Like many other people here I woke up on May 1st 2020 to find almost all of my centerfire rifles banned. I was left with a big ol' crate of .308 with nothing to shoot it with, so the very same day I went to Cabela's and spite-purchased something to replace all my rifles.
It definitely wasn't in the budget so I needed to buy a single rifle that I could use for everything since it was going to be my last firearm purchase for a very long time. The scout concept by Jeff Cooper felt like a good starting point as that's all about having an easy-handling jack-of-all-trades rifle that's relatively ban-proof, however I was looking more for a general purpose rifle so I was fine with going outside of the strict (and dare I say somewhat outdated) standards set out by the colonel.
I looked at the Tikka T3x Arctic, the CZ Ranger Rifle, and the Savage 110 Scout. The Tikka was nice but a bit on the heavy side, and was well out of my price range. The CZ was just as nice and more affordable, but also just as heavy. Both of them would have also necessitated some kind of riser on the stock for proper cheek weld with an optic, and I really didn't want to have to futz with aftermarket stuff to adjust the fit. The Savage ultimately won out primarily because of all the stock fitting parts, and I liked how light it was and how nice it felt and handled to me. The Ruger Gunsite Scout wasn't in stock but while I would have loved to give it a try, I probably still would have went with the Savage because of the fitting bits and the price.
What's in the box?
[size=-2]Set up with the red dot and sling from my AR-15[/size]
It has an Accufit Accustock, so on top of all the risers and spacers to make it fit perfectly it also has the aluminum bedding block. With the 16.5" heavy contour barrel and its beefy muzzle brake they definitely could have made it lighter, but to be honest the thick barrel and bedding is kind of nice for long range sessions. I tried it without the muzzle brake and the recoil felt fine to me so I left it off; it makes the whole thing shorter and removing the chunk of metal from the very end of the barrel helps handling a lot. It was also making my friends hate me, so off it went.
For sighting it has a decent Williams peep and a rail for IER optics, although if you remove the rear sight you can put on a standard rail for traditional optics. I wanted to hedge my bets in case I didn't like IER scopes, but I quickly grew to love shooting with one so on it stays. I've read about people having issues due to the front post not being long enough, but when I sighted it in for 200m with Norinco surplus it seemed fine to me. I have yet to check the irons with my handloads so that'll be a range trip for when the weather gets better.
It comes with a single 10 round AICS Pmag from Magpul, but I find it looks and carries so much nicer with a 5 round magazine. Standard magazines at a reasonable price is another reason I went with the Savage, and I have six 10 rounders coming in from MDT's Black Friday sale so I'm hoping to try out some action shooting matches with it next year.
Optics
[size=-2]I am a crazy person who wants to make absolutely certain the eye relief and weight balance all match up[/size]
Scout rifles tend to use an optic that's more forward mounted than your traditional scope. In the past this was done with Long Eye Relief (LER) optics means for handguns stretched an arm's length away, but nowadays they make intermediate eye relief (IER) scopes that don't have to be quite so far forward. At first I tried getting by with just a red dot optic, which worked great for snapshots out to 100-150 meters. Past 200 meters things got frustrating really quickly; between the dot size and coarse adjustment clicks I was wasting a ton of ammo trying to hit a 4"x6" target at 320m. When I hit it first try with my friend's Ruger American Ranch (purchased the day after my Savage for the same reasons) with a scope I knew I had to glass mine up.
[size=-2]Comparison chart, click for full size[/size]
Currently the choices for good IER scopes is very simple, Burris or Leupold. Vortex makes one but from everything I've researched it's just not very good when the best available options are only a couple hundred dollars more and still well under $1k. Since I was ordering online the crazy rig I built was to simulate the weight, size, and measure the eye relief to see how I would be setting up each one. I had the Nikon in the chart because Jo Brook over in Brandon was firesaling them at the time, but ultimately I opted against it because of warranty concerns and the others were just better in every way. I ultimately settled on the Burris 2-7x32 scout for the extra magnification. I hear Leupold used to make a 1.5-5x IER optic with an illuminated reticle that's been discontinued, I would have definitely gone with that if it was still available.
It's an acquired taste but after getting my stock set up right and mounting the scope with low rings it's an absolute joy to shoot with both eyes open. With a shot timer my snapshots are more accurate and consistently a second or two faster compared to my lighter .44 Carbine with a similarly specced 2-7x32 traditional scope. Especially from high ready it feels like the gun just pivots perfectly into place with no effort because of the weight balance. You lose some FoV in the scope but I'm okay with the tradeoff for how fast I'm able to get on target and shoot.
