Savage 64: First impression

Cobrajr122

Cobrajr122

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For my first rimfire plinker, I picked up a Savage 64 FSS yesterday. Appealing to the eye and the wallet. From my experience with friends savage rifles I knew I was getting a good rifle backed up by great company, for this reason I did not do the rigorous research I would usually do on a gun before buying it, and that bit me in the ass.

Got it out to the range today and between myself and 2 friends we got a good 350~400 rounds through it, I love this rifle, so much.

The good:

-Extremely easy to use. (one of the shooters had never held a rifle, ever, and they become proficient with it right away)
-The stock fiber sight are really nice.
-Surprisingly accurate even with the non high end ammo.
-No jams or any cycling issues.

The bad:

-The Mag sucks, so much.


Cleaning the rifle was straight forward, though tearing apart the whole thing just to get the bolt out would definitely deter me from cleaning it after every use unless it was a day like today when nearly a whole brick of ammo gets shot :p

Now the mag...back to the lack of my usual research...
-Same as others, as I found out this evening, its pot metal and it already looks like its going to fail after another couple hundred rounds with the feed lips getting pretty thin from what they were new.
-The feed ramp on the mag seems to shave off parts of the bullet when they pass by.
-Slow to load.
-No aftermarket mags of different material of capacity.

I wanted this rifle for just mass cheap 22 shooting and the draw of a semi rimfire was the lack of a max mag capacity, so with these mag issues I think I'll be trading in this rifle for a Mark II and find another semi plinker, probably a 10/22.
 
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I've owned a Cooey 64 since I was 17. I'm 47 now. The mag's look like that all the time. I bought 6 when I got my first real job and NONE of them have ever failed.
Think of it this way, with 10 rds you'll save ammo! I know I do compared to my Ruger's.
 
I have the 64 too, the mag isnt bad, bought a second one, and 10 rnds at a time saves burning through ammo fast. Not huge on accuracy but good as a plinker, no jams other then low velocity ammo, eg, CCI quiets at 700fps but thats to be expected on a blowback semiauto
 
I picked up a savage 64 fvxp package as my first rifle last year, shoots great but I agree with the mags sucking. I actually prefer my savage mkII, but that's after I came to the conclusion I prefer a bolt action rifle over a semi-auto.
 
I adore my 64's!

Double check the roll pin that holds your extractor! They sometimes drop down a bit, and will quickly eat you magazine's top. Through normal use, you won't see the degradation in the magazine feed "lips" as it happens from the bottom up.

I have owned many of these gems (Cooey, Lakefield, and Savage), and still have a 64 I bought 25+ years ago. My first, and fav .22.
 
I know I'm a little late to the discussion but I own this rifle in the heavy barrel. There's a short clip on u tube that easily instructs you to smooth out the feed ramp on the magazine with sand paper. It takes about 5 minutes to do this minor bit of gun smithing. I found after I did this and used round nosed bullets not having any more issues. I found cci mini mag ammo to work the best. Also only loading 8 rounds in the 10 round mag also helps any problems.
 
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