Lightweight Hunter in 7-08?

Hey Collective Savage Wisdom,

First off, Happy New Year!

Secondly, due to a Christmas raise (they still have them on occasion!) I got myself a new toy... A Savage Lightweight Hunter in 7mm-08. The plan is for a lightweight rifle to carry when stalking deer and elk in Oregon, and occasional bragging-level target group. I have a set of Talley aluminum rings on order, and a gently-used Leupold VX-3 2.5-8x36 in the garage... somewhere...

Does anyone have any experience with this rifle? Any accuracy issues or pro's? Any recommendations?

Happy 2015, may it bring you tight groups and plenty of tasty game animals!

--SRS

I have one that started out as a 260 Savage 11 LWH. You need to let the barrel cool after 3 rounds to maintain accuracy. You get a lot of muzzle jump with the short 20" LW barrel. So you need to control the forend/muzzle jump to consistently get tight groups in my experience. Currently have a 22" Savage factory sporter barrel in 7mm-08" screwed on it. The extra 6 oz in weight and 2" in barrel length out front seems to tame some of the muzzle jump. Still working on breaking in the 7mm-08 barrel and finding a bullet and load it likes. So far 41.5 to 41.8 grains of RL-15 with 139 Hornady SST bullets seated 0.010" off the lands is my best load. The Leupold VX-3 2.5x36 is just the right size scope for this compact rifle. I recommend replacing the cheap plastic bottom bolt release trigger guard with a metal one. I kept the plastic DBM frame assembly (surround) and DBM bottom cap to keep from adding additional weight. I think you'll love how it handles and shoots once you find the load it likes.

I think you'll be quite pleased with the LWH. I have one in a 260 that I really like. I did do some work to mine. Floated the rear tang. pillar bedded the stock, and opened up the barrel channel to make sure it would be totally free floated. The rifle will shoot sub moa after load development. But like said before that is usually 3 shot groups but most of us pull the 4&5 shots on a regular bases anyway no matter what rifle we use so you'll be fine. Its like carrying a 10-22. I've killed a purity big cougar with it and a yote. Only two animals I've shot at with it. Happy New Year, Sageratslayer

Hey,

I finally got the new rifle into my local store and picked it up today. A few observations:

--Very light. Balances well
--Plastic trigger guard and mag bottom feel cheap
--Parkerized finish isn't as elegant as my model 11 FCNS
--Wood is nice, well checkered.

The scope mounted up nicely with the talley 1 piece aluminum mounts. I've never used Talley, I'm very sold on Warne mounts and rings, so the Talley were bought on a whim. Any advice and or info on them is appreciated. I plan on testing out some loads with H380, W748 and W760 all with 140gr TSX bullets. For right now, the gun is light, very well balanced, and looks like it will be perfect as a walking deer rifle. Out here where I hunt in Southern Oregon the elk are shot at under 200 yards, and deer at a max of 250. I killed my first Southern Oregon buck at 35 yards. This rifle should be perfect for what I hunt down here. Any advice/reviews/reload info is appreciated!

--SRS