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The Best Budget Precision Rifle - Savage Axis II Precision .223 Bolt Action Rifle W MDT Chassis
Updated
24 months ago
Good morning, everyone, hope you’re all having a wonderful day today. Today, we’re taking a look at the Savage Axis II Precision rifle, chambered in 223 slash 556.
Full disclosure on the Savage Axis II Precision is that we did pay our own money, we paid full retail price, which I believe currently at the time of this video, is like under 800$ from Locked and Loaded, which for what we’ll get into is an extremely high value rifle.
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Getting into some of the specifics of this guy, as you can tell, it is a large, as the name implies, sort of precision rifle, chambered in 556. It is so large that I really can’t fit all of it on camera, so we’ll kind of go through it piece by piece.
Starting off, this is a 223, 556 barrel. I was shooting some 556 through it and it didn’t blow up on me, so I hope that it is actually rated for 556 pressures. This is a 22-inch heavy barrel, 1:7 twist, with a half by 28 thread at the end. Currently I have a YHM brake on there, which is also an adapter for suppressors that are coming in, hopefully with the new ATFE forms in about under 90 days or right around that time frame.
With the brake on there, with the heavy barrel, there is absolutely no recoil, which as we’ll get into later with shooting, means you can just track your rounds all the way in, even without a spotter, out to 6 and 700 yards with this 556 rifle.
The barrel, as we mentioned, is a heavy barrel and it does have slow taper towards the front where it is just a little bit thinner at the end of the barrel, as you would imagine, and then as you come back just gets a little bit thicker, all the way to where, I believe, it’s like 1.1 inches all the way here at the back, which is, again, a very thick, heavy barrel profile, especially for such a small bore, which is only 0.223, of course, and as we’ll get into the accuracy a little bit later on, does provide us with a very good level of accuracy over a wide variety of loads.
Apart from the barrel, the most notable feature on this specific rifle from Savage is going to be the chassis. This is a specific chassis to the Savage Axis II Precision rifle, so you can’t just go out and buy this MDT chassis and throw it on your Savage Axis II, and then get the same results or, again, because you can’t actually buy this specific chassis from MDT.
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If you don’t know what MDT chassis are, I believe it’s modular driven technologies, they make a lot of chassis, a lot of very, very high-end chassis for like PRS and professional shooters in general. They usually range from maybe 300$ on the low-end, all the way up like a thousand dollars in some circumstances, for the craziest chassis that they offer. So, again, when we talk about a complete gun with an MDT chassis for around 800 bucks, we’re already talking about a substantial deal.
Getting into the chassis itself, a little bit up front we have M-LOK on a very free-floated rail on the three, six and nine o’clock positions. If you were gonna be using this as like a 223 precision rifle or PRS rifle I should say, you can add your weights on the side and then your bipod or even your Arca-Swiss down on the bottom.
Moving back from the M-LOK, up front the heart and soul of the chassis is one block of aluminum, so you have an extremely strong, extremely rigid chassis, which will help you in terms of accuracy and repeatability, and then to kind of fill it in we have these olive drab overmold or one of these injection-molded parts on top of it for your magazine well and some other parts as well, giving it this very nice, very clean aesthetic.
The magazine selection for this specific chassis is going to be the AICS magazine, so these are single feed, 10-round magazines, and I believe you can get 5 or 15-round capacity as well. This won’t be taking your standard PMAG as, again, this is designed more as a precision rifle and so you do want to have the nicest, most reliable magazines possible.
The main downside to AICS magazines is that they are one fairly expensive and a little harder to find than your standard PMAG’s or any sort of standard pattern magazine.
Moving back from there on the chassis we do, of course, have a MDT grip as well. It is a large kind of palm-feeling grip and it is kind of have that overmold texture, so it’s a little bit rubbery, very grippy, something that personally I’m fine with one way or the other, and I believe this might actually be compatible with aftermarket AR-15, certain AR-15 grips as well. So, depending on what you want to do with it you could totally swap those out.
Continuing on to the back of the chassis we have adjustable comb as well as adjustable length of pull, so on the length of pull we have four quarter inch spacers, so you can make it shorter or loner within an inch range, which should fit just about everyone, unless you’re on one end of the body extremes.
We do have an adjustable comb height as well, depending on what sort of optic you’re using. This is the Athlon 1-10 by 28, so this is actually a 34 millimeter main tube, so personally I don’t need to adjust the comb height, but, again, if you’re using different optics, different height or whatnot, you can actually get this very tall if for a different setup if you needed it.
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Two kinds of small downsides to this chassis is while this is all adjustable it’s not quick adjustable by any means, it does require tools. You have two Allen keys here that you loosen, then adjust this and then set in where you want it, and then, of course, you need to take out these two screws, take out the spacers and then re-screw the screws back in to get your desired length of pull.
So, it’s not really adjustable on the fly, which is a slight downside, probably not that big of a deal to most people, but just keep that in mind that it does require tools and a little bit of time to adjust this stuff.
