Well, today's plans got foiled before the day began with work stuff.

So Instead of a well thought out step by step approach to load development; I decided to go out and make some noise and bang some steel

The first thing I noticed after the first round was that there was no recoil. My 308 bench gun running 175's at 2950 packs way more punch

10 Rounds into a box of Prvi Partizan the next thing that occurred to me was "this is gonna get pricey" even at only $.90 per round this is an all day shooter and I could see myself easily burning through 150-200 rounds with no problem.

Something funny happened while sighting in:

I dialed my way to the 500M gong in about three shots on the fourth I fired and the gong just stayed there. There was a huge dust cloud but the gong stayed still. I figured I missed and made 10 more attempts to no avail, Huge dust cloud gong sat still, so we went for a walk to see what was going on. Turns out I was shooting through the gong. The 500M is my only gong made out of something other than 1/2" AR-500 it's a 1 1/2" thick cast iron pipe cover and the FMJ 250's were blowing big ragged holes right through it.

AT 625M I switched to 300MK's over 78.2 Grains of IMR 4350. I dialed in either 5 or 10 minutes I forget) from the 500M setting with the PP 250's and sighted in on the target for a spotter round, first shot hit! Laid 5 more into that gong and moved to 725M Added 10 minutes, WAY to much. Dialed back to 5 foot over the top settled on 4.5 Minutes from the 625 Setting, Put 10 into that gong and moved to 915M and spent the rest of the time hitting that with most of the 20 remaining rounds.

If you like to make noise you need one of these, particularly if you're a public land shooter. It cleared out everyone around in about 20 minutes.

I'm quite pleased with the rifle. I'll take the time to tune the load; but, what a great way to spend an afternoon!

Things noted:

The bore looked like a thing of beauty from the factory.
You will lose friends if they stand ANYWHERE other than between you 5 and 7
Double hearing protection a must
The stock works fine, but is a PITA when it's time to clean
19 pounds with scope saves in shoulder pain.
Bolt feels very "Savagey", But I love Savages
The farther away the targets were the more like a laser the thing became.
I need a heavier Bi-Pod

I'm as much for a build your own anything as the next guy; but I'm glad I just bought this. I should get back to work I have a new baby to feed.