Originally Posted by
Barry in IN
Not that accurate by what standard? Mine shoots right at an inch and slightly under with it's least favorite hunting grade ammo, which is truthfully the worst I've heard of one doing. Most others I've seen are easy 3/4 MOA rifles. That may not astound anyone used to precision rifles, but it isn't a precision rifle. Personally, I think they shoot great for a hunting rifle loaded with whatever is on the shelf at the local gun shop.
It's sure good enough for a rifle meant for largish game at 300 yards and under.
Slow rate of fire? How fast do you need for a hunting rifle?
The forward scope being good or bad is a matter of opinion. It's like everything else. Some like it and some hate it. Some hate it until they try it and some like it until they use it in the field. I like it- for this purpose. It's faster than anything I've tried except an RDS and I think it gives more precision when needed.
The forward scope is not a requirement to be called a Scout rifle anyway. The Steyr and Savage can mount conventional scopes just fine. The Ruger needs the rear sight removed, which I think is a mistake because it reduces the versatility. My Scout scope is in QD rings and I keep a Leupold 3.5-10X in a set of QD rings to throw on if more mag is needed.
Back to the accuracy thing: An odd but happy quirk of mine is that it shoots a fairly broad range of ammo to more or less the same POI, at least out to 300. I noticed when testing ammo when I first had mine that the groups landed in the same place no matter what I used, so I saved out one round of each of the better loads in each bullet weight and style. I shot a group with 11 different bullets ranging from 110 HP @ 2950 to 180 RN @ 2150 at 100 that measured 1-7/8". Seven of those 11 (still covering 110 to 180) went into 1-1/8". I haven't shot a group of individual loads at farther ranges yet, but judging from their POIs on paper, they look to keep it going fairly close to 300 at least.
For a general purpose hunting rifle, I'd much rather it did that than shoot one or two loads into a quarter inch but need a different zero for different loads.