How's it shoot?
I got this thing planning on practicing primarily from field positions with a shooting sling, but it's good to have a baseline for how well the gun itself shoots so I know how much I can blame on myself. Norinco Surplus shot about as well as you'd expect, although I did have to adjust the firing pin because its protrusion was a bit under spec from the factory and wasn't hitting the recessed primers in the bulk ammo.
For handloads I started with 147 grain Campros loaded with Varget. Eventually my initial tests got me some decent groups here with Remington brass.
[url=https://imgur.com/QO3cofD.png]
[/url]
[size=-2]Got high and low mixed up on the target[/size]
I had also read about how much of an effect the action screw torque could have on group size. I tested that out on another outing and got these results. The 40/40 front and back that Savage recommends worked real well for me, but those were with my own handloads so I'm guessing it might be a little different with commercial loads.
[size=-2]Experimenting with action screw torque[/size]
The final hunting load I recently made with 150 grain Hornady Interlocks and lower case volume Lake City brass ultimately proved to me that this rifle is going to shoot way better than I can for a long, long time. I think the velocity spread here was just due to the sun or something, since I was shooting round robin and the chrony was slowly reading everything faster as the day went on.
[size=-2]2.99 grams is the sweet spot[/size]
Thoughts and other things
I was hoping to bag my first deer with it this year but unfortunately I've been too busy with other things so maybe next year.
I made my own quick-adjust loop sling that was very heavily inspired by Richard Mann's Riflemann sling, and it works incredibly well for offhand shooting since the support loop is always the same size no matter how much the carry strap is cinched.
Mine was a display model and I'm guessing the store forgot to pack in all the cheek risers. When I called Savage they were really good about it and shipped me an entire full set, and tossed in a thread protector for good measure when I said I was running it with the brake removed.
As it's currently set up it weighs in at 3.958kg unloaded with a 5 round magazine. 10 rounders are probably a bit much for hunting but MDT was selling a bunch for $25 so I picked up a bunch for if my friends successfully drag me to a competition next year.
Overall I find it's a very nice rifle to carry around if you have to hike to your shooting spot, and the heavier barrel contour lets you get away with a lot more accurate fire before having to wait for it to cool down. It doesn't meet all of the criteria set out by the colonel but who cares. It's easily become my favorite rifle in my (unfortunately downsized) collection. I'm looking forward to many more years with this thing, and hopefully this info helps anyone else who's in the process of rifle shopping.
It definitely wasn't in the budget so I needed to buy a single rifle that I could use for everything since it was going to be my last firearm purchase for a very long time. The scout concept by Jeff Cooper felt like a good starting point as that's all about having an easy-handling jack-of-all-trades rifle that's relatively ban-proof, however I was looking more for a general purpose rifle so I was fine with going outside of the strict (and dare I say somewhat outdated) standards set out by the colonel.
I looked at the Tikka T3x Arctic, the CZ Ranger Rifle, and the Savage 110 Scout. The Tikka was nice but a bit on the heavy side, and was well out of my price range. The CZ was just as nice and more affordable, but also just as heavy. Both of them would have also necessitated some kind of riser on the stock for proper cheek weld with an optic, and I really didn't want to have to futz with aftermarket stuff to adjust the fit. The Savage ultimately won out primarily because of all the stock fitting parts, and I liked how light it was and how nice it felt and handled to me. The Ruger Gunsite Scout wasn't in stock but while I would have loved to give it a try, I probably still would have went with the Savage because of the fitting bits and the price.
What's in the box?
[size=-2]Set up with the red dot and sling from my AR-15[/size]
It has an Accufit Accustock, so on top of all the risers and spacers to make it fit perfectly it also has the aluminum bedding block. With the 16.5" heavy contour barrel and its beefy muzzle brake they definitely could have made it lighter, but to be honest the thick barrel and bedding is kind of nice for long range sessions. I tried it without the muzzle brake and the recoil felt fine to me so I left it off; it makes the whole thing shorter and removing the chunk of metal from the very end of the barrel helps handling a lot. It was also making my friends hate me, so off it went.
For sighting it has a decent Williams peep and a rail for IER optics, although if you remove the rear sight you can put on a standard rail for traditional optics. I wanted to hedge my bets in case I didn't like IER scopes, but I quickly grew to love shooting with one so on it stays. I've read about people having issues due to the front post not being long enough, but when I sighted it in for 200m with Norinco surplus it seemed fine to me. I have yet to check the irons with my handloads so that'll be a range trip for when the weather gets better.
