Originally Posted by
Newtosavage
I have looked longingly at the Savage LWH. Very pricey, but I'm sure it's worth every penny. Haven't been able to put my hands on one yet though. At $1K with tax, I'm almost afraid to!
If I ever do get one, it will be in the .308 for sure. I've also thought of just hacking up my 11 to shed some weight. Cutting the barrel down from 22 to 18" and trimming the scope from the 14-oz. beast that's on there now to something in the 8-9 oz. range, and trimming a little from the stock. That would save me a pound of weight and take the rifle from 7.5 lbs. scoped (as it sits now) to 6.5, and also give me a much quicker pointing gun than the 22-inch barrel affords. That's still an option I am considering, but that gun right now shoots .5 MOA and I don't really want to mess with that just yet.
So... (drumroll please...) I took the plunge and bought the 7.62x39 Scout from Cabelas tonight. That thing drew a crowd in the Gun Library. Several folks said they had never seen one and agreed that it should be a very fun gun to shoot.
Sure enough, it's an Accustock. It also weighs in at 7.25 lbs without a scope! A beastly gun that might never get a scope. It points very well with the 20" barrel, and I'm a fan of the rear aperture sight. Someone must have taken that Accutrigger down as far as it will go too, since my scale puts it just below 2 lbs. of trigger pull.
Believe it or not, my Cabelas didn't have a SINGLE round of 7.62x39 in stock (despite having many boxes of peculiar and bizarre calibers on the shelves). They said someone came in a week ago and bought it all up. Oh well, thankfully the Academy that's half the distance from my house was very well stocked with the Russian round. I bought four types - Hornady steel case 123 gr. SST's (box of 50 for $23), Monarch 123 FMJ ($5/box!), Tula Ammo ($10/box) and some rather pricey Winchester Hog Hunter 123 grain soft point ammo.
When I got home, I got out my digital dial calipers and mic'd them all. The results surprised me quite a bit. The Hornady was as advertised at .310", as was the Tula Ammo - consistent with the Russian bores. And the Winchester Hog Hunter seemed to split the difference at .309". But the curious part was the $5/box Monarch steel case FMJ ammo. It is .308" !! I didn't expect that.
So tomorrow at the range, I'll have 4 brands and 3 diameters to test in that .308" Savage barrel. I'm going to shoot it at 50 yards with open sights and see what happens. Should be interesting. I'll post up what I find. I am hopeful that the .308 Monarch will make for a great plinking round, and the pricey Win. Hog Hunter will be an accurate hunting round. If that worked out, I'd be thrilled and I won't buy any reloading equipment for this caliber. Fingers crossed!