Savage And Wesson?

Looks like S&W just bought Savage Arms.

I happen to like my Savage rifles, I sure hope this doesn't fuck up their secret sauce.

 There's a very vocal cadre out there wanting the Model 99 back.  I wonder if this is their moment!

Prescient Jack O'Connor

FuzzyGeff remembered a reference to a book where someone predicted that, someday, hunting rifles wouldn't even have iron sights in preference to telescopic sights.

Turns out that prescient motherfucker was none other than Jack O'Connor, also known on this blog as the chief advocate for the .270 Winchester round.

Who knew?

Compared To A Real Mauser

Though, maybe not an actual, real Mauser...

It shows all the earmarks of originally being an FN made Venezuelan contract gun it's a Golden State Arms Santa Fe Deluxe Mauser.

At any rate, it does show the similarity to the M1903A3.

Controlled round feeding.

Because it's converted from a military rifle, there's a stripper clip guide, assuming you want to remove the scope to use it.

The bolts are very similar:

The Santa Fe gun has an aftermarket safety so that you can mount a scope.

30-06 Comparisons Continue

We're continuing the comparison from this post by adding a Winchester pre-64 Model 70 and a definitely post-64 Model 670.

All three guns came with iron sights.  Of note, though, is while the Model 70 comes ready for scope mounting from the factory, that stock is dropped for the irons.  The 670 has a raised comb that makes you really have to scrunch your cheeks to get down on the irons.

I've compared the 54 to the 70 before.

The pre-64 Model 70's bolt is so very similar to the 54 that they nearly interchange.  As such, it's a controlled round feed design.

Neither gun can be fed from stripper clips.

The 670 is an even more de-contented version of the post-64 Model 70.  As such, it is a push-feed.

What does that mean?

Controlled feed means that the round pops up into the bolt face with the extractor already in the groove.  It is held, and controlled by the bolt and the extractor all the way into the chamber.  You can chamber a round with the gun upside down.

Push-feed doesn't control the round until the cartridge case's shoulder hits the chamber and the extractor clicks over the rim as the bolt is closed.  If you try to chamber a round upside down, the round will fall out of the action.

But you can see how many fewer parts and machine operations are needed to make a push-feed bolt here:

Fewer parts and operations make a gun less costly to make and thus make it more affordable.

Gun writers hated this change to make the Model 70 more competitive with the Remington Model 700, which is also a push-feed design.  I've compared the pre-64 70 to the 670 before too.

As Similar As Different

The Winchester Model 54 and Remington M1903A3 have a lot in common and many differences.

 

They look quite different with one being a full-stock military battle rifle, the other being a sporting gun.  Both are in God's Own .30-06.

Both have controlled round feeding.

L: M190A3 R: Model 54

Model 54:

M1903A3:

Both have 5+1 capacities and can be loaded from stripper clips.

Model 54:

M1903A3:

Both guns are clearly influenced by Mauser.  The M1903 to the point of having to pay for patent infringement to the losers of a war.

The bolts are different.  The ejector locations are not the same and there's no safety lug on the Winchester.  The safeties work the same, but the Winchester has a shorter throw thanks to an aftermarket upgrade to clear a third-party scope that's no longer present.

Range Day With A Dead Battery

Took Agnes to the 100 yard range last Tuesday to try and stretch my shooting legs.

And with a dead cell phone couldn't take a picture of my triumphant group!  It acted like it took the picture as it died, but alas...

A perfect clover leaf with a flier just two bullet diameters outside it.

Wow it's so much easier to see what you're doing with a 9x scope than 5x.

A two and change pound trigger that breaks like glass is so much easier than a creepy milspec AR.

.270 in a bolt gun thumps the shoulder with a bit more authority than an AR too.

I gotta say, I'm impressed with my Savage... and it's near the bottom rung of the non-Axis lineup too.  The package series are good guns, people just need to get unsnobbed about it not being a Winchester or Remington.

Premeditated?

The idea of that Winchester Model 70 XTR Sporter in .270 Weatherby Mag is working on my imagination.

It's tempered by the $81 for 20 price of ammo.

I worry, though, about having that kind of round in the house.

If I have to shooty the looty with this rifle, I'm going to make damn sure they're dead because I'll be furious about having to expend $4 a shot.

