I picked up my Savage a couple of weeks ago and got to break it in this past Friday. I was very pleased with what I saw and just wanted to give a summary that may help someone out. I chose what I considered the 3 best examples of what I have in my cache. I tend to shoot Mini Mags almost exclusively in my M&P15-22 but choose to leave them and the Stingers off the menu. I chose Lapua Rifle Match 40gr Round Nose (German Make not usually sold locally), Eley Club 40gr Round Nose, and finally Aguila Golden Eagle Match Rifle 40gr Round Nose.
My Mark ll is the TR version. After doing a bit if reading I ordered the DIP bottom plate. I was frankly scared to touch the screws until I had the plate not knowing what I would find torque wise. I could see the bottom plate was a little distorted from the action screw up top. Once the plate came in I took it apart and found the screws weren't tight at all. This is the one area I was aware of being disappointing hence the DIP bottom plate. From what others have stated concerning torque values for the action screws I figured I'd go with 20in-lbs for both front and rear action screws. I didn't take my torque screwdriver with me on this trip. I just wanted to function check and establish a base to go off of.
Sight in was 25yds then established a 50yd zero. I intend to shoot this out to 200yds which is my go-to for my AR's. The range goes out to 300 but cost wise I can hit the 200 twice for the cost of the 300yd so this rifle will move there next time. For optics the scope used to be on my 20" AR but is now home on the Savage. It's Mueller's APT 4.5-14x40 with sunshade. Mechanical zero had me way off to the left. I was starting to wonder if I had canted bases and finally got it on paper. I still have 2 full rotations to the right (30MOA) so I was good with that, I have 3 1/2 rotations to the left available so it would seem I'm a little off. Once on paper it took less than 3 shots to get it sighted. Can't complain there.
I moved it to 50yds to establish what is going to be it's zero for now. Groups are pretty tight and I always have that one flyer that opens the group up. I'll play with torque settings next time to see how it affects that. All 3 ammo's performed well, consistently. The Eley had a POI shit to 1 o'clock and was consistent with it. I found the Lapua and Aguila were close, even at 100yds the groups opened a bit but the POI stayed roughly the same as its 50yd performance with Lapua and Eley hitting to the right while the Aguila was always 11 o'clock.
In all, I put 150 shots through it that day and found almost 4 hours had passed, seemed like half that time. I left the trigger at the factory setting. Until now I mainly shoot AR's and even my lightest trigger is about 5lbs so this is set to the lowest by default according to Savage which should be 1.5lbs if memory serves me. That's light enough for me. Anyway, any suggestions on the action screws is welcomed. Hope you enjoyed it.
My Mark ll is the TR version. After doing a bit if reading I ordered the DIP bottom plate. I was frankly scared to touch the screws until I had the plate not knowing what I would find torque wise. I could see the bottom plate was a little distorted from the action screw up top. Once the plate came in I took it apart and found the screws weren't tight at all. This is the one area I was aware of being disappointing hence the DIP bottom plate. From what others have stated concerning torque values for the action screws I figured I'd go with 20in-lbs for both front and rear action screws. I didn't take my torque screwdriver with me on this trip. I just wanted to function check and establish a base to go off of.
Sight in was 25yds then established a 50yd zero. I intend to shoot this out to 200yds which is my go-to for my AR's. The range goes out to 300 but cost wise I can hit the 200 twice for the cost of the 300yd so this rifle will move there next time. For optics the scope used to be on my 20" AR but is now home on the Savage. It's Mueller's APT 4.5-14x40 with sunshade. Mechanical zero had me way off to the left. I was starting to wonder if I had canted bases and finally got it on paper. I still have 2 full rotations to the right (30MOA) so I was good with that, I have 3 1/2 rotations to the left available so it would seem I'm a little off. Once on paper it took less than 3 shots to get it sighted. Can't complain there.
I moved it to 50yds to establish what is going to be it's zero for now. Groups are pretty tight and I always have that one flyer that opens the group up. I'll play with torque settings next time to see how it affects that. All 3 ammo's performed well, consistently. The Eley had a POI shit to 1 o'clock and was consistent with it. I found the Lapua and Aguila were close, even at 100yds the groups opened a bit but the POI stayed roughly the same as its 50yd performance with Lapua and Eley hitting to the right while the Aguila was always 11 o'clock.
In all, I put 150 shots through it that day and found almost 4 hours had passed, seemed like half that time. I left the trigger at the factory setting. Until now I mainly shoot AR's and even my lightest trigger is about 5lbs so this is set to the lowest by default according to Savage which should be 1.5lbs if memory serves me. That's light enough for me. Anyway, any suggestions on the action screws is welcomed. Hope you enjoyed it.
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