It comes with a single 10 round AICS Pmag from Magpul, but I find it looks and carries so much nicer with a 5 round magazine. Standard magazines at a reasonable price is another reason I went with the Savage, and I have six 10 rounders coming in from MDT's Black Friday sale so I'm hoping to try out some action shooting matches with it next year.
Optics
[size=-2]I am a crazy person who wants to make absolutely certain the eye relief and weight balance all match up[/size]
Scout rifles tend to use an optic that's more forward mounted than your traditional scope. In the past this was done with Long Eye Relief (LER) optics means for handguns stretched an arm's length away, but nowadays they make intermediate eye relief (IER) scopes that don't have to be quite so far forward. At first I tried getting by with just a red dot optic, which worked great for snapshots out to 100-150 meters. Past 200 meters things got frustrating really quickly; between the dot size and coarse adjustment clicks I was wasting a ton of ammo trying to hit a 4"x6" target at 320m. When I hit it first try with my friend's Ruger American Ranch (purchased the day after my Savage for the same reasons) with a scope I knew I had to glass mine up.
[size=-2]Comparison chart, click for full size[/size]
Currently the choices for good IER scopes is very simple, Burris or Leupold. Vortex makes one but from everything I've researched it's just not very good when the best available options are only a couple hundred dollars more and still well under $1k. Since I was ordering online the crazy rig I built was to simulate the weight, size, and measure the eye relief to see how I would be setting up each one. I had the Nikon in the chart because Jo Brook over in Brandon was firesaling them at the time, but ultimately I opted against it because of warranty concerns and the others were just better in every way. I ultimately settled on the Burris 2-7x32 scout for the extra magnification. I hear Leupold used to make a 1.5-5x IER optic with an illuminated reticle that's been discontinued, I would have definitely gone with that if it was still available.
It's an acquired taste but after getting my stock set up right and mounting the scope with low rings it's an absolute joy to shoot with both eyes open. With a shot timer my snapshots are more accurate and consistently a second or two faster compared to my lighter .44 Carbine with a similarly specced 2-7x32 traditional scope. Especially from high ready it feels like the gun just pivots perfectly into place with no effort because of the weight balance. You lose some FoV in the scope but I'm okay with the tradeoff for how fast I'm able to get on target and shoot.
How's it shoot?
I got this thing planning on practicing primarily from field positions with a shooting sling, but it's good to have a baseline for how well the gun itself shoots so I know how much I can blame on myself. Norinco Surplus shot about as well as you'd expect, although I did have to adjust the firing pin because its protrusion was a bit under spec from the factory and wasn't hitting the recessed primers in the bulk ammo.
For handloads I started with 147 grain Campros loaded with Varget. Eventually my initial tests got me some decent groups here with Remington brass.
[url=https://imgur.com/QO3cofD.png][/url][size=-2]Got high and low mixed up on the target[/size]
I had also read about how much of an effect the action screw torque could have on group size. I tested that out on another outing and got these results. The 40/40 front and back that Savage recommends worked real well for me, but those were with my own handloads so I'm guessing it might be a little different with commercial loads.
[size=-2]Experimenting with action screw torque[/size]
The final hunting load I recently made with 150 grain Hornady Interlocks and lower case volume Lake City brass ultimately proved to me that this rifle is going to shoot way better than I can for a long, long time. I think the velocity spread here was just due to the sun or something, since I was shooting round robin and the chrony was slowly reading everything faster as the day went on.
[size=-2]2.99 grams is the sweet spot[/size]
Thoughts and other things
I was hoping to bag my first deer with it this year but unfortunately I've been too busy with other things so maybe next year.
I made my own quick-adjust loop sling that was very heavily inspired by Richard Mann's Riflemann sling, and it works incredibly well for offhand shooting since the support loop is always the same size no matter how much the carry strap is cinched.
Mine was a display model and I'm guessing the store forgot to pack in all the cheek risers. When I called Savage they were really good about it and shipped me an entire full set, and tossed in a thread protector for good measure when I said I was running it with the brake removed.
As it's currently set up it weighs in at 3.958kg unloaded with a 5 round magazine. 10 rounders are probably a bit much for hunting but MDT was selling a bunch for $25 so I picked up a bunch for if my friends successfully drag me to a competition next year.
Overall I find it's a very nice rifle to carry around if you have to hike to your shooting spot, and the heavier barrel contour lets you get away with a lot more accurate fire before having to wait for it to cool down. It doesn't meet all of the criteria set out by the colonel but who cares. It's easily become my favorite rifle in my (unfortunately downsized) collection. I'm looking forward to many more years with this thing, and hopefully this info helps anyone else who's in the process of rifle shopping.