Does making this financial decision now change it from self defense to murder later on?

Using Approved Doctrinal Disappointment

I am disappointed and relieved...

The Winchester I was thinking about appears, now that I've sent the infantry to scout ahead...

It's a Winchester Model 70 XTR Sporter and it's in .270 Weatherby Magnum, not .270 Winchester.

At $3.25 a shot, the great deal on the rifle is quickly lost in the increased price of ammo...

Still, there's an allure.

It'd be the third of four commercially viable .277 rounds in the stable with 6.8 SPC and .270 Win.

Prolly pass on it.

Bolt Gun Obsession

One of the local pawn shops has a post-64 Winchester Model 70 in .270 Win.

I think it's an XTR Featherweight and I don't know off the top of my head how post 64 it is by looking at it.

It's at an attractive price that, with the roof, AC and torque tube...  Just out of reach.

Dammit.

Adulting sucks!

I am seriously eyeing the gun cabinet and thinking, "how many Mosins does one need, anyway?"

Ultra Rich

The "cheap" Mosins in the gun safe appear to have appreciated a bit...

AIM Surplus is selling Izhevsk M1891/30 with a high-wall round receiver for $339.99 and with a "hex" receiver for $359.99.

Complete with bayonet, sling and sundries!

By way of comparison, Palmetto State Armory sells a Savage Axis in .308 with a scope already on it for $324.96.

The days of modding a Mosin into a hunting or "sniper" rifle are done.

All Lyman All The Time

 Top to Bottom:

Winchester Model 54 (.30-06) with No. 48W and Merit #4SS.
Savage Model 99EG (.300 Savage) with No. 2A SA and Merit #4SS.
Marlin Model 30AS (.30-30) with No. 66LA and 1/2" disc, 0.091" aperture.

The Riddle Of Iron

Reading at The Counter Jockey Chronicles.

He's absolutely right, "You don't need iron sights on that .270 you are going to put a cheap Wal-Mart scope on."

But was Cletus wrong in asserting that the Winchester Model 70 originally came with iron sights?

Because the first years of the gun did come with irons.

New Model 70's don't unless you're looking at the Safari Express or Alaskan.

The gun was designed for and came with iron sights on day one.  However Model 70 has had, also from day one, space dedicated for scope mounting on both the front and rear rings of the receiver.  Early on they also could be had with the side mounting holes from the 54 too.

Originally the Model 70 was an evolutionary improvement on the Model 54.  One of the goals was to make it easier to mount a scope on the gun, because the 54 is a pain.

The 54 fights mounting a scope from the design of the receiver, how the safety works and even the shape of the bolt handle.

The factory solution was a bracket that mounts to holes in the side of the receiver and cantilevers the mounting plane over the top of the bore.  There's a lot of tolerance stacking to worry about here and it still doesn't fully address the bolt and safety.

The aftermarket and gunsmiths came along and got very creative in working around the problem, but the solutions were often less than ideal.

Both guns (at least initially for the 70) were also drilled and tapped for a Lyman 48 aperture sight (see the pics!).  There are scope mounts for both models which use these holes and the front receiver ring to mount a scope mounting bridge.  There are even mounts which tie into the dovetail on the barrel where the rear sight should go.
Do you like confusing variety?  Because vintage Winchester bolts guns supply it in spades.

Cletus said, "originally."

I think he's right, the Model 70 was developed in a day when optics were fragile, fiddly and unreliable.

That has not been true for a very long time.  The cheapest POS scope at Wally World is a miraculously good scope when compared to the top-end glass from 1936.

A stock cut for using low to the bore irons isn't going to be fitted as well for a scope and vice-versa.

At a certain point all of the bolt-gun makers took a look at the market and asked, "is there anyone who isn't putting a scope on their gun?"  The answer was, surely, not enough people to justify the extra costs of including them with the gun because all of them stopped including the things.

I only noticed their departure from these guns when I was first afflicted with Bolt Gun Agony.  At the time the Browning/Winchester BOSS (Ballistic Optimizing Shooting System) was the new hotness, must have (all the gun writers said so) item for your deer assassination bullet launcher.  If you selected the BOSS, you could not select the iron-sighted option.  Steeped in gaming where the GM would fuck you for not having a back-up to something he had rules for breaking... I wanted irons!

