Thanks for the great advice. I had never thought of it, but a fixed 10 or 12x (leaning more towards the 12) would probably be plenty good for what I'm looking to use it for.
I am not afraid to pay for quality, especially if it will save me money in the long run(ie: buying a cheaper gun, then selling it at a loss to buy the gun I really wanted in the first place.) and allow me to grow into the gun vs. out grow it.
Id say go for a 6mm BR or 6mm Dasher in one of the Target Action Savages.
He would probably be spending a lot on ammo since he is only going to shoot factory ammo.
Don't worry, you will want to buy another one before long if you read a lot of articles on this website.
OK I was re-reading these threads and missed something someone posted early on. Let me ask this question if I may:
Q: If the majority of my shooting is going to be inside of 500 yards, is a .223 now a good option for my goal of 1/4 - 1/2 moa gun out of the box (even though the upper end of 1K yards probably negates this caliber?)
I think you might be over estimating the time it takes to make decent reloads. I spent about $300 plus dies and I am making accurate enough ammo to shoot a .385 group at 150 yards. I spent some time making different loads, but once that was done it took much less time to crank out some good(enough) rounds. They cost about 25 cent per round to make where you are spending about 1.25 per round to buy. Larger calibers cost more to reload but they are still more accurate than factory and under 50 cent per round. You might be surprised at how much time you might save with hand loads over trying lots of different factory loads.
Bottom line, go with the 308 or 6.5 creedmore if you really only want to buy one gun and one barrel with factory ammo.
Thanks for this info, and you are probably right as well. I may look at reloading later on as there is probably enough of a learning curve to tackle with just long range shooting. The biggest factor for me was not the money but the time involved. It looks like that might not be as big a chunk of time as I had imagined, so I'll probably focus on the shooting using factory ammo, save all my brass then I'll leave the reloading for the colder months!
Spencer,
Thanks for the info on the rings. I'll have to check those out.
Also, is that 6 oz to 1.5lb trigger an option from Savage, or is it an aftermarket one? If it's from Savage, is it an Accu-trigger, or some special setup?
Thanks again!