My son decided to buy his own rifle for NRL22 a few weeks back, he looked at the Ruger as well but the stock and better trigger on the Savage swung it in their favor. He bought the Vortex Diamondback 6x24 for his optic. He works quite a few hours so he has me doing the check ride on his new rifle, I'm okay with that!
Never having owned a chassis stocked rifle of any kind I'm ambivalent towards them.
The high points.
1. First off is the gun is a pretty good deal, 500. for it which included the MTD stock which is 350.-400. if you can find one.
2. The trigger is outstanding for a gun in this price range, I haven't put the scale on it but it's probably under 2lbs and crisp.
3. The action is very smooth, it was dry as a bone and difficult to work but a little cleaning and greasing combined with working it a few hundred times has it feeling very nice.
4. It feeds from the magazine very smoothly.......to smooth, see the low points.
The low points.
1. Accuracy is okay although yesterday was absolutely awful range conditions, I was shooting in a wind tunnel, it switched back and forth several times from 6 o'clock to 11 o'clock running on the low end at 6mph to over 20mph. I tried not to shoot during the gusts but gave up a few times and shot anyway.
2. Those Savage magazines suck, I'm not a fan of rotary mags anyway and these are real thumb busters. My thumb is still sore today from loading maybe 150rds yesterday.
3. Remember in the high points I mentioned how smooth it fed from the magazine, you cannot tell when the magazine goes empty, closing the bolt feels the same on both feeding a cartridge or closing on an empty chamber. That is irritating, the mags hold 10rds which will work out well in most stages of NRL22 so it's probably not an issue during matches but in practice I dislike dry firing 22lrs without an empty in the chamber to slow the firing pin down.
4. The magazines are solid black, there's no way to tell how many are left in one or whether or not it's actually full or just being difficult to load.
5. When you dry fire the gun there's definitely a vibration that can be heard and felt through that metal chassis stock, thinking that it could really benefit from a barrel de-resonator.
So most of my complaints are magazine related, not sure if there are clear ones available but that would help.
I shot some CCI standard velocity and Aguila super extra, decided because of range condition not to waste a bunch on paper targets. packed up and went over to the NLR range and checked to see if the scope had enough elevation in it to dial 200yds, it didn't. Needs a 20 moa rail.
Never having owned a chassis stocked rifle of any kind I'm ambivalent towards them.
The high points.
1. First off is the gun is a pretty good deal, 500. for it which included the MTD stock which is 350.-400. if you can find one.
2. The trigger is outstanding for a gun in this price range, I haven't put the scale on it but it's probably under 2lbs and crisp.
3. The action is very smooth, it was dry as a bone and difficult to work but a little cleaning and greasing combined with working it a few hundred times has it feeling very nice.
4. It feeds from the magazine very smoothly.......to smooth, see the low points.
The low points.
1. Accuracy is okay although yesterday was absolutely awful range conditions, I was shooting in a wind tunnel, it switched back and forth several times from 6 o'clock to 11 o'clock running on the low end at 6mph to over 20mph. I tried not to shoot during the gusts but gave up a few times and shot anyway.
2. Those Savage magazines suck, I'm not a fan of rotary mags anyway and these are real thumb busters. My thumb is still sore today from loading maybe 150rds yesterday.
3. Remember in the high points I mentioned how smooth it fed from the magazine, you cannot tell when the magazine goes empty, closing the bolt feels the same on both feeding a cartridge or closing on an empty chamber. That is irritating, the mags hold 10rds which will work out well in most stages of NRL22 so it's probably not an issue during matches but in practice I dislike dry firing 22lrs without an empty in the chamber to slow the firing pin down.
4. The magazines are solid black, there's no way to tell how many are left in one or whether or not it's actually full or just being difficult to load.
5. When you dry fire the gun there's definitely a vibration that can be heard and felt through that metal chassis stock, thinking that it could really benefit from a barrel de-resonator.
So most of my complaints are magazine related, not sure if there are clear ones available but that would help.
I shot some CCI standard velocity and Aguila super extra, decided because of range condition not to waste a bunch on paper targets. packed up and went over to the NLR range and checked to see if the scope had enough elevation in it to dial 200yds, it didn't. Needs a 20 moa rail.
