The Winchester Model 70 is paired against the Savage 111. I'm a Savage guy and have been since 2002 when I bought my first one. Since then I've bought a half dozen, mostly as pawn shop rifles. They're invariably accurate, easy to work on, lots of aftermarket support, and very reasonably priced. I've got a Savage on layaway right now as a gift to a grandson. There's lots to love about Savage rifles. Did I mention accurate? We've got three heavy-barreled Savages in the family, in 7mm Rem Mag, .308 Winchester, and .17 HMR. Each of the three will make bugholes at extreme yardage, depending on the caliber. They're not great looking rifles, but they're great shooting rifles.
But, they're paired against the Winchester Model 70. The Winchester Model 70 was Jack O'Conner's favorite rifle, and his writings were rife with examples of how it is truly The Rifleman's Rifle. From the early '80s till 2006, Olin manufactured them under license, and some believe that quality suffered. Nowadays, they're manufactured by FN, the great Belgian gun maker, under license at their plant in South Carolina. They're great rifles with a loyal following. Jack would have approved of the new Model 70s and they're still considered the very best. When you say Model 70, you think deer rifle and they're leading the left column of the bracket.
On the right side of the paper are two other iconic rifles. The Remington 700 and the Ruger #1. The Ruger #1 is an American original, one of the great designs built by Bill Ruger. It's a single shot falling block rifle and is still manufactured in a large variety of options and calibers. From the lightweight .223 Remington to the bone-crushing .458 Lott, and in weights from seven to nine pounds, there is a Ruger #1 for every hunter. I'll tell you plainly that the Ruger #1 is on my short list of bucket rifles and the kids will have to draw straws for it when I'm gone. Unfortunately, in this semi-final, it's paired against the Remington 700 and going from a 7-seed to the semifinals it's shown staying power, it'll probably fall to the Remington.
Last of the rifles to consider is the Remington 700. Probably the most beloved, purchased, and written-about rifle of the bunch. I've owned several and a short-action in .308 Winchester sits in my locker. It got the nod last year as my deer rifle, simply because I like the wood stock. It's light, deadly accurate, easily gunsmithed and has a huge aftermarket support. No self-respecting deer camp will be without at least one when hunters gather to stand around the fire and argue about such things. For the last 30 years, the Model 700 is the bolt rifle that everyone else competed against and the success of the Model 700 is in large part whey we have so many fine rifles on the gun shelves today. It's had enough flaws that other manufacturers thought they could compete against it, and it has had enough success that they wanted to compete against it. Nothing succeeds like success and the Remington Model 700 has been hugely successful. It's a great rifle and deserves to be in the quarter finals.
Should my predictions hold true, next week we'll see the championship between the Remington 700 and the Winchester Model 70. The Savage and the Ruger will have fallen by the wayside to two truly magnificent rifles. This week is easy to predict, but next week will be a showdown between titans.
1 comment:
I have exactly one of the final Four...the Winchester Model 70. A late-70s model, it's in .243 Winchester and has the medium weight barrel. Called something-"sport", but that's not important.
What IS important is that two years in a row, at Boomershoot, I made cold-barrel, first shot of the session boomers explode from bench rest. Those shots are 385 yards, on a 4" target which must actually be struck near the middle, or you "gut" it, and it doesn't go off.
My preferred ammo is 95-grain Federal Fusion, which is as precise as any match ammo I can gin up, and the glass is an ordinary Nikon 3X9X40 with a .300 Win Mag BDC reticle. The performance of the .243 and the .300 Win Mag rounds, in flight, is very similar out to about 450 yards or so.
I use a front adjustable rest and a rear sandbag when shooting off a table (ordinary folding table). The rifle will easily do .5 MOA, and I can do just under 1.0 MOA with it. That makes it the best high-precision, long-range rifle in MY gun safe.
For shorter range brush work, I have and use a Savage 99E in .308
Follow-up shots with the Savage are a little faster than with the boltie, and the Weaver K-4 glass has never let me down, although I find it harder to use the fine-crosshair reticle these days.
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