Customizing my Savage Axis

1) Those will work, and so will the factory Savage rings for your current scope. Personally I'd prefer Burris Signature rings.

2) Nothing wrong with upgrading the factory plastic stock.

3) I'm not a fan of Nikon, in my experience their warranty is worthless. Buy quality optics, keep your Centerpoint, and you can remount it move the good scope to another rifle if you want to in the future, with no money lost on a resale.

4) Start by clipping 1 coil off the spring, that drops the trigger to around 4 lbs. I can't recommend clipping more than 1 1/2 coils.If you don't like it you can still get a Rifle Basix trigger.

5) Don't bother.

6) You're going to run into a lot of Savage envy out there. Some people can't deal with the fact that your "cheap Savage" shoots better than the safe queen they spent several times as much on. Head over to savageshooters.com for useful advice on the rifle.

Here's the Axis I put together recently:

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It's got a Vortex PST, ARP barrel in 6.8spc, JAL linear comp, trigger job, and a swirl dipped camo paint job on the factory stock. It will get a Boyds stock this winter.
 
I have an Axis stainless in .223 that I bought new right after Boyd's started making stocks for them.

I lightly stoned the trigger and modified a spring out of a ball point pen to replace the factory trigger spring. I now have a 2.5 lb trigger with zero creep. For zero dollars.

Coincidentally I also put a Centerpoint 4-16x40AO scope on it, which I have shot as far as 300 yards and I don't feel that it handicaps me at all in good light.

The rifle was shooting .75" groups at 100 yards out of the box with factory Winchester match ammo which uses a 69 gr SMK.

With my reloads (69 gr SMK, W-W brass, Varget, CCI BR-4) after the stock and trigger upgrades I routinely get groups in the mid 0.2's at 100 yards.

Yes I have around $550 in the whole setup, but it's how I want it and shoots good enough to cost $1000.

If you have the money and it's what you want, then you should do what makes you happy. It may not be worth it to someone else but worth is a relative thing and if you are going to keep the rifle for a long time you don't need to worry about it's value to anyone else.

I'm happy with mine.

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I don't think I could ever sell a gun. So, for me, spending $300 tarting up a budget gun would make sense if I already had it and just wanted to scratch that itch.

I spent a bunch of time and money building a .260Rem on a stainless Marlin X7 action. It's not worth anything to anybody but me but since I don't sell guns why the hell would I care?
 
Well - ok, I suppose that if:

-- you're sure you're not going to ever sell it, AND
-- (this is the big one) it's a good "base" to work from, meaning it's a very accurate rifle out of the box - say, sub-.8 to sub-.9 ish accuracy after five 5-shot groups with basic factory ammo..

Then it that case, it would make sense to fancy it up.

Good glass always makes sense. And the "gooder" the better. The Trijicons and Nikons I've bought (my two favorites), including lower end Nikons (i.e. Prostaff), I've never regretted - especially Trijicon Accupoints.

Mostly always pleased with Sightron S2, Bushnell Elite 4200 & 6500, Leupold, and Burris. Simmons, Barska, Tasco, NC Star, Weaver - usually regretted those (though some Weavers are nice).

Some day I'll get a Nightforce or IOR / Valdada.

You can always move glass to another gun.
 
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