While the unique Savage bolt-action design has long been known for superior accuracy, the Varmint Series produced today combines a level of accuracy and value most firearms enthusiasts find hard to believe. Heavy precision barrels deliver all the performance possible from today's most popular loads. Barrels feature a recessed target-style crown to protect rifling and assure an extremely high degree of accuracy. Savage Varmint rifles are drilled and tapped for scope mounts and feature a smooth action.
Features: Stainless barreled action, heavy, fluted, free-floating and button-rifled barrel, with internal box magazine.
- Sights: Drilled and tapped for scope mounts
- AccuTrigger for a crisp, personalized trigger pull
- Stock: Target style heavy prone laminate with ambidextrous Wundhammer palm swell, dual pillar bedding
- Magazine Capacity: 4 rounds
- Weight: 10 lbs
- Barrel Length: 26" Fluted stainless steel heavy barrel
- Twist: 1:12"
- Overall Length: 46.25"
- Action: Short
The following text is a quote from Gun-test.com:
"Stainless steel and laminated wood make a great combination, we think, and Savage’s natural-finished wood and brushed-stainless Model 12 was no exception. The Savage’s heavy barrel was lightly fluted on its forward portion. During our shooting we thought this helped cut mirage, but it was impossible to tell for sure. At the very least, it looked good and broke up the monotony of all that white steel. All metal finish was matte stainless, nicely done. The exception was the bolt body, polished fairly brightly and emblazoned with the Savage name. The laminated stock had beefy dimensions, which we liked. There was enough wood at the pistol grip to let us slide our hand down so the trigger finger contacted the bottom of the trigger, which tends to make the trigger pull seem lighter because of added leverage.
The front of this heavy and attractive stock was capped with a black forend tip, which looked great, we thought. The forend was wide and massive, which gave lots of options for bedding the rifle prior to taking a shot in the field. The stock was fitted with stainless sling swivel studs fore and aft. The firm, dark-red butt pad was well rounded on all edges. It had enough traction to stick well to clothing. The fit of the pad to the stock was outstanding. The inletting was also outstanding, as was the finish on the wood, as well as on the metal. This rifle would not take a back seat to many costing three or four times its price, we thought. It was all rifle, well made and well presented. And we had yet to shoot it.
The 26-inch, 1:12-twist barrel had a recessed crown, and was free floated back to the action. The action had Savage’s standard bolt release, which requires pressing the trigger (with the bolt open) before you can press down on the bolt release. The action tang held a three-position sliding safety, forward to fire. It was a touch crowded, we thought, but adequate. It worked well. The five-round magazine was blind. There was no floorplate. Removing rounds from the magazine required cycling them with the bolt, easily done with the safety in the middle position. We found that this rifle made it very easy to ignore the magazine. Loose rounds laid into the action fed perfectly throughout our shooting. Rounds also fed easily from the magazine, if that was desired.
The trigger was something new to us. This was Savage’s AccuTrigger, which was superficially like a for Glock trigger. Within the blade of the trigger proper was a thin, spring-loaded safety blade that the trigger finger had to first compress before being able to contact the main trigger. If the main trigger were pulled rearward without the thin blade being pressed, the rifle would not fire, even though this uncocked the firing pin. But with the finger in the normal position, we found it was easy to adapt to this thin blade. Spring pressure was very light, requiring about 10 ounces to depress the blade against the main trigger. The main trigger had an outstanding pull, light and crisp, breaking at 2.3 pounds including the blade pressure."
