deep blue-(almost black) cold blue [about 12 applications]. I finished it in time for his birthday. It was a total surprise for him.

The recoil is manageable; He's taken three deer so far this season and four (I think) last season. Not too bad for a good friend, and for a rifle that most probably would have sat in silence for a considerable time to come, as I have the same shoulder problem as Wm. though I had decided to change to .243 and .223 cals. for the balance of my hunting.

I don't think I would have done the deed had I not had confidence in Hornady and their SSTs. Now Wm. is talking about looking for some pigs to try out the loads.