The second minor downside is that on certain MDT chassis they do have a folding stock, which will, of course, allow this to be a slightly smaller package, though as you cans see it is not a small or lightweight package.
Speaking of weight without a magazine and optics it does come in at 9.8 pounds, I wanna say, so right about 10 pounds for just the rifle. With the full magazine, depending on your optics, you’re realistically looking at about 12 to 13 pounds and then upwards of 15, 16 pounds if you’re throwing on bipod, suppressors and what have you, so if you’re thinking of this as somewhat of a hunting rifle or something you were going to be doing a lot of walking around with, probably not.
Getting into its intended use case is, again, this is the Savage Axis II Precision rifle, this is a very heavy, very stable rifle and, again, does provide you with a high level of precision and accuracy.
Getting into the action itself, I believe this is a standard Savage Axis II action that they drop into this very nice MDT chassis and, of course, the Savage action is based off of another action, I believe, so you have a fairly standard, I believe it’s very close to a 90 degree bolt throw, so it’s not like super fast or smooth in that regard.
When I first got it, it was a very stiff unlock and lock, however, after shooting it for a couple hundred of rounds at this point, it smoothened up quite a bit. It’s fairly fast, especially if you get used to it and what not. It’s not the nicest, crispest, smoothest action that you’ll ever feel and there are actually rifles in this price category that will give you a smoother, slightly faster action, again, that is gonna be one of the downsides of this, it’s still a Savage Axis II at the end of the day, just with a very heavy barrel and a very nice chassis, which is a huge value, but, again, it’s not going to be the nicest action on the market.
Combined with that you also have the standard Savage Axis II trigger, now, the trigger is adjustable all the way from 2.5 pounds all the way up to 6 pounds, so for most people you’re gonna wanna to adjust that basically as far down as you can, again, depending on your application.
This one here, to be fair, has not been adjusted by me whatsoever, so I believe this is at the factory, about 4 pounds, so if you’re familiar with the Savage Axis II trigger you do have a blade safety in the center, which is kind of like the first stage if you will, so you have that little bit of take-up and it’s a very, very hard wall, and you just build pressure and you have the tiniest, very crisp break at the end.
Currently, again, I have not adjusted this down whatsoever, I believe it’s still currently at about 4, 4.5 pounds, somewhere in that range, but, again, you can adjust that all the way down to 2.5 pounds, and for most people, especially if you’re taking this out too long range, I would recommend just adjusting it as low as you personally feel comfortable with.
Another nice thing that they did on this specific rifle as well is it does with the very nice top rail that is actually a 20 MOA rail. Now, 20 MOA rails, if you’re not familiar with long range shooting and, again, personally I don’t do a lot of long range shooting, this gun actually was the first time I ever took something out to 700 yards and was able to hit consistently, so, again, I’m not necessarily a very experienced a long range shooting, 95% of my shooting is within 100 yards and then 99% of my shooting is within 500 yards and then, this is one of the only two guns that I’ve ever taken out to 700 yards, but, again, you do have a 20 MOA rail on top, which is going to give you additional headroom, especially with a caliber like 556 that at extended distances, seven, eight, nine hundred, a thousand yards, is going to start drop quite fast.
Getting into the accuracy because that is going to be one of the most important things when we’re talking about a precision rifle, is it accurate, is it reliable, is it repeatable, over several groups.
We weren’t using this optic, we were actually using the Primary Arms GLX 2.5-10x that you see in the background, and we were setting up at 100 yards from the prone with, I believe, 4 or 5 different loads. We were using some Nosler 77 grain, some HSM 77 grain match ammunition, some Atomic 77 grain ammunition, but we actually fire two-five-round groups with the HSM 77 grain match ammunition because that was the ammunition that I was going to be taking out at 700 yards, and so what I wanted to confirm that it was zeroed and also confirmed that it was grouping the way that I wanted it to, so then when I hike up to 700 yards I’m not missing all of my shots and not having a very fun time.
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Product
Price
Store
MPN
UPC
Atomic Ammo - 223 Rem - 77 Grain - Subsonic - HPBT
$58.99
True Shot Ammo
-
-
Atomic Ammo - 223 Rem - 77 Grain - Subsonic - HPBT
$227.99
True Shot Ammo
-
-
Atomic Ammo - 223 Rem - 77 Grain - Subsonic - HPBT
$549.99
True Shot Ammo
-
-
Atomic Ammunition .223 Remington Subsonic 77 Grain Full Metal Jacket Centerfire Rifle Ammo
$64.99
Bass Pro Shops
and 2 more stores
-
858767004294
Atomic Ammunition .223 Remington Subsonic 77 Grain Full Metal Jacket Centerfire Rifle Ammo
$64.99
Bass Pro Shops
-
-
Atomic Ammunition .223 Remington Subsonic 77 Grain Full Metal Jacket Centerfire Rifle Ammo
$64.99
Cabela's
-
-
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for Atomic 77 Grain on Wikiarms.com
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So, with all three of the loads that we had out for accuracy testing I was able to get around sub MOA to right at 1.5 MOA with all of the kind of match ammunition that I had out that day and, again, keep in mind that this is my shooting with a 2.5-10, which isn’t that much magnification when it comes to truly testing accuracy because you can refine your point of aim fairly well, but not quite perfectly.
