[Wild Bill Bucks]

This thread is not intended as a platform from the traditionalist vs Everything else, but just to let you guys know what I found out over the last 2 days.

I got My new Savage Friday afternoon, and as soon as I got home with it, I did a visual inspection of the rifle. Everything looked fine except for the "hack saw" looking riflings down the barrel. I used some fine grit "Novus" scratch remover, and polished the barrel with 100 strokes. This cleaned the riflings very well. I then cleaned the breech plug and greased it, and the vent liner, as was recommended. I then bore sighted a Burris Fullfield 4X14 scope and I was ready for the range.

Saturday morning, I went to the range with some Vit. #110 and my 250 grain .452 Hornady bullets and MMP Black short sabots. I loaded 42 grains of powder, popped in a federal #209 primer and took a shot.

I got lucky and my bore sighting put the first round about 2" high and 1" left at 50 yards. I reloaded without any swabbing the barrel (which is why I bought the rifle in the first place) and took another shot. The two holes were touching, so I made the adjustments on the scope, and let the rifle sit for about 15 minutes. I did not clean the barrel or use a swab of any kind.

The next shot was right in the bullseye, and I moved to the 100 yard range.
After about 5 or 10 minutes I loaded another round, and at 100 yards I was hitting about 1" high and 1" to the right, so I made a scope adjustment and the next 3 rounds were inside a 3/4" group, dead center.

I took about 3 more hours of shooting and shot about 16 more shots, and never cleaned the barrel or the action of the rifle, although I did break the breech plug loose at about the 8th shot, and retightened it.

I believe the rifle to be everything that it is hyped up to be,as far as accuracy is concerned, and I think a guy could shoot it all day without cleaning, and the rifle will maintain a useable hunting group (within a 1 1/2" group)

After I got home I took the breech plug out and cleaned the plug and vent liner, wiped down the barrel and applied the oil and grease in all the right spots, and was through with clean up in about 5 minutes.

Everything about the rifle is easy to use, and clean, and has the best accuracy of any muzzle loader I have owned. The recoil is quite a bit lighter than I was used to, which is a big plus for me, and although I don't own a chronograh, the load I am using reports almost 2300fps.

Don't have any ranges around here longer than 100 yards, but I can't wait to go out and find someplace I can shoot at 200 yards, just to see what it will do.

Rifle is a little pricey at $620.00 (SSMLII with thumbhole lam. stock) but it was well worth the 6 months of saving it took me to get it.

Just some info for those of you thinking about takeing the plunge.