Tweet
Finally picked up the Savage B.Mag rifle today that I ordered in February. This is the bolt action rimfire made for the new Winchester .17 WSM cartridge. It's a lot of fun, though small enough to give my big paws some issues. Not lefty friendly.
The Good: The rotary magazine is very slick and worked perfectly. It's very accurate, as promised. Using a sandbag, I was able to hit inside a six inch circle at 200 yards through gusty wind. It has a 22 inch barrel but weighs nothing, allowing me to hit inside five inches at 100 yards while firing off hand. The recoil is so light I could keep the target in frame even at 9x magnification. I'm sure a good shooter could do better than this any day of the week.
The Iffy: It is extremely slender. This allows you to mount a scope very close to the barrel, but low rings were a problem for my Bushnell 3-9x scope. I was able to fit a Mueller 3-9x40 Hybrid using low rings, but it was very close. So close the scope caps would not fit. The supplied bases are Weaver type, and not Picatinny friendly. I could not mount the P-223 rings I wanted to use.
The Bad:
The design is not easy to use with adult hands. The bolt handle is useless for advancing the bolt to chamber a new round. The back of the bolt has a groove that you use to push the bolt forward with your thumb. I suppose I'll get used to it in time. That same groove on the back of the bolt bit me in the thumb several times when I shot left handed. This last may be a Lefty only issue. I had one failure to eject in a box of fifty. The cartridge was easily flicked out using a knife and showed signs of gas leakage backwards from the cartridge neck. I suspect there was an over charge of powder in that particular round.
The Ugly:
Ammo is very hard to find. I was relieved in a way that it took six months for the order to be fulfilled because it took me five months to locate the one and only box of ammo I could find to shoot. Now I may have to wait another five months to find more. There are market solutions to this problem, but I refuse to pay two dollars a round for rimfire.
I don't mean to dwell on the negative. This thing was very fun to shoot. It would be an ideal first gun to learn with. The rounds kick up enough dirt when they hit to give you good visual feedback as you shoot. There is a world full of ground rats whose days are now numbered, and coyotes might want to think twice about stalking our pets. When the gun boom cools down this will be a great gun to own and shoot.
The Good: The rotary magazine is very slick and worked perfectly. It's very accurate, as promised. Using a sandbag, I was able to hit inside a six inch circle at 200 yards through gusty wind. It has a 22 inch barrel but weighs nothing, allowing me to hit inside five inches at 100 yards while firing off hand. The recoil is so light I could keep the target in frame even at 9x magnification. I'm sure a good shooter could do better than this any day of the week.
The Iffy: It is extremely slender. This allows you to mount a scope very close to the barrel, but low rings were a problem for my Bushnell 3-9x scope. I was able to fit a Mueller 3-9x40 Hybrid using low rings, but it was very close. So close the scope caps would not fit. The supplied bases are Weaver type, and not Picatinny friendly. I could not mount the P-223 rings I wanted to use.
The Bad:
The design is not easy to use with adult hands. The bolt handle is useless for advancing the bolt to chamber a new round. The back of the bolt has a groove that you use to push the bolt forward with your thumb. I suppose I'll get used to it in time. That same groove on the back of the bolt bit me in the thumb several times when I shot left handed. This last may be a Lefty only issue. I had one failure to eject in a box of fifty. The cartridge was easily flicked out using a knife and showed signs of gas leakage backwards from the cartridge neck. I suspect there was an over charge of powder in that particular round.
The Ugly:
Ammo is very hard to find. I was relieved in a way that it took six months for the order to be fulfilled because it took me five months to locate the one and only box of ammo I could find to shoot. Now I may have to wait another five months to find more. There are market solutions to this problem, but I refuse to pay two dollars a round for rimfire.
I don't mean to dwell on the negative. This thing was very fun to shoot. It would be an ideal first gun to learn with. The rounds kick up enough dirt when they hit to give you good visual feedback as you shoot. There is a world full of ground rats whose days are now numbered, and coyotes might want to think twice about stalking our pets. When the gun boom cools down this will be a great gun to own and shoot.
Comment