Here's the first range report with the 300!
River Rat shot it at the range for me yesterday, as I am still hobbling around on this broken leg and had an appointment in the afternoon.
Shot it just as it came right out of the box. No adjustments to trigger, didn't touch the guard screws or anything else. We wanted to see how it would perform just the way Savage shipped it.
Three shots to sight in, and then three more shots for record, printed right at one inch in size. Nice triangluar group, shot at nine power, and this in a 30 KM wind.
Garry says the recoil is what you would expect from a light rifle (weighs 7pounds 11 ounces with scope) and that although the trigger was seemed heavier than what he likes it broke clean with no creep. We weighed the trigger last night. We were both surprised it weighed what it does, 4 1/2 pounds. That is a full pound and a half more than we set our hunting rifles, but the Stevens trigger breaks so clean, it actually feels much lighter. 8)
Load was 73 gr of Norma 204, Rem 9 1/2 mag primers and 180 gr Hornady SSTs for those who are interested. It will be intereting to see how it shoots with some load developemnt.
One very interesting thing, when I went to clean the rifle last night, there was no copper wash or streaking visible in the muzzle at all. Not even a bit. This is quite unusual, in my experience for a brand new barrel. Maybe I have really lucked out and got an exceptionally smooth barrel. Then again, maybe not. Perhaps the Savage button-rifled barrels are that good!
We'll see.
Ted
cool