That's also when I discovered that only a couple of models still offered irons and they were obviously not intended to be the primary sighting system.  The rear sights were often too small to be useful in the field and too coarse to be useful on the range.  They were on there so the owner could feel better about going to the boondocks and having his scope break on him.  We started calling them vestigial sights.  A better rear sight could be tapped right into that dovetail, but it didn't come with the gun; which by the way was often a special order in the early '90's.

Sometime after that (1995?) it seemed that you couldn't even special order the irons anymore.  Except for the Safari type guns.

You just don't need them if you've even a "crappy" variable scope nowadays.

Full Circle

Mauser is back in business?

They've got a new sporting gun, the M18.

Sure looks like a Remington 700 from across the room.

Since nearly all sporting bolt-guns are descended (and greatly economized) from the original Mauser military bolt-guns... it's interesting to see Mauser making much the same thing as everyone else.

I wish them well!

PS:
The initial chamberings are clearly targeted at Willard.  To hurt him.  They offer .270 Win, but not .30-06.

All Relative

While I state that the Savage 110E is not as smooth as the Winchester 54, it needs to be said that it's still light-years ahead of a Mosin for smooth.

Come to think on it, at $175 including a cheap, but serviceable, scope; it's also a better deal than a Mosin.

Mosins are no longer the cheap route to get shooting.

But we knew this day would come, did we not?

In a couple of years I predict there's going to be a bit of scrambling while people try to remember where they stowed the take-off parts from their sporterized 91/30's as the prices get ever higher.

Miguel The Gauntlet Is Tossed

Took Trudy to the range.

Five shots at a mere 25 yards.  With irons.  I need to get to a longer range and stretch my shooting skills.

Connie did not do as well...

Have I ever mentioned that I can't shoot buck-horn sights well?  There's the evidence for you.  It started off shooting to the left, so I tapped the rear sight right and got it to shoot to the right...

A Lyman 66LA should be arriving soon so I can stop shooting this rifle with buck-horns.

Roads Considered But Not Taken

In 1993 when I really started getting interested in guns with gusto; if you had asked me what bolt action FUDD rifle I'd have bought:

I would have said a Browning A-Bolt in .308.

I've never even bid on one.

I waffled between a Remington 700, Ruger 77 and Winchester 70 for a long time.

I would have oscillated between .30-06 or .308 if you'd forced me to pick one of the three.

The FUDD gun I bought new was a Savage 110XP Trophy Hunter package gun, in .270.

You may ask yourself, "How did I get here?"

Well...

The post-64 Winchester has a lot of contemptuous ink spilled about it, and the post-post-64 Classic line wasn't received much better.  Not that I've ever talked to anyone who owned one who disliked it, they had a defensive tone from so many years of abuse.

The Remington has an excellent reputation, but when I started talking to owners it appeared that they needed a lot of modding.  These people, of course, were the kind of people who were delighted they had to tinker to get the gun to where they wanted it.  To me, it meant a lot of money to spend on an already spendy item.

Ruger stopped making the 77 before two things happened.  First I had to forgive the company for the trespasses of its, now dead, founder.  Second, they stopped making the darn things and I couldn't keep track of what gun in their line up was the one I wanted.  So I gave up trying to sort them out.

Budget guns, like the Remington 770 and Savage Axis felt wrong.

Skeezer The Software Janitor really liked his Savage 110 package gun and I tended to agree even if I LOATHED the synthetic stock it came with.  Happily, Savage changed some things around and came out with a (cheap) wood stocked version with an Accutrigger®.  That suited me to the bones.

The Godless .270 choice falls out of choosing the third of three calibers that my uncles would fight about being best.  Bob said .30-06, Robert said .280 Remington and .270 was beyond the pale.  It amuses me to pick the caliber they both thought sucked.  Never mind that the deer can't tell.

As far as an OLD Winchester goes... I've been curious about the Win 54 since I started reading about .270.  I'd have bought one in .270 too, but Willard insists that if I am going to call myself an American; I need to own a .30-06.  This insistence is why Marv bought the $100 Mauser and gave me the money to remain a .30-06 while becoming a pre-pre-64 Winchester bolt gun owner.

