Last Monday I went to a local gun shop with my friend to pick up his SKS.
Sitting behind the counter was a Savage 10BA (.308) which imediately caught my eye.
I looked it over and asked if he could do a little better on the price if I walked out with it right away.
He did a bit better and so I bought it.
I already had a Harris BR-S bipod and a Bushnell 6500 Elite Tactical 4.5-30x50 scope so all I was missing were the scope rings.
I bought a set of Nightforce medium rings to round out the package.
Being a hands on kind of guy I wanted to install the scope myself so I bought the Wheeler Engineering Professional Scope Mounting Kit Combo for both 1 inch & 30mm scopes p/n 545-454.
This includes ,Scope Ring Alignment Bars, Scope Ring Lapping Rod, Lapping Compound, 2 levels, 5-65 in-lb torque wrench with 10 bits, Thread Locking Compound, Scope Mounting DVD.
Without giong into too much detail I will say that I highly rcommend this kit to anyone serious about mounting scopes or working on firearms in general.
I already had a box of Hornady 168gr A-Max ammunition so that's what I used to break in and sight the rifle.
Since I got to the range late and there was only an hour left before closing I quickly fired my first shot and cleaned the rifle. I then fired 5 more shots while sighting in the scope as best as possible with the clock ticking.
I then cleaned the rifle again and fired off another 5 shots for a total of 11 shots.
Being at an indoor range with a 50m maximum and being in a hurry didn't really help my shooting much but everything was under 3/4" which was still way too big a group for this rifle.
The next night I reloaded my 11 empty Hornady cases along with 5 others I had picked up in the past with 38gr of Varget over 175gr SMK's
I continued to break in the rifle with the remaining 9 factory A-Max rounds then with my 16 handloads.
I cleaned the rifle after 5 then 10 then the last 10 rounds.
By this time the copper fouling was very minimal and the groups were less than 1/2" for 5 rounds.
Today I began trying different loads to see what it liked best using the same Varget, 175gr SMK's in Hornady brass and CCI 200 Large Rifle Primers.
I loaded up the rounds as indicated below:
.308 Winchester 180gr SMK 41.7gr max load 2.800” OAL
1) -10% = 37.5gr 1 Round
2) +2% = 38.3gr 1 Round
3) +2% = 39.0gr 1 Round
4) +2% = 39.8gr 3 Rounds
5) +1% = 40.2gr 3 Rounds
6) +1% = 40.6gr 3 Rounds
7) +1% = 41.0gr 3 Rounds
8) +1% = 41.4gr 3 Rounds
9) +1% = 41.7gr 3 Rounds
The first 3 shots were used to fine tune the scope and foul the barrel and the rest were shot in a round robin format with 1 shot at target #3 then one at #4 and so forth till there were (6) 3 shot groups.
This is the result.
My overall first impressions of the rifle is that it is solid and accurate.
The AccuTrigger was factory set at 2.5lbs and feels quite crisp once you get used to it.
The recoil is quite tame partly due to the weight of the rifle and the attached muzzle brake.
My only dislikes are the feel of the bolt which is not as smooth as that of the Remington 700 5R Milspec with its jeweled bolt and the size and shape of the bolt handle which is smaller and shorter than that of the Savage 110BA.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has had work done to rectify these 2 shortcomings.
I realize that a 50m range report is pretty useless for a precision rifle and I will try to get out to one of the 200m ranges in my area in the coming weeks to make a second go at my load development.
Sitting behind the counter was a Savage 10BA (.308) which imediately caught my eye.
I looked it over and asked if he could do a little better on the price if I walked out with it right away.
He did a bit better and so I bought it.
I already had a Harris BR-S bipod and a Bushnell 6500 Elite Tactical 4.5-30x50 scope so all I was missing were the scope rings.
I bought a set of Nightforce medium rings to round out the package.
Being a hands on kind of guy I wanted to install the scope myself so I bought the Wheeler Engineering Professional Scope Mounting Kit Combo for both 1 inch & 30mm scopes p/n 545-454.
This includes ,Scope Ring Alignment Bars, Scope Ring Lapping Rod, Lapping Compound, 2 levels, 5-65 in-lb torque wrench with 10 bits, Thread Locking Compound, Scope Mounting DVD.
Without giong into too much detail I will say that I highly rcommend this kit to anyone serious about mounting scopes or working on firearms in general.
I already had a box of Hornady 168gr A-Max ammunition so that's what I used to break in and sight the rifle.
Since I got to the range late and there was only an hour left before closing I quickly fired my first shot and cleaned the rifle. I then fired 5 more shots while sighting in the scope as best as possible with the clock ticking.
I then cleaned the rifle again and fired off another 5 shots for a total of 11 shots.
Being at an indoor range with a 50m maximum and being in a hurry didn't really help my shooting much but everything was under 3/4" which was still way too big a group for this rifle.
The next night I reloaded my 11 empty Hornady cases along with 5 others I had picked up in the past with 38gr of Varget over 175gr SMK's
I continued to break in the rifle with the remaining 9 factory A-Max rounds then with my 16 handloads.
I cleaned the rifle after 5 then 10 then the last 10 rounds.
By this time the copper fouling was very minimal and the groups were less than 1/2" for 5 rounds.
Today I began trying different loads to see what it liked best using the same Varget, 175gr SMK's in Hornady brass and CCI 200 Large Rifle Primers.
I loaded up the rounds as indicated below:
.308 Winchester 180gr SMK 41.7gr max load 2.800” OAL
1) -10% = 37.5gr 1 Round
2) +2% = 38.3gr 1 Round
3) +2% = 39.0gr 1 Round
4) +2% = 39.8gr 3 Rounds
5) +1% = 40.2gr 3 Rounds
6) +1% = 40.6gr 3 Rounds
7) +1% = 41.0gr 3 Rounds
8) +1% = 41.4gr 3 Rounds
9) +1% = 41.7gr 3 Rounds
The first 3 shots were used to fine tune the scope and foul the barrel and the rest were shot in a round robin format with 1 shot at target #3 then one at #4 and so forth till there were (6) 3 shot groups.
This is the result.
My overall first impressions of the rifle is that it is solid and accurate.
The AccuTrigger was factory set at 2.5lbs and feels quite crisp once you get used to it.
The recoil is quite tame partly due to the weight of the rifle and the attached muzzle brake.
My only dislikes are the feel of the bolt which is not as smooth as that of the Remington 700 5R Milspec with its jeweled bolt and the size and shape of the bolt handle which is smaller and shorter than that of the Savage 110BA.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has had work done to rectify these 2 shortcomings.
I realize that a 50m range report is pretty useless for a precision rifle and I will try to get out to one of the 200m ranges in my area in the coming weeks to make a second go at my load development.
