Savage Axis XP for first hunting rifle

Bought our Son an Axis in 270, lower priced Bushnell on it, maybe 10 years ago.
He usually gets his bear and deer tags cut every year.
Reliable, accurate but it's showing it's age now and he's really, really tough on his firearms.
Just bought him a new Tikka and scope, was about 10 X what the Axis cost.
 
My brother-in-law bought one in .270, said it was a piece of junk. I had him bring it to me. The barreled action was filthy. I cleaned it up with carbon and copper cleaners, hosed down with Crud Cutter, hit it with some One Shot. Pulled off the scope, rings, and mounts. Cleaned and degreased the holes, reinstalled the bases. Put spare Vortex rings on in place of the rings they provided. I then put a Bushnell Legend in place of the existing scope (it's already a pretty cheap scope!) and took it to the range - 3 shot groups with cool-down was definitely hunting accurate. I recall the 130gr Federal Fusions were into the .9's at 100 yards.

Really, the gun was fine. I suspect he just took it to "his buddies farm" and fired off a few shots to get on paper at some mystery distance, and then stuck it in a closet for six months. He missed 3 shots with it while hunting, I suspect because either he's a terrible shot, the scope mount/rings were janky, or the scope was crap. But never suspected the gun was bad. The trigger is heavy. It's not great. The bolt is not smooth, it's far from precision machining. The mag is a bit rough, sometimes loading an even number of cartridges causes one of them to dive instead of feeding. Weird.

That said, if you put 5 shots in the mag and load the rifle, it would feed, fire, and eject all 5 cartridges safely and reliably with a reasonable degree of accuracy. It was light, it held zero with my scope and rings on it, and I wouldn't be afraid to bash it around in the bush.
 
I have 4 Axis rifles and they are great. I can shoot multiple calibers with out laying out a lot of money. Then if one caliber turns my crank I can invest more money.
 
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