The Savage 110 Apex Storm in 6.5 Creedmoor arrived for Test and Evaluation just as you see it above with the Vortex Crossfire II Scope, and Picatinny rail mounted and bore sighted right out-of-the-box. It is a very smart looking stainless barrel with button-rifling and adjustable synthetic stock. It weighed in at 7 lb 7 oz. with my Lyman scale. The AccuTrigger breaks at 3 lb 8 oz. Nice for a hunting rifle! The bolt assembly below is jeweled and has a knurled bolt for a good grip.
The bolt lugs are state of the art. The action is very smooth! It has a detachable metal and synthetic clip that makes an audible click when it is inserted. The Stainless Barrel has a non-reflective mat surface so you don’t spook game.
These are things that you would find in a more expensive rifle.
Savage says:
“The platform provides accuracy and adjustability like no other package rifle thanks to the Savage® AccuTrigger™, thread-in heasdpacing, floating bolt head and button-rifled stainless steel barrel. Plus, its length-of-pull can be easily adjusted to fit any hunter for better comfort and consistency. ”
Out-of-the Box first 100 yard 3 shot group with Nosler’s 140 grain AccuBond is a solid 1 inch.
FEATURES
Redesigned Model 110 rifle
Stainless steel button-rifled barrel
3-9x40mm Vortex Crossfire II scope, mounted and bore-sighted
Dead-Hold BDC reticle’s hashmark design reduces guesswork on holdover and windage
Vortex Hunter medium rings and one-piece EGW 0 MOA rail
User-adjustable AccuTrigger
Adjustable length-of-pull
Modern ergonomics
Detachable box magazine
The MSRP is just $749. Wow!
I give this Out-of-the-Box Test an A+
This is a fine rifle/scope combination that anyone would be thrilled to own and is a great value!
The recent addition of the S&W 610 Revolver in 10mm Auto begs the question. Could the 10mm be your next deer gun? Well, if you like to get close to game like bow hunters do, then yes say a host of successful hand-gunners. It is a well respected pistol hunting cartridge with a 200 or 220 grain bullet and kept within 30 or so yards, they say it does a fine job and does not recoil as heavy as the 41 or 44 Magnum, 45 Long Colt. And it has more energy and penetration than the 45ACP. We want full penetration for blood trailing purposes.
A 180 to 220 grain cast solid will penetrate very well say many handgunners. I am not per se a handgun hunter but may give it a go. Buffalo Bore makes a 220 cast flat point and cartridge for the 10mm Auto for hunting
Use a rest such as a bog-pod to steady your shot.
Gel tests are helpful. Here we compare the 10mm to the .357 Magnum
Now is a great time to research App’s for Hunting and Fishing and Outdoors. I have been playing with a free App called HuntWise which has GPS, Maps and Hunt Times for my IPhone. Of course you need a signal for it to work when you are in the field. But at home you can literally go any where and see topographic info, if in the woods you can track yourself to your stand by recording a walking path, mark a spot, check distances make notes. I used it to do hunt map research in Canada and it works great.
Here at home in the USA it documents the boundaries of land and ownership, acreage and address of the owner if you choose the overlay which has Land for Sale, Land Contours, Land Owner Lines and an overlay for Land Owner Names.
There are other similar Apps out there that you may like better. There is so much out there!
Another App I like is the Ballistics Advanced Edition App and uses JBM Ballistics software. Cost is only $4.99. You can go to JBM Ballistics website too and just select trajectory and get simple trajectories but the App allows for many advanced features and “Save” features.
Why learn to use these and other Apps? It is because your phone is not really a phone. It is a powerful computer that has a phone as part of it! If you have it with you in the field or on the range you can use it to great advantage.
My friends at Savage are sending me a Savage 110 Apex Storm XP Package with a stainless steel, button rifled barrel to test in 6.5 Creedmoor. I requested this model because it is jam packed with features that costs well over $1000 and includes a Vortex Scope. They say it is ready for anything nature can dish out! We shall see…
FEATURES
Redesigned Model 110 rifle
Stainless steel button-rifled barrel
3-9x40mm Vortex Crossfire II scope, mounted and bore-sighted
Dead-Hold BDC reticle’s hashmark design reduces guesswork on holdover and windage
Vortex Hunter medium rings and one-piece EGW 0 MOA rail
The .375 Ruger was introduced in 2007 as a rimless standard length cartridge that is slightly larger in powder capacity and energy than the .375 H & H Magnum (a belted and tapered cartridge) , widely used in Africa all the way up to Elephant. Great on big Russian Boar with their protective shield!
