Re: Savage Mark II BTVS
I had one that I sold a while back. I liked the rifle, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. I think my expectations were just too high from it.
The one I bought was used although it was in good shape. It was the Mark II BTV they sell as a package at Dicks with the thumbhole stock, bull barrel, accu trigger, and a Bushnell scope. The one I bought had the trigger modified even further from it's accu trigger form. However, I've shot similar ones with the stock accu trigger, and they are very good imo for a factory trigger. I think they adjust down to 2.5lbs, but don't quote me on that. The one I had, was down around 1-1.5 lbs. To me it was perfect. If I was going to get one I'd make sure I got the accu trigger.
The stock was pretty nice and had a good feel to it if shooting off of a bench, but wasn't too great for shooting free handed imo. Since I mostly shot it from a bench or prone, I liked it.
Then there was the stock scope that came on it. My opinion is to throw this POS in the trash, or place it forsale, which is what I did with it. I replaced it with a Bushnell Elite 3200 10x tactical that was decent. It was also not my favorite, but it worked for what it was. I later replaced it with a Center Point 4-16x40 from Walmart before I sold it. Honestly, while the Center Point definitely was a cheaper scope I liked it much better for this rifle than the Bushnell Elite Tactical, and the parallax adjustment is really nice to have on a .22 like this.
Now let's get onto how the rifle performed.
I shot it initially where a buddy shoots which is a 63 yard range. I tried various match ammo that day and found that it absolutely loved some of the older Federal Gold Medal Match ammo, but it was one of the older ones that was discontinued. My buddy has several bricks of it so that's what we shot. I assume it would like the new stuff too, but I can't say for sure as I never tried it. I shot 5 shots at 63 yards and it made pretty much one ragged hole that I'm sure would have been around .5", although I can't remember what the measurements were.
I shot it several more times and I found that I didn't always get these one hole groups, but they were always pretty small groups with this ammo.
Then I tried some Remington Match Ammo that is made by and marked Eley on it. This stuff shot like crap. I'm talking 1.5" groups at 63 yards. It was horrible, so I gave up on this stuff.
That was it for that day, but I tried it quite a few more times at 50 yards. I really wanted to shoot either bulk ammo in it, or something cheap like Federal Champion 510B, or Lighting or whatever they call it this week. I tried it at 50 yards, along with lots of other bulk ammo. It all shot pretty lousy. 1" groups were about the best I could get from it. Often times closer to 1.5". In all honesty with bulk ammo it really didn't shoot much better than the stock 10/22's I've shot, and I even shot it side by side with one and it was more accurate, but not much at all. I'd never tried match ammo in the 10/22.
So then I tried Wolf Match at 50 yards, and this stuff shot nearly as well as the Federal Gold Medal. I was averaging well under 1" pretty consistently at 50 yards, but I seemed to get fliers sometimes with both ammo that I really didn't think were me, but they could have been I guess.
So I learned this thing really only liked match ammo. Then that's when I ran into a small problem. All of the match ammo had lots of lube on the bullets, and it seemed like after only a couple of shots of it, the chamber would get sticky and after shooting the empty shell casing would get stuck in the chamber. You could sometimes close the bolt and re open it, and it would come out, or sometimes you had to pry it out with a knife. If you didn't want this to happen you had to brush out the chamber every 10 rounds or so when shooting this stuff. It never did this with cheaper bulk ammo that wasn't lubed like this.
So it seemed to shoot well with match ammo, but not function as well with it. You either had to keep the chamber cleaned, or shoot ammo without so much lube. Not a huge deal killer.
I've also heard of lots of complaints with the magazines, but I never had any trouble there. Mine worked perfectly, although something bigger might have been cool, but I really can't complain.
Then I tried 100 yard shooting which is what I really wanted to do with it. Even with match ammo I was getting 2" groups pretty often at 100 yards with it. I was kind of let down here. I would sometimes get better, but not regularly. This was where I guess I really had too big of expectations. I was expecting sub moa like I expect from my centerfires. I never could get it to do that, so I gave up on that.
Then I one of the last straws for me was shooting with a buddy at a 25 yard range. We were shooting a couple stock 10/22's, and this. We tried Wolf Match in all of them this day, and to my surprise the stock 10/22 I've shot most shot nearly identical groups to this Savage with the match ammo. Now I realize it's only 25 yards, so anything can be accurate this close. To be fair, the other 10/22 didn't shoot as well, and the Savage was more accurate than it by a decent bit.
So it was just kind of all of the things combined. The accuracy was great at 50 yards with match ammo, but then it jammed fairly often. I found the 10/22 not to jam and while it didn't shoot as good it wasn't super far behind. For a competition there would be a noticeable difference, but for shooting in my yard a couple tenths of an inch don't matter much and the 10/22 wasn't a heavy barreled target rifle.
At 100 yards, the accuracy seemed good for a .22, but it still wasn't what I wanted from it, although I suspect I was expecting too much here.
At 25 yards, it shot great, but so did other rifles, and it didn't really do much better than the 10/22 I'm familiar with which was slightly disappointing, but it was super close range too.
So all in all, it was a good rifle, and probably the most accurate .22 I've ever had. Even though it was accurate, I think I just expected it to be a night and day difference from other stock rifles like the stock 10/22 with a lightweight barrel. It really was more accurate, not all that much. It surely wasn't a night and day difference. I found that I liked the lightweight rifle better for my intended use, and while I was willing to give that up for a lot more accuracy, I wasn't willing to give that up when I didn't see much of a difference in accuracy and I wasn't shooting in any competitions where that last 10th mattered. I ended up selling it, and honestly the only thing I really miss about it is the trigger that was on it. That was one sweet trigger that I wish every gun I own had.
So it's not a bad rifle, and if you plan to do a lot of bench shooting, I'd recommend it, but I also want to be realistic about it and not make it sound like it will do much better than it will. I have a buddy that had one that told me all these stories of how well his shot that made me want this one, and it's what got my expectations so high. As it turns out, he'd highly embellished how his shot. I don't want to do that and have someone else have expectations that are higher than they should be.
If I ever got to the point I was doing a lot of benchrest shooting again, I'd buy one again, but like I said I found I liked something lighter weight for what I was doing when accuracy was that close.
