My "Semi-lightweight hunter" .308 project
After tinkering with my model 11 .308 for months now, I thought I'd share with you the final result, and what I learned along the way.
In this day and age of "tacticool" 11-lb. micro-MOA bench rifles, the lightweight hunting rifle seems to be fading into the past. And that's a real shame, for two reasons. First, it tells me that fewer people are hunting all day on their feet and second, it leads people to believe that unless their rifle weighs over 10 lbs. and has a mil-dot reticle and 14 power magnification, they can't hit paper past 100 yards.
These are two reasons for my most recent project. I usually spend most of the season in a tree stand with a bow in my hands, but I also enjoy a good long walk in the woods with a rifle - especially on really cold days when I don't feel like sitting still. My typical rifle hunt is usually a 10-12 hour day that covers between 3 to 5 miles in the National Forest.
When I originally purchased my model 11 Trophy Hunter XP package, I thought I wanted a scope worthy of the caliber, and replaced the package scope with a Sightron 4-12 AO. Excellent scope, but after mounting it on my rifle and carrying it for a couple of days, I soon realized it was just more gun than I wanted to tote for 10 hours over rough terrain. I think that configuration weighed close to 8 lbs. Having grown up with a Winchester model 94 30-30, I was used to a lighter carbine that carried well and pointed quick and an 8 lb. gun with a 22" barrel just felt heavy and awkward to me.
So I set the model 11 aside while I decided what to do with it. Knowing it was a very accurate gun, I thought "maybe I'll make it my tactical range gun" and so I found an Accustock for it, real bottom metal and even an enlarged bolt handle. While all those things certainly made it feel more solid and tactical, they didn't really gain me anything in accuracy. They did however raise the total weight of the gun to over 9 lbs.! It made for a very nice bench gun that was a pleasure to shoot and absorbed recoil very well, but I soon realized I'm not really that interested in bench rifles. I use mine to hunt with, and the idea of a rifle that would only be used on a bench just never sat well with me. I bought that rifle for hunting, and that's where I wanted it. Not resting pretty on a bench.
I then decided to see how light I could go with this gun. I had also acquired a Savage 10 scout in 7.62x39, and stripped it down to a lighweight configuration. With the 4x scout scope, it weighed just over 6.5 lbs. and not only was a pleasure to carry, it quickly became my go-to "truck" gun for pigs due to it's weight and compact length. I wanted my .308 to have the same handling characteristics as my scout rifle because I knew if it did, I would reach for it more often.
Off came the Accustock, bottom metal and oversized bolt handle. I dropped it back into a "Tupperware" stock with the Axis magazine and standard bolt handle. Then I researched lightweight scopes. Being a long-time fixed power fan for hunting situations, I settled on the 10-ounce Weaver K6 in lightweight Weaver quad-lock rings. At this point, the rifle was back down to just over 7 lbs. total - getting close to where I wanted it.
A few other modifications still floated around in my head however. I had good luck painting my black plastic stock for my scout rifle to a nice OD green and it really took away that "wal-mart" look nicely. In my head, I had imagined how well a matte tan stock would look against that black matte action, scope and barrel, so I searched out some textured paint and eventually found what I was looking for. Rustoleum makes a matte tan (along with other colors) textured paint that was perfect for this job. It came out better than I had hoped and the first few trips to the range drew comments from some of the guys there, asking how much I paid for my "custom" stock. When I explained what it was, they were very surprised and impressed.
The final modification had to do with the barrel length. A 22" barrel may sound normal, or even short to most folks, but again, after carrying a model 94 carbine most of my life, it's still a "long" barrel to me. Not quite as bad as the 24" Weatherby .243 I once owned that felt like I was carrying a ladder through the woods, but still, more than I am used to. My scout rifle has a 20" barrel and swings and balances perfectly, so out came the hacksaw... :D
After some rough-smithing, I ended up with an attractive, nicely balanced rifle that weighs under 7 lbs., scoped, and still shoots sub-MOA groups out to 300 yards. I think I'm finally finished tinkering with this one. It's exactly the hunting rifle I've had in my mind for years now and I look forward to carrying it on many more all-day walks in the woods.
I still very much appreciate a heavy solid tack-driving bench rifle. They are a pleasure to shoot but they just aren't my style I guess. I'm glad to have the versatility of the Savage system to help me figure that out. I doubt I could have done everything I have done with this rifle in any other brand.
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200-yard group measured under 1"
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