The .375 Ruger cartridge is used on the same dangerous game with a shorter Ruger rifle bolt throw like the 30-06 and a Mauser action which reliably grabs the rim of the cartridge and chambers the round. And in North America the .375 Ruger is ideal for Brown Bear, Moose and Bison. It will throw a 300 grain bullet at around 2500 fps and 2650 fps with 260 grain Noslers, both achieving around 2 tons of energy at the muzzle or so.
The .375 Ruger is offered in the Ruger Hawkeye African with American Walnut and the Ruger Hawkeye Alaskan with a synthetic stock. I hunted plains game in Africa with the Ruger M77 in .338 Winchester Magnum and 250 grain Nosler Partitions, accordingly, I got acclimated to heavy recoil.
As an Outdoor Writer I wanted more experience with powerful cartridges so I purchased the Ruger Hawkeye African in .375 Ruger some years back.
What is to tame in the .375 Ruger? Felt recoil with the stock recoil pad originally provided was insufficient to tame full power recoil at a bench rest where I was locked into the rifle position for accurate shooting.
There are several pads that are available on the market today to reduce felt recoil by 50% or more. I use the Pachmayr Decelerator. It did not take me long to purchase and test a few. They tame the full power loads so much that I can shoot them in my T-Shirt.
The accuracy of my .375 Ruger in the M77 Ruger African Rifle is nothing short of exceptional, often regularly shooting sub-MOA groups. Nosler is my go-to bullet company. The AccuBond and E-Tip and Partition give me superior bullet construction delivering over 4000 ft-lbs (2 tons) of energy at the muzzle and like 2800 ft-lbs at over 200 yards.
Years back, at 50 yard a friend observed my very first shot with the rifle right out of the box with dangerous game loads. After placing a shot with a Leupold Scope on paper, he said, go ahead and shoot another. I shot the second round. He said, I missed the whole target. Shoot another… and I did. Missed that one too he said. So we went down range to find the three bullets in the same hole. My friend said, “Your keeping that rifle, Right?” I grinned a big smile.
So what else is there to tame? Well, this rifle cartridge, when hand loaded can be easily reduced in power to hunt deer and black bear if you like.
You can search articles here in NH Rifleman for more on the .375 Ruger reduced loads.
It is like owning a 38-55, a .375 Winchester, and a cartridge more power than the .375 H & H Magnum. Finally the Ruger is not fussy about bullets, it shoots them all very well and I can shoot all the way down to 220 grain bullets.
I have some 235 grain heads for deer. See the article below.
From a hunting perspective I think that a laser bore sight can be very valuable if you take it in the field with you! I had to experience my own stupidity on a trophy hunt and my rifle and scope gets knocked around or dropped. I was in Texas this past October on a Trophy Whitetail Hunt and banged my rifle and scope a bit. I missed a shot one evening on a very nice buck. Truth is, was it a banged scope or me as excited as i was. Or perhaps a combination of the two. There is another possibility as well, that my scope was dialed up so high that it was difficult to keep the crosshairs steady. In any event, I did not have a laser bore sight in my backpack to validate the scope. It was now night time. So I asked myself and my guide; “Should I take the same rifle out in the morning or use my backup rifle?”
The answer was to use my already proven back-up rifle.
But what if I had no back up rifle?
I would then have to wait for daylight and go to the range with the banged rifle scope to see what was happening and miss the critical dawn whitetail hunting.
A laser bore sight device is made by several manufacturers.
I have seen Jim Shockey advertise the Site-Light SL-100. But seeing is believing. I will try to hunt and field test one of their models here this spring.
They make three models. The SL-100 is cost effective at $99 dollars via most retailers. The SL-150 is $160 or so. The SL-500 is military grade at over $200 and can be seen out to 100 yards.
I have successfully hunted and called in Bull Moose in New Hampshire with a friend several years back. It was not a trophy bull with a 50 inch rack and not even a 40 incher. His body was full grown but small in the antler department. But it was a bull and he was mine. Of course I had some rudimentary skills in vocalization of a bull and having seen dozens of videos of callers work their magic with hands pinching their nostrils and making a cow like sound of another bull grunting behind an imaginary hot female cow moose.
The bull moose is much like a whitetail buck in that they also grind antlers on trees and destroy bushes to let others know that they are big and mean.
So I did the same, smashing trees and shaking bushes so hard that my partner though I had lost all my marbles. And I used some cow moose in estrous to scent down wind.
It all worked!
But if I were on a real trophy hunt, I would have let him pass as just a young’un.
Not a great rack, but he is on the wall in my home and it makes me happy that he is a New Hampshire Moose.
A Newfoundland Hunt is in the works! See my earlier article below.
I am heading to Newfoundland for a trophy bull this September with the same friend except we are going to have to pass on lesser bulls.
Honestly, I think I have good basic skills to hunt these giants but I want more skill sets before I go.
