Your budget will dictate the amenities, but at the low cost end, under $300, I prefer the Mossberg Patriot to the Savage Axis. The Wal-Marts near me sell the Savage Axis for around $270 and the Mossberg Patriot for around $300.
That's timely, I just received an email tonight from Sportsman's Outdoor Superstore where they are offering the Patriot in 6.5CM for $279:
https://www.sportsmansoutdoorsupers...utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=112020That is the style of Mossberg Patriot that I have. I paid around $350 for it in 2018 and have been pleasantly surprised how well it shot with the 3 different brands and bullet weights/styles of factory ammo that I fired from it. While it hasn't been quite as accurate as the 6.5 CM RAR-Ps that I've shot, I like the ergs of the stock and the design of the magazine better.
I saw that ad and have thought about buying a couple to give as Christmas gifts.
a lot of negative reviews on this gun. who to believe?
Believe whoever you want to believe.
I have a sample size of 1 and probably 130 rounds fired.
With a $100 Sightron S1H 3-9x40 installed in $6 B-Square SU rings via the Mossberg factory installed bases I have shot 80 rounds through it, a box each of 95 grain Federal VMax, a box of 125 grain Winchester Deer Season XPs, a box of 129 grain Hornady American Whitetail, and a box of 140 grain Remington PCLs. As the barrel warms up it starts to send fliers, 3 shot groups being consistently smaller than 5 shot groups because of the fliers. It isn't a rifle that I'd take on a pdog shoot or on a hunt that I paid for, but for the guy who hunts close to home, shoots 1 or 2 boxes of factory ammo each year, and who has a small amount of discretionary income to put into a rifle, I think that it is a good choice if my rifle is representative of the Mossberg Patriot universe. My rifle is box stock, no bedding, no barrel channel relief, no nothing. I bought this rifle for a friend of my son's to use and he punched a few tags with it in 2018 and 2019. He probably would have punched tags with it this year if he had been invited to hunt with us.
I put a lot of value in how a firearm fits me. In the universe of sub-$300 rifles, the Mossberg Patriot fits me better than the other rifles in that market niche. That said, if I had more money to spend on a rifle, there are rifles that I would buy in lieu of the Mossberg Patriot, but that doesn't keep it from being a capable/functional tool. Put another way, out of the 15 rifles that I have chambered in 6.5 CM, I would rank the Patriot 14th if I was picking a rifle in 6.5 CM to hunt with.
