Re: Cabelas exclusive Savage 17hmr. Who has one???
Finally had a chance to shoot mine (.17hmr).
In typical savage fashion, the metal work seems unfinished with its shargp edges and burrs. I like to take a stone to the edges. I cant seem to get the magazine to insert and remove smoothly. Ive smoothed the edges and corners, but it still has terrible engagement. I dont understand why everybody talks so highly of the accutrigger. I really dont like it. Mine has alot of creep. I have installed a Leupold Vari X III 6.5-24x with AO and I used a Sinclair type F bipod, which I highly recommend. I roughed her in at 50 yards then moved out to 100. I gave it 25 break in shots with a good cleaning after every shot using cheap CCI TNT's. She dialed in fine, but I was seeing alot of fliers. I then started with 17gr Hornady vmax. This grouped so well, i had to start using pasters over the hole after every shot because it was creating a ragged hole and I wanted to be certain where the bullet was impacting. I still saw a flier about every 5th round that would put the group at 5/8" at 100 yrds. Overall, an awesome rifle with fantastic varmint potential. Tomorrow, I will introduce her to the varmint community behind the shop. I think she will make a big hit.
I havent tried to remove the muzzle brake yet. I had to see how she would group before spending any extra time on her. I see now that she is worth the time, so I will tackle this next.
