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It has been two years since I bought my Savage .308. Because it shot so well out of the box, one range buddy went right out and bought one just like it and it shot just as well. Two other buddies decided on Savage .223s and they also shot lights out right out of the box.
My son then bought both a .223 and a .308 and the two also shoot just as well.
Finally, one of the .223 buyers also bought a .308 and it is also a good shooter.
That totals 7 Savages that all shot great out of the box and needed no adjustments.
The .308s shoot in the .6 MOA range on average.
The .223s shoot a bit better, probably because of the lighter recoil, and average around 0.4 MOA with their best loads shooting slightly better.
After reloading for my .308, I have gotten the 25 best loads to average 0.458 inches at 100 yards over 188 measured groups.
Its best 10 loads average 0.419.
From those experiences, I would conclude that most Savages will shoot really well out of the box. An Axis without a accutrigger might not shoot quite as well but there are lots of posts on this forum that report very good accuracy for them as well. I would suspect that the Axis will still be able to break the 1 MOA mark with ammo it likes.
As a side note, I bought a Remington 700 SPS Varmint for a clearance price of$436 in .22-250 and it shot well averaging about 0.7 inches at 100 yards. The trigger was heavy and gritty so I replaced it with a Timney. The factory stock was binding on the barrel so I replaced the stock with a Bell and Carlson. It now averages under 0.4 with its best ammos.
Unfortunately, my bargain Remington cost me another $ 350 to get it to shoot as good as the Savages that none of us have done anything to.
It is now a great rifle and is definately a keeper, but it did need some extra work to get it to its full potential.
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