Cheaper Than A Mosin

$100 .30-06, including an NcSTAR 3-9x40 scope on heavily shimmed bases.

Made from what appears to be an FN or DWM 98 action.

Factory made, not Bubba.

Curio and Relic eligible.

Front sight, no rear sight.  You can just barely see the ghost of where the rear sight used to be soldered to the barrel.

It's a Golden State Arms Corp model Santa Fe Deluxe Mk 1.

Controlled round feeding?

But of course!  De rigueur!

The bore isn't even half bad!

It looks like Golden State Arms Corp. went tits up in October of 1966.  They appear to have been that times Century International with their taking of existing parts and making their own brand of guns from them.

Axis And Ammunition

The package series 10/110 and 11/111 guns from Savage come with the same magazine as the lower tier Axis rifles.

In 2005 Savage converted from a double stack, double feed magazine to a double stack, single feed they call "center-feed".  What's interesting is the sheet metal, including feed lips, is identical between blind magazines, hinged floor-plates, premium detachable box magazine (DBM) and the Axis line.

The only difference between the Premium DBM and Axis DBM is the magazine floorplate and the surround for the magazine well.  The Premium magazine's latch is part of the rifle and built into the mag well surround.  The Axis magazine latch is a plastic space-age polymer hook and the surround has a shelf for it.

Converting to the Premium DBM means a new surround (p/n 106706; $78)* and at least a new floor plate (p/n 106104; $24)*.  It might also require a new trigger guard (p/n 107217; $26)*.

Replacement Axis magazines for a long action are $34.38* from Midway.  Replacement Premium magazines are $42.50.*

I can't easily find a price for a replacement bottom for the Axis magazine.

*YMMV these are the part numbers for my gun, other calibers and finishes may differ.

The "cheap plastic" front magazine latch.

The rear hook that's common to all Savage center-feed magazines, even the ones that aren't detachable.

Despite worries about the plastic front front latch from the Axis system, I've read far more complaints about the rear hook being misformed or damaged, causing feed problems.  It was problematic enough that people were asking how to convert to blind magazines!  Happily I am not finding recent complaints about it.

It's just barely a double stack magazine holding only four rounds.

Bolt Gun Comparison Photo

Top: Savage 110XP Trophy Hunter in .270 Win.
Bottom: Weatherby Vanguard in .243 Win.

Lots of the same and lots of difference.

I even found an old Uncle Mike's sling in my holster and sling box, complete with QD swivels.  I think I used to keep it on my Remington 870 when it was still wood-stocked.

Arrival

I finally have a wooden stocked, scoped bolt action in a non-military caliber.

It might just be something of a collector's item since it's from the last year of the old logo.  Savage dumped poor Chief Lame Deer's likeness for a some modern art masterpiece (denying that political correctness had anything to do with the decision).

I've been buying C&R and used and building guns from parts, I forgot that new guns came in boxes!

This is not how it arrived at the FFL.  It was wrapped in the plastic and the magazine was with the bolt in the "Bolt and Kit Enclosed" section.

It's your basic cock-on-open sporting rifle.

Claw extractor and plunger ejector with your basic two locking lugs on the floaty Savage bolt head.

It's got an Accutrigger®.  That extension on the front of the trigger guard is the bolt release.  Savage takes a breeches and belt approach to bolt removal.  Pull and hold the trigger, open the bolt, pull bolt to the rear and pull the bolt release (while still holding the trigger).  You're never going to accidentally remove the bolt.

I will have to take Marv's trigger scale to it, but it seems lighter and smoother than even FuzzyGeff's Weatherby Vanguard!  It's making me consider changing over to one on my 93F.

Update:  It measured 2 lb. 8 oz. out of the box, the Weatherby measured 4 lb. 6 oz.

A three position safety with a position that locks the bolt.

The detachable magazine is of the newer centerfeed design with a Stevens/Savage Axis style latch.  Presumably this is to keep the price point on the package rifles down.

This magazine is much maligned, but I don't think it's going to be an issue.

Although it is not marked "Prostaff" anywhere, the Nikon scope matches it in every particular I've been able to find.

I would like to thank the Veteran's Administration for making my disability payments on time and Willard for the generous bribes that made this purchase possible.

To the range!