Accordingly, I am looking for expert hunting advice that I can use out in the field besides my very limited moose hunting experience. Yes, my moose guide should be very expert too.
I think I found a book that collects all that wisdom from dozens of hunts below.
This book covers moose from Alaska, across Canada and Newfoundland. With many Newfoundland hunts which I find very helpful.
The book covers all aspects of the hunt, preparation, weapons and 100 years of field experience and great moose calling advice. I highly recommend it!
One item that I will purchase for the hunt is a laser bore-sighter for my backpack. I dropped my last scoped rifle in the field and shot confidence went down hill. Luckily I had a back up rifle.
On this trip my baggage will be very limited in a light aircraft so I can’t even take a hard case.
I chose the PSE Thrive 400 Crossbow with a 4×32 illuminated scope to test because of my PSE knowledge over decades of quality compound bow manufacture and its use by friends in 3D archery. This crossbow utilizes reverse cam technology and, very modest cost MSRP ($449) yet high level of CNC machined quality. I was hopeful that it would be accurate too.
If you do your homework you can see that the cost of the best crossbows were over $1000 dollars. If that was all there was to choose from, I would have to pass on them.
For the broadhead test, I shot it with a Muzzy 4 blade 100 grain and it was the same point of impact as the 100 grain field points.
On Safari years back, I successfully hunted African Gemsbok and Red Hartebeast with these Muzzy broadheads. I love’em!
Now, on with the test with broadheads on wild boar at “Skinner Bog” in Maine; owned and operated by Jeremy Bilodeau. I have hunted Russian boar previously with Jeremy with my TC Encore Rifle in 30-06 Springfield. It is a very family friendly hunt and where Jeremy is also my friendly guide.
We rode Jeremy’s 4×4 down a snow covered trail and parked. Jeremy said, “These boar can be anywhere so load your crossbow.” Reaching in my pocket for the string loader device I was able to get my foot in the stirup and pull the 175 lb needed to load the bow. You have to use your back muscles and finally your arm muscles to load it. It is not an easy pull but wow does it shoot a fast bolt (arrow) at around 400 fps.
I noted how firmly the PSE Thrive crossbow held the nocked arrow and broadhead as I moved through the woods. I like that!!
We sat in a blind for an hour waiting for them to come to some food and even used some hog squealing to call them but to no avail.
We decided to use the “go to them mode.” I took the quiver off the bow and asked Jeremy to hold it. Jeremy noted that the quiver broadhead cover was coming loose, (the only thing we found that could be better) some adhesive should fix that.
Below we spotted them!
We began a stalk on some boar napping in the cold morning sun. Suddenly they heard us as the snow crunched beneath our feet. They nervously awoke and began to scatter. These boar are younger but still hefty in size from 100 to 250 lbs.
The PSE Thrive is not heavy and is easier to carry than I anticipated. I like the stock of the bow and its camo. It handles well.
The snow crunching beneath our feet awakened a pig pile of these oinkers and they slowly scattered around in the forest.
One of them stepped from the group and turned broadside at around 30 yards!
The trigger of the Thrive is a crisp 4 to 5 lbs!! Excellent!!!
At the shot, the crossbow recoiled slightly and the bolt was headed for the boar so fast that we could barely see a blur.
It hit the boar with a slap sound and the boar ran slowly up the wooded ridge. We approached where the boar was hit and found the arrow and broadhead embedded solidly in a tree behind the boar. It was a solid hit and a pass thru shot. We saw that the boar was walking slow and bleeding. The shot was further back than I liked so we hurried crunching snow beneath our feet hoping to intercept the boar for a second shot in the video clip below.
The Muzzy 4 blade passed through him like a hot knife through butter. He still ran some more! The blood trail was huge and wide. You would have to be blind to miss it! The boar ran a good 50 yards before piling up.
These wild boar are tough and so is the PSE Thrive! What a great test and a great crossbow for a great cost effective price for many hunters! I have seen it on sale too!!
A crossbow such as this can add to your hunting season in many states. I give it another A. Just glue the quiver cover on and you are good to go.
This week my twin brother Rich took his 300 Blackout to The Blue Rooster in Arizona and put some wild oink in the freezer on the cheap. Wild pigs abound and are sizable. Hunt Cost; $299
Rich and wife Ruth are retired and living nearby so this was a local treat for him. Like me, he handloads, so he had some loads already worked up. The 300 Blackout is a great semi-auto round for larger game and bullet weights that are normally 110 to 130 grain but can be much higher. Energies are well over 1300 ft lbs and good medicine for wild boar and wild pigs.
Accommodations are very wife and family friendly says Rich.
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Email: ksmith@btibrands.comBOG™
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