Heavy lead
02-26-2012, 04:10 PM
I bought a brand new Savage 116 .338 Win Mag to replace the Remington 700 with a bad factory barrel I struggled with a couple months back (being turned into a .300 Win Mag with a new Kreiger barrel, another story for another time) today I shot it for the first time. This is a stainless with the accustock and the adjustable (on-off) muzzle break.
I was reluctant to buy a Savage because it's so different from the Mauser/Remington/Winchester etc. I was weened on, it's not attractive, a little blocky IMO and well just different.
With that said I'm extremely impressed, I had several loads with me today, a couple factory and two sets of handload workups (.5 grain at a time with two different bullets and two different powder/case combinations, from start to book max) it shot everything wonderful, no hangfires, easy extraction, no pressure signs and all with acceptable accuracy or better with chronograph readings where the expectations are. Very smooth barrel and the trigger needed no adjustments.
One warning or maybe word of advise, I bought a hinged floorplate model, I don't much care for detachable box magazines, however if I were to buy again I don't believe it would be the detachable box, the reason being this is a centerfeed magazine and a bloody b&%tch to reload from the top, especially today when we finally got some winter here in Michigan.
Oh, don't care much for brake's either.......................but I must say, I was slinging 250 grain Nosler Partition Golds (got a stash of 350) downrange at +/- 2650 fps with no pain at all, in fact in seemed to recoil a little less than the 30-06 Tikka I had with me today. I'm getting to be a wimp I guess.
Sorry no pictures of groups, darn cold and snowy today, I'll get some when I stretch it out to 200 yards in a couple of weeks.
I was reluctant to buy a Savage because it's so different from the Mauser/Remington/Winchester etc. I was weened on, it's not attractive, a little blocky IMO and well just different.
With that said I'm extremely impressed, I had several loads with me today, a couple factory and two sets of handload workups (.5 grain at a time with two different bullets and two different powder/case combinations, from start to book max) it shot everything wonderful, no hangfires, easy extraction, no pressure signs and all with acceptable accuracy or better with chronograph readings where the expectations are. Very smooth barrel and the trigger needed no adjustments.
One warning or maybe word of advise, I bought a hinged floorplate model, I don't much care for detachable box magazines, however if I were to buy again I don't believe it would be the detachable box, the reason being this is a centerfeed magazine and a bloody b&%tch to reload from the top, especially today when we finally got some winter here in Michigan.
Oh, don't care much for brake's either.......................but I must say, I was slinging 250 grain Nosler Partition Golds (got a stash of 350) downrange at +/- 2650 fps with no pain at all, in fact in seemed to recoil a little less than the 30-06 Tikka I had with me today. I'm getting to be a wimp I guess.
Sorry no pictures of groups, darn cold and snowy today, I'll get some when I stretch it out to 200 yards in a couple of weeks.