Personally, I would consider like 16-25, somewhere in that range, much more preferable for accuracy testing as it does allow you to refine your zero just that much more, but, again, with both of the HSM groups I was right at an MOA, maybe just a slight bit under an MOA with both of the 5-round groups, so I was very happy with that and, again, it shows consistency over multiple loads and, for me personally, anytime I’m able to get right at 1 MOA or maybe even just a little bit under an MOA, I am very happy.
That being said, some people will see that accuracy and say ‘Well, it’s not a half-minute gun, it’s not a quarter-minute gun’ and maybe in another shooter’s hand with a different load it probably would be, but, again, some people are gonna see that accuracy and not be all that impressed because, of course, their M14 shoots better than that, but with all that out of the way, inside of 500 yards, it was an absolute laser beam, and I’ll go ahead and just let some of that footage roll.
Just off to the right side!
Might need to dial a little bit left here!
Last one here!
I mean, this is like 30-rish rounds at this point, they are all just clumped up on that guy, this is… they’re very nice.
Pretty easy!
Left side plate!
And you can just watch the trace fall right in!
Really happy with the performance right here!
I could do this all day!
Easy!
Barrel is very hot. That was 50 rounds, pretty darn quick, maybe 10, 15 minutes total, obviously, we’re running a bolt-action, so it’s not as fast as you can do with the semi-auto at about 500 yards, but we had one miss in there, could have been a bad hold on my part, bad trigger pull. For the most part though the group on the target is, obviously at this point it’s like 30 rounds in the bottom-ish section of the target, but I just use the same hold over and over and over again and it looks very good, very easy to do, trigger was great, glass, the Primary Arms GLX 2.5-10, decent, you don’t need more than ten magnification at this distance especially.
We are shooting an 11 by 18, which is not a small target, but it’s not necessarily a full-size, man-size target either, it is a bit of a two-thirds-ish reduce-size, torso steel.
So, inside of 500 yards it was really a little bit too easy honestly, so we backed up all the way to 6 and 700 yards. This is one of two guns that I’ve ever taken out to 700 yards, and even at 6 and 700 yards, with me shooting, with 2.5-10, which is, again, not all that much magnification, and with no spotter, and me just braced off of a stump at about 700 yards, I was able to make consistent impacts at 6 and 700 yards.
Alright, so here we are at about 600 yards, we are going to add at least an extra mill here. This first round is kind of a test round.
Low left of the target!
Gonna add one more mill!
Excellent!
Easy adjustments, easy hits, great ammo!
Go again!
Excellent!
You can watch the whole thing sail in from up here, which is nice, good glass.
Excellent!
Oh, high over top!
My bad!
There you go!
Excellent, very happy with this performance!
Good hit!
Oh, that was good!
Hit slightly on the left side!
Center!
Excellent!
Very happy with that, that was four in a row at seven. Like 670 I think is what this actually is.
Yep!
The last round, so either way this is it right here.
The very nice thing about this rifle in 556 or 223, especially with the break on the end, is that it has absolutely no recoil, and that means when you break the shot you don’t even go off target at all, even at 6 and 700 yards and you can just watch the trace go all the way in and adjust off of that.
With different conditions, different ammo, if I had this in 308 or 6.5 Creedmoor it would be much more difficult to spot my hits, though, again, I would probably be dealing with a little bit less wind and a little bit less drop in the case of 6.5 Creedmoor, so those calibers would have advantages ballistically, but being out there by myself the 556 proved very easy to spot my hits and my misses.
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Overall, can I complain about the Savage Axis II Precision out to 6 or 700 yards?
Absolutely not!
It did everything that it should do absolutely right, even with kind of, not necessarily even a ton of different loads to test through it, again, I just found a load that shot consistently at 1MOA, and I was able to take it out to 700 yards without much issue at all, and, again, keep in mind that while overall I might be a decent shooter in several areas, when it comes to precision shooting out to long ranger or what some of you might consider even medium range, I’m not particularly well versed in that and I was able to take this rifle out and get all of the performance that I needed out of it to that 700 yards.
What I would personally like to do with this rifle and with gun.deals is when we get in new scopes to test, new like, you know, say higher end magnification scopes, I’d like to keep this rifle around as a sort of proving ground for those optics because I know that this rifle, even with just 2.5-10, can go out to 700 yards without issue and if we get, you know, bigger, nicer scopes in higher magnification, what have you, we should be able to take this platform, maybe even out to 800, maybe even 900 yards, as I did find a new 900 yards testing zone for me to play around with.
If that is of interest to you, go ahead and comment down below what scope I should be throwing on this guy to get the most performance out of it possible, or if you guys have experience with the Savage Axis II Precision, if you guys know of a specific load that I should look up, because, again, I’ve only played around with three or four kind of precision loads, even though the atomic load is kind of a garbage load in general.
