Since purchasing my .30-06, I’ve been wanting to buy an accurate .22 rifle to reduce my ammunition costs at the range. I debated building a custom Ruger 10/22, but I just couldn’t justify the expense at this time. (I will definitely build one up in the future though!) I finally settled on a used Savage Mark II-LV I found at The Gun Exchange in San Jose. It was in pretty good shape, despite being about ten years old. I added a Dip mfg. 5 MOA rail to the receiver, Burris Zee Signature high rings and a Mueller 8.5-25 X 44 AO tactical scope.
I took it to the range and was happy with the groups it shot with most of the different ammo I tried. Group size at 50 yards was mostly between .75 and 1.0 inches, with the best of .47 with Wolf Match Target ammo. The biggest issue was its failure to eject spent cartridges. No problems extracting from the chamber, but it would not spit them out. A little search over at Rimfire Central revealed the ejector bar can get bent if someone isn’t careful when replacing the bolt into the receiver. Sure enough, a little prying with a screwdriver put the ejector back where it was supposed to be and now, no problems ejecting! The other thing was the heavy trigger pull, but after some help from Rimfire Central, it cleaned up and is nice, light and crisp now. I also installed a Harris LM bipod. I will shoot it like this for a while, and see how it does before messing around with anything like bedding the action. Here’s a couple groups I shot at 50 yards after cleaning up the trigger.
Z06sense's Weblog 