Below I will provide a short, cursory review and initial range report on the new Springfield Model 2020 Rimfire rifle.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:
Out of the box, both the Sage and Black stock target models are very handsome firearms and I am expecting an even higher degree of beauty from the classic wood models that we expect to receive very soon. The rifle stock is a standard synthetic stock with a raised comb, generous buttpad, and vertical grip that fits my hand very comfortably, with thumb resting to either the left or right. The forend moves slightly when pushed, but resting on on a bag under its own weight, the forend does not flex and the barrel remains freely floating.
The receiver and barrel are well machined with no visible tool marks and both are finished with a uniform deep black matte. The barrel is a heavy profile with a slight taper, what appears to be a share 11 degree target crown, and the muzzle is threaded and capped. The thread cap matches the outside diameter of the barrel perfectly and the mating point of barrel to muzzle cap is nearly indistinguishable at arms length. The bolt is highly polished from the factory, void of any tool marks on the OD and only very fine tool marks on some recessed portions of the bolt body, which do not contact any part of the action. This all amounts to a very smooth action and rather elegant appearance to the bolt overall. The bolt handle is the perfect length and alignment, the throw is 60 degrees, and the removable bolt knob is a simple bell shape that offers excellent manipulation.
The supplied picatinny mount is where Springfield has lost me. This rail is 0 MOA and when bottoming out the elevation of the Vortex Venom 5-25x56, I still had to hold under by 45 mils. Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine what mount hole spacing we are working with here because none of the more common mounts seem to fit this one. I will need to do some more digging and report back on what mount will fit because I do believe this rifle requires a 20 MOA base.
The trigger is factory set to 4lbs and is adjustable from 4lbs to 5.5lbs. This trigger is single stage with a firm back, clean break, and very little overtravel. It is wider than I like but not overly so and was still enjoyable to shoot. My one question is if they are going to go through the trouble of making it adjustable, I don't know why they would only offer between 4 and 5.5 lbs. Luckily this rifle takes Rem 700 triggers so I have a Trigger Tech Adjustable trigger I will be dropping in for the next range trip.
INITIAL RANGE REPORT:
I was going to do an initial range report at 50 yards but due to a massive snow storm that rolled in, we took to the indoor 25 yard range. I will be doing another trip in short order where I intend to review this rifle at 50 yards and then again at 100 yards, but for now, as you will see, the 25 yard report produced some interesting results.
For this test, I mounted a Vortex Venom 5-25x56mm scope to the rifle with Vortex Pro Series 34mm Low Rings. The objective of the scope cleared the barrel by roughly 1/4" and my eyes aligned with the eye piece perfectly due to the raised comb of the stock. I had the rifle supported on a heavy-fill Armageddon Gear Schmedium bag with an Armageddon Gear rear squishy bag for elevation control. At first, we had the target hanging from a cable but after the first couple shots, the target would sway and took much too long to settle down so we affixed the target to a target stand which eliminated that particular environmental factor. We setup the new Garmin C1 Xero Chronograph to measure velocities and wow, what an easy to use little piece of kit. If you use a chrono, this Garmin make life so easy!
I tested a variety of ammo from varying degrees of quality and affordability to give you all an idea of what to expect from the different tiers of ammunition. This will hopefully help in narrowing down the more accurate ammo brands for this rifle. All ammo used was 40gr 22LR and included: CCI Standard Velocity, Federal Champion, Eley Sport, Eley Team, Eley Match, Eley Tenex, SK Rifle Match and SK Long Range Match.
To begin, I shot 2 groups of 5 with each type of ammo, only allowing the barrel to cool as long as it took me to refill the 10 round rotary magazine. All of these groups were shot with the factory settings right out of the box after an initial clean and lubrication. I did not do any type of break-in assuming most people would do no more than an initial clean and lube, if that. You know who you are, clean your gun! As you will see from the images ad supporting document below, the rifle performed as good as, or slightly better than advertised based on 25 yards shooting calculated out to 100.
From the factory, the best group was SK Long Range Match at 1.148 MOA and surprisingly the Eley Tenex performed the worst with 2.268 MOA. As you can see, aside from the Eley Tenex and Eley Team, all others came in under 2 MOA average over two 5 round groups, which is better than advertised and better than I have seen on various other reviews. For the most part, we did see a correlation between greater accuracy and more consistent velocities from the different ammunition.
Next, I ran a test of shooting 8 groups of 5 with SK Long Range Match and starting with the action screws torqued to 10 in/lbs for the first group and then increasing the torque value in
5 in/lb increments for the following groups of 5, all the way up to 45 in/lbs. Interestingly, the most accurate group was achieved at 45 in/lbs, followed by 40 in/lbs and surprisingly 10 in/lbs came in a close third. I would have liked to play some more with the action screws and varying the torque value from front to back to see if we can seek out more accuracy, but I ran out of time on this trip.
Having settled at 45 in/lbs, I shot two 5 round groups with each CCI Standard, SK Long Range Match, Eley Team, Eley Match, and Eley Sport. The results were SK Long Range Match at 0.596 MOA with the smallest group, followed by Eley Sport at 0.980 MOA, Eley Team at 1.032 MOA, Eley Match at 1.292 MOA, and finally CCI Standard at 1.676 MOA.
Although we still need to shoot this rifle at 50 and 100 yards, I am very pleased with this rifle. Based on the overall fit, finish and performance of this rifle, I think we get alot of rifle for the price. The rifle produced better than advertised groups out of the box and showed improvement with minor tuning. Furthermore, the rifle experienced zero failures after a total of 176 rounds fired. I believe this is a great rifle out of the box and at a very affordable price point. With a little work and a couple drop in parts, I believe this can be a 1/4 MOA rifle without too much fuss or extra expense.
More to follow...stay tuned for the next report!
Springfield Model 2020 Ballistic Data Table
Factory Condition Groups (first group of CCI standard was shot on a moving target)
Receiver Tune Groups (I think the first poor group of Eley Match was due to the front bag leaning unevenly. I want to test this ammo again)
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