Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Stole a savage axis 308.

They definitely have warts and limitations, but can be relatively accurate for a cheap rifle. I would not consider them to be rugged/overly reliable compared to other rifles. Here's what I've learned from shooting/working with quite a few:

- Agree the bases must come off. Use a solvent with q-tips to ensure as much machining oil as possible is removed.

- Just "...checking to see the bases were originally tight." is NOT good enough. To name a few examples, the frontmost screw could be too long and be bottoming out on the barrel threads. Another case could be where the screws are bad quality and/or a little boogered and could be creating excess friction (making you think they are tighter than they are) but not actually stretching the screw and holding the bases as tight. It's best to start with new bases and screws that are machined well and fit well and tighten with loc-tite 242, 243, fingernail polish, or whatever your preference is.

-When you say pulling back on the bolt, what exactly do you mean? Axis rifles are known for a lot of upward pressure being needed to lift the bolt upward, prior to pulling back.

- Being it's an Axis, AND in .308 increases the odds of it being shot in the past with steel case ammo, which is extremely hard on the Axis' generally soft extractor. The extractor is cheap and easy to replace if you suspect it is ever not functioning as it should (see YouTube). IMHO, DO NOT USE steel case ammo or something hard like an A-Zoom snap cap in it.

- Being it's a Savage, just be aware of the extra play involved in the bolt and detachable magazine tolerances and fit. In some individual rifle/magazine combinations, it's possible to ride the bolt downward from the rear (making the head a hair higher) and causing the bolt to slide over the magazine and not chamber a cartridge, which is obviously bad in a hunting situation. This only applies to some individual Savages and Savage magazines, so yours may never have this issue, but it's something to be aware of.

- They are fairly notorious for misfires compared to other rifles. The firing pin spring set-up is comprised of spring-washer-spring system. In other words, a washer jammed between two springs rather than one spring. Sometimes the alignment of that system isn't sitting exactly as precise as the engineers intended. Also, despite it using a barrel nut for headspacing, it's not that uncommon for them to not be set to the best tolerances from the factory. Spring impact and headspacing both affect if a rifle misfires. Some Axis never have misfires IF the spring-washer-spring set-up is good AND if the headspacing is good. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of aftermarket trigger springs. Like any other bolt action, make CERTAIN the bolt handle is always 100% down prior to pulling the trigger.

- Yes the stock is flimsy, but as long as long as you do NOT use a bi-pod AND as long as it is correctly seated and tightened into the stock (5/32 Allen; I like a T-Handle style to prevent significant overtightening) the stock shouldn't be too big of deal for short distance accuracy if using a proper benchrest bag set-up or shooting off hand.

- IMHO, you need to shoot different ammo in it prior to deciding how accurate/precise it is.

Most Axis rifles are pretty accurate, but I've come across some that aren't. Also, they don't always feed very well out of the box, and especially cartridges with steeper angles, like the Creedmoor (But this could be said about Savage in general). Also, they are lightweight rifles in the low six pound range, which can be a desirable feature. They are an economy rifle that might work ok for you if understand how to work around its warts and limitations.