scout
 

I was recently looking at some scout rifles, and I had a few questions:

Which brand? I'm thinking savage because of the accu-trigger and low price.
Which caliber? I'm thinking .308 winchester or 7mm-08 remington (for the low recoil)
What size scope?

Thanks in advance.

My, my... aren't you growing up quick?

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I've got a Savage 10FCM in .308. Stick with a 4x or smaller and make sure it's a scout scope (duh) with plenty of eye relief. I like Loops FX-II 2.5x myself.

7mm-08 might be fun to shoot but it's a bitch to get ammo for... I've been running surplus 7.62 battle packs outta my Scout for a while now.

Yeah, stick to .308. Bushnell makes a nice 2-6x variable in their Elite 3200 line that'd set you up right if you like a variable-power optic. Leupold makes good Scout/pistol scopes as well, but we and several of our customers have had very bad experiences with their customer-service dept. As for the base rifle, Savage and Ruger both offer excellent scout-type rigs are good prices. For semi-auto work, both Springfield Armory and DSA produce Scout or Scout-able versions of their 18" rifles. If you want to really splurge go for the Steyr Scout, but Boston T. Party and others report a fairly consistent problem with light firing-pin strikes.

Another possibility, depending on your needs and terrain, would be a levergun in .30-30 or .35 Remington with a Scout setup. To play with the concept, you might also mount an M38 or M44 Mosin-Nagant with a Scout scope and mounts (replaces the rear iron sight) and aftermarket polymer stock. A Uni friend of mine hunted for years with a setup like that, and killed everything he aimed at.

Didn't Walt do a scout setup on his Marlin bear-slayer?

I did. It's a Leupold FX-II 2.5x28 mounted on the Leupold Quick-Detach rings. Couldn't be happier with it. The tube is strong enough to handle any abuse I can dish out. The optics are clean and clear. The design allows me to acquire/fire with it just as quickly with my EO Tech. And it just looks cool.

The prices on them are down to under $300 these days. I would highly recommend one.

Heh heh. I call it his "American Express Rifle."

Yeah, I must admit that WECSOG mag tube plus the scout mount give me a little chubbage.

I won't mention the 550 cord...

Lay off the 550 cord. It does what its supposed to do (keep the lever from biting my fingers when the rifle is recoiling). "If it's stupid but it works; its not stupid".

...you obviously haven't heard of my 550 fetish.

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Joking aside, I wanna turn a CZ 527 7.62x39mm into a scout rifle. That'd be fun.