Savage 110 Tactical 308 LH - My Review
It's been a number of months since I purchased my Savage 110 Tactical LH in 308 and after a couple of trips to the range, it's time that I posted a review of my thoughts and interactions with this weapon. After some input from the members of this forum, I topped the gun with an Athlon Argos BTR 6-24x50 MOA with Warne medium rings.
Scope and stock adjustments:
Setting up the adjustable stock and scope was a bit complicated, but doable. The one wish I had was that the holes in the recoil pad were slightly larger so that access to the screws were easier to reach. It took a number of attempts to get the LOP, height, and eye relief set, but after some doing, it was completed.
Cleaning the barrel:
Due to the elevated comb height of the insert I used, the recoil pad and the comb insert must be removed in order to clean the barrel. I started out using Hoppes #9, brass brush, jag, cotton patches, Tipton rod, and Tipton bore guide. I ran a jagged patch of soaked Hoppes down the bore, followed by the brush, and then with jagged dry patches until they were clean. I repeated this sequence again to ensure the bore was completely clean. With each repeat, the first few patches that followed the brush always kept coming up dirty. This sequence was repeated for approximately 10 times and the results were the same. That is, the patches the followed brush were dark in color aka dirty. A couple days later I took brake cleaner and sprayed the barrel because I knew this would completely remove any/all of the lubricant that Savage shipped the gun with. Despite this, when I went back and ran a wet jag of Hoppes followed by a dry jag, each patch was grey in color. At this point I have no idea why. But, I just assumed the barrel was clean and left it as is and took it to the range.
First range session:
I went to a local range to get the scope's initial setting dialed in. I say initial setting because I'm using a fairly inexpensive round to break the gun in and sight it in; I selected Federal Power Shok 180gr loads for this. Because these rounds are significantly cheaper than match ammo, I can get some trigger time with the cheaper rounds before I settle on a final and most accurate factory load. At this time, I don't have any plans for reloading and since I don't know how to reload nor have time for it, factory loads are what I'll be using. I took my first shot at 25 yds, and then made the necessary adjustments to the elevation and windage. A follow up shot showed that I was close enough to push the target back to 100 yds.
It took me a lot longer to dial the scope in at 100 yds than I expected, but that was do to my stupidity and not to any issue with the gun. I used a target that I previously shot with my 17HMR, but I arrogantly thought that it would be extremely easy to tell the difference between the 17HMR and 308 holes at 100 yds; I WAS WRONG! Lesson to be learned: don't be cheap using a target that was shot before. The gun shot pretty well for what this was. There were 2 negatives that I found with this gun. The first was that the bolt seemed to be a bit finicky when it came to loading the next round. It wouldn't lock up without a second attempt. I figured it was just me so I didn't pay it any attention. The second was that I had a ton of issues being able to see thru the scope at its maximum power of 24. It was my presumption that I had either set the height of the comb too high which was causing issues or didn't set the eye relief too far away.
Here's the gun along with my 93R17.
https://i.ibb.co/VvXwZdQ/Savage-110-...and-93-R17.jpg
Second range session:
Before I went to the range a second time, I bought a boresnake to clean the barrel because I'm not particularly fond of having to keep removing the recoil pad and comb insert. I cleaned the gun and then moved on to fixing the scope issue. Since changing the height of the comb was the easier of the 2 potential fixes for the scope, I went and used the next lower comb insert and checked the scope. Luckily, this fixed the issue so I headed back to the range.
I started shooting the session at 100 yds and had to make a few more minor adjustments. I took my first 3 shot group to see what it gave me; sub MOA... not too shabby.
https://i.ibb.co/VtDQkPZ/Savage-110-...0gr-100yds.jpg
I felt so good with this gun that I arrogantly pushed the target back to 200 yds and made the necessary elevation adjustment to the turrent. Here's what I got - about 1.5" or .75 MOA. This gun can shoot.
https://i.ibb.co/C7NX2zL/Savage-110-...0gr-200yds.jpg
The thing I did continue to notice is that the bolt continues to have issues locking up on the first try. There are times when it'll work just fine but the bolt is awfully picky and if it doesn't get pressed just the right way, it won't lock up as it should. The bolt needs to be brought backwards and then forwards again.
My temporary conclusion:
PROs - The gun is amazing at shooting. Sub MOA accuracy using less than optimal ammo is truly impressive to me. I'll be testing additional ammo thru this gun to see if I can tighten the groups up even more but for now, I've got a good start and can only imagine getting better groups. Maybe just maybe, 1/2 MOA is possible...
CONs - Because of the comb height, cleaning with a traditional cleaning rod is going to be a royal pain. I'm pretty sure that I won't be using it too much and I'll just use a boresnake instead. The bolt continues to be problematic. If anyone has any suggestions, I 'd love to hear it.
Thanks for reading this really long post.
David
