RE: Older Savages
For my young son to shoot prairie dogs with me I went to the local pawn shop, bought him a 22-250 Savage 110c, cheapest varmint rifle to be found. Paid $140 for the gun. Found out it was manufactured in 1973 or there abouts. I spent a little time on it bedding, cleaning it up and mounting a decent scope on it. We used that rifle for 5 years bascially abusing it and since I not big on shooting paper I can't tell you what kind of groups it would shoot consistently but I know for a fact it butchered prairie dogs well past 400 yds. regularly. Fast forward several years I stripped the same gun down and rebuilt it from the action, spent several hundred dollars on it with some really nice upgrades. It shoots excellent but I can't tell you it shoots that much better than it did way back when. It started out a "tack driver"...whatever that is.