Thread: New Sabatti Rover 6.5 x 55 review

The 10MOA Contessa rail from Alan Rhone in the UK came. Great shop... UK to my (rural NZ) door in under a week! And the price was comparable to Brownells. If you need anything for a Sabatti they're a good choice I think. And a very nicely made rail too. The usual concern is that it doesn't sit flush with the receiver. I tested it by holding one end onto the receiver and tapping the other end listening for a little click sound to show the base is see-sawing on the mount points. It sat firmly without any need for bedding at all. And a great semi-gloss finish with none of the tell tail signs of factory metalwork. Hopefully the Warne QR rings come just as fast.

The Warne QR rings came very fast indeed, overnight ex my favourite shop in ChCh.

A bit of a deep inhale as I put them on because I got the low rings and wasn't 100% sure I'd be able to mount the 50mm objective lens with them. But all good....



Just enough room to spare to fit a pair of butler creek caps on the scope.

I did make a newbie mistake though and fit the rings so the QR levers were on the right side of the rifle. I realised it'll be tight enough already top loading the rifle with the rail where it is.



So I pulled the rings off again and mounted them the other way. Sweet.



I've bore-sighted the scope and the next stop is the range. I'm not sure I like this Vortex Viper 4-16 X 50. It's got 1/2MOA adjustment on the vertical plane...I'd rather 1/4MOA. And the focus/parallax knob on the left side of the scope does my head in. I'll probably keep forgetting to adjust it. And playing in the backyard, it seemed to drastically reduce the eye relief at higher magnification and I felt like there was a lot of distortion. But that wasn't a fair field test so I'll find out this weekend I hope.

PS: I said earlier the trigger was adjustable. I was wrong. Officially it's not adjustable. Though that big bolt head at the back of the trigger group is begging to be tested I think.



But I know nothing...so I'll look around for some advise on that or go down to Elios, which is literally 1km from where I am writing this.

The long promised range report.

I made two trips over the weekend to the range and finished off the box of PPU FMJ I had and then moved onto the 6.5 x 55 Hornady SST 140g that I'll hunt with until I get to reloading my own.

On the upside, I think this rifle is extremely accurate. Potentially the most accurate I've had. On the downside either barrel heat or barrel dirt throws the rifle off target very very quickly.



TARGET LEFT from a clean and cold barrel at 100y on a still day, shots 1 - 3 running left to right away from the bull.
TARGET RIGHT from a clean and cold barrel at 100y on a still day, shots 1 - 3 running left to right again.

Shots 4, 5, 6 and onwards were all over the place on the right hand side of the target, say within four inches of the bull at worst. They were spreading high and low too, not just laterally.

I suspect it's barrel heat since the barrel is bloody thin and cleaning the barrel didn't seem to make much of a difference to accuracy once it was warm.

It's a hunting rifle so if it shoots like that on every first shot, then bloody good. I won't need shots 2, 3 and 4.

The other interesting factor is the box magazine spring is bloody strong and is pushing the cartridges hard up against the bolt making everything quite tight to operate. Two cartridges is not to bad, three is bad, four is very bad and I never got to the full load of five to find out what happens then. I don't know how to fix that so advice would be appreciated.

I think this might be the end of the Sabatti Rover 6.5 x 55 review. If accuracy changes as it wears in I'll update this. But for now let's call it a first shot wonder and as second shot wanderer.

I had an AR 15 mag that would only load 4 instead of 7, so I kept on cutting coils off the spring till I got 7 in . You might find this a bit drastic. either that or leave the mag loaded with 4 in it for a few weeks and see whether it has freed up at all.

It's one of those load through the breech sort of magazines, with a bottom plate. I did wonder about loading it up with empties and setting it aside for a few months.

Originally Posted by YosemiteSam

It's one of those load through the breech sort of magazines, with a bottom plate. I did wonder about loading it up with empties and setting it aside for a few months.

Probably the best option.

I'd persevere with the cleaning regime a bit more : simply because I'm pretty sure this model has their poly-blah rifling. Top-end manufacturers use it too, so must be all-good,but maybe needs that break-in procedure-ish..? Good luck, I came sooo close to buying the same,but earlier model,with the traditional rifling, and sort-of wish I had. Great looking rifle.

If it wanders in a certain direction every time that's the bedding isn't it?

Originally Posted by csmiffy

If it wanders in a certain direction every time that's the bedding isn't it?

Yeah that's what I'd be thinking, horizontal spread is also indicative of inconsistent trigger pull.

Check your action screws are both tight.

Awesome suggestions. I'll check the action and the trigger pull.

Awesome to see a "new" rifle with iron sights, I approve