I have the savage with the heavy barrel and wood stock. Very nice shooting rifle. I did the trigger shim trick and changed out the spring and it is better now. I get simular groups to above, at the least it shoots into one inch at 100 yards with the Vmax's.

I did a test last year with a bunch of .22 ammo and threw my .17 into the mix just for the heck of it. I was testing for drop and accuracy with the different types of .22 ammo on the market. I shot groups from 50,75 and 100 yards. 3 shots from each yardage with each ammo. My savage .17 put all nine shots in a hole a dime would cover from 50-100 yards! That is pretty impressive to me. Incase you are wondering the best .22 ammo I tried was the CCI velociter or what ever they are called. Very minimal drop at 100 yards with a 50 yard sight in and I could get 1 inch groups at 100 yards with it.

My .17 has a cabela's brand Alaskan Guide model on it. 6.5-20X44 with an adjustable objective. I am very happy with it, but it cost a little over 400 bucks with the rings. Don't go too cheap, these guns are accurate enough they deserve a decent scope. The $200 range should serve you well. Really depends on what you want to do with it and how much power you want. The more magnification you want the more it will cost to get a decent scope. If you are talking a 3-9 power hunting scope or something simular 200 bucks should get you a very good scope. If you are talking about a bigger scope with AO that would be the lowest price range I would look at.

Paul