Howdy Savages
I’m a new 110 Predator owner and my first Savage rifle. I’ve been shooting, reloading, and competing with rifles, pistols, revolvers, and shotguns for over forty years and love it. My last rifle prior to the Savage is an Accuracy International AT and it’s truly incredible piece of work. It had everything I wanted with incredible accuracy, adjustability, quick change barrels. I’ve been shooting it for a little over two years.


Now comes the Predator. I watched a YouTube video by a young lady on Guns.com. and it was impressive but then a lot of compensated YouTubers tend to over sell or exaggerate the qualities of items. So last Saturday I walked into my local gun store and what do you know there was one of those low cost extremely accurate out of the box lasers right there on the wall. I’m going to do my own review.
I talked them down a bit on price and bought one on the spot. I get home and did the cursory inspection and cleaning, mounted a scope and looked it over. The barrel looked good and I like the 22” length with the threaded muzzle perfect for my suppressor. I thought the rifle was a little on the light side, a little too small at the grip, and the bolt felt kind of sloppy and loose. The adjustable stock works and stays snug not moving around, I like that because it works, and the trigger was okay.


I took it out to my range. I had some Winchester 55gr varmint X, Cheap federal 55gr bulk, and a reload of IMR 4064 with a 53gr bullet that shoots exceptionally well from my old Bushmaster Varminter. After bore sighting the scope I start with the cheap Federal on a full sized AR-500 target and scored a hit way down at the bottom. After a few adjustments I’m ready and move over to paper producing a dismal four inch plus group, well crap it’s new and may need to be lapped in a little. I shot again and still hitting all over and about three inches was the best I could do. And it doesn't eject very well dropping the spent case in the action. I couldn’t believe this was shooting so badly something just didn’t feel right and I began checking bolts and looking suspiciously at the Athlon scope. I took it back in to the bench and while carrying it in it felt like something moved or I felt a silent clunk.
I couldn’t really find anything obvious so I tore it all the way down and started over lightning the trigger a tad while I was in there. I had to go online to find a 40 inch pound spec for the action screws and set them. I remounted the scope and torqued it all down. I took the butt pad off and looking inside I found this little piece of styrofoam and pulled it out. I think it’s in there to fill the void and maybe dampen noise, stiffen the stock? I took a small sandwich baggy and stuffed it in the stock then spooned in several pounds of seven and a half lead shot sealing the bag and installing the butt pad. With the scope and the shot the rifle now weighs fifteen pounds three ounces and balances just at the front of the magazine. Now it feels like a target rifle.




Back outside and as fate would have it, it was just starting to sprinkle a little rain and one thing I’ve learned over the years is never rush it, if you’re short on time don’t bother reschedule. But I’ve shot many a match and won some in the rain so it doesn’t bother me. I loaded a Winchester 55gr and picked out a little half inch red bulls eye, lined it up, took a breath and let it out squeezing the shot off at the bottom of the breath. Bullseye! That had to be luck, right? I slowly loaded another one by hand which is no easy feat with this gun, and repeated the process and cut the first hole with the second shot! Wow it’s for real but unfortunately the sky opened and it poured so hard I could no longer see the targets at a hundred yards so I had to quit for the day. I love this rifle and the next day worked up a load using 25grs of Varget with a 55gr Hornady Sx Blitz bullet that does one hole.




My wife just reminded me that I could have bought five Predators for the price of the AI. God Bless Her