I do have a Savage Model 11 International Trophy Hunter XP in .223 Remington and I have to say its a complete and total joy to shoot and a 1000 time more
accurate than I am. When I first started looking around at the different rifles available for what I wanted and had the money for, at the time this rifle was last
on my long list of bolt actions that I wanted to get, the real decider was the price and the fact that the gun store I was at actually had it in stock, unlike
every other rifle I had on my list. I was real excited and with the power of a new gun boner, and not using my brain, I went to my work place a bought 10 boxes of
Winchester White Box 55 Grain FMJ .223 rounds, I had just bought a rifle, and now 200 rounds!!!! If I had a wife, she'd kill me...
. I then raced off to the shooting
range. I got there just as my best friend did, wow what a coincidence
, after I got set up, I sighted it in with the help of my friend who indecently had brought his
spotting scope for some reason. It ran like a dream, can't say my shooting skills were though. I have never had more fun that 3,4,5 hours at the range with it.
The plastic stock is nice, not exactly a target shooting style, but is nice and light, has a little flex at the front. Also the trigger guard is plastic, I recommend replacing
with a metal one, you can easily order one from Savage, one of the many fine and excellent dealers that sponsor this site. Or if your feeling adventurous Brownells
has them and will ship them to Canada or you could try Boyd's Gunstock Industries, they have them as well, you can get very nice laminate hard wood stocks from
Boyd's as well.
You'll have to excuse my fur coat
its rather cold and I haven't turned the thermos on, I put a Remington shell holder and a little foam padding underneath it to raise
the cheek up, now its just right and comfortable.
I added a Shooters 9" - 13" bi-pod from good old Canadian Tire.
The detachable magazine is listed as a 4 round mag but I discovered that you can cram a extra round in it and it will feed just fine,
not sure if this will work in .308 Win, the magazine spring at first is a little stiff, will loosen up over time.
It comes withe a Weaver Kaspa 3-9x40mm scope with medium height weaver rings. The rings look really cheap, but the work. The bolt is jeweled, has nice smooth
operating and shiny too. This model comes with the Accutrigger, It is easy to adjust, has a nice crisp feel to the break, Although I am no expert in the field of glass braking,
I have broken my far share of glass cups and plates and bowels and....
The bolt knob is checkered, not really a over sized tactical bolt knob, but gives a nice positive grip when wearing gloves.
Here is a picture of it at the range, prone, it's hard to see but straight out is a large piece of brown cardboard sitting at 200 yards, well just above it is a steel ram target,
painted a lovely shade of white. I fired 40 shots while prone, hit it 37 time, the three were because it was my first time shooting prone.
And this lovely dark photo happened just as the lights went out, the lights at the range are on a twist timer, it only goes for 2 hours, and we had long forgotten about it.
In my honest opinion, It's not the best starting choice, you could get a Stevens 200 or Savage Axis, Ruger American, Remington 700 SPS, Tikka T3, Weatherby Vanguard Sporter,
the list just goes on and on, but if you want a Savage rifle with the Accutrigger the Model 11 International Trophy Hunter XP is a good choice, others would be Model 111/11 Hog
Hunter, Model 10 Precision Carbine. On a random side note I think the Savage Model 111/11 Hog Hunter in .308 Win would make a excellent scout rifle, too bad its not magazine fed.
-Steve
P.S. I did buy mine from Wholesale Sports, but I bought it in the beginning of November.
