Quick Review: Savage A22 LR
I purchased this rifle 4 months ago and as promised I said I would post a quick review and thoughts of the Rifle.
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Living in Central Otago is a rabbit hunters paradise with constant high numbers and most land owners more than happy to give access to responsible shooters who can bowl some rabbits for them.
I tend to get out every weekend and often during summer after work with the long evenings here allowing shooting nearly till 10 pm.
One thing that does test a rifle down here is the sheer amount of ammo that passes through it and weaknesses in the rifle system are soon exposed , more on this later.
I have been here now coming up 4 yrs and have gone through 3 rifles. First was my Unique that just deserved better than being a workhorse.
Next came a JW 15, one of the older ones with an off centre bore, however despite this it shot very well but I just got sick of cranking the bolt and being a leftie it didn't work well for spotlighting.
It was time for a new tool for the job. It really came down to three.
Marlin 725
Ruger 10 / 22
Savage A22
I didn't like the feel of the Marlin and a friend had a shocker of a 10 / 22 that put me off for life ( nearly ) So the Savage it was.
Now there are three models in the "A" series and they do vary in one important area. Both the A17 and A22 mag feature a new delayed blow back system to cope with the more powerful cartridges. Savage even developed special ammo for the A17 to go with the rifle and achieve optimal performance. This delayed system is not shared with the 22LR version that runs a more conventional set up.
The receivers are steel not alloy and the barrels are threaded into the receiver not pinned . This in theory should provide a good accurate base. On top of this it runs a 10 shot rotary mag and the accutrigger system.
The stock is a polymer / plastic that does the job fine, light weight with raised areas for grip and a pleasing shape. One of the features that I really like is you pop off the dust cover at the back of the receiver and you can
remover all the workings of the action and clean the rifle from the breech end, it's quick ans easy and shows some thought has gone into the design.
My rifle shipped with out open sights but with Weaver bases. Mine had also had the barrel shortened and threaded, by who despite being a new rifle I don't know .
The rifle has done maybe 1500 - 2000 rds of both sub sonic and super and overall it is a reliable performer with few jams , maybe two or three every 100 - 150 rounds.
The action keeps on going even when very dirty which is what I need down here in a workhorse.
Accuracy was good but not great . I would get 1 inch groups at 50 yrds which made for easy 100 yrd plus kills. Best kill was 168yrds . Although it's no tack driver its very consistent .
The stock was good in the field and light weight made carrying comfortable and the flush fitting mag means no sharp points digging into forearms etc.
The accutrigger was adjusted down to it's lowest point and it is nothing great , a little creep and gritty but acceptable and functional.
Now the bad stuff . The Magazine was a problem for me from day one. It's a two piece construction where one half is alloy and the other plastic . It also has a plastic clip that once you push it up into the mag well it snaps into place.
It is sloppy and fits badly , I had it fall out twice and the clip feels very cheap and flimsy . I know they have had problems with these clips breaking off in the States.
It is hard to load and requires a certain technique that I never really got hold off despite well over 1500 rds.
After about 1000 rounds it started to malfunction with losing all rotary tension to feed the next bullet. Drop the mag out and shake it , drop it , bang it and it would just be a internally loose rattling piece of shit.
Only way I could get it going again was insert a knife blade and depress it and wiggle till it suddenly unstuck itself. As time and rounds went on the problem got worse and worse .
Eventually it stopped working altogether and I had to open it up. The internals revealed some design issues . The mag internally was filthy with the action blowing a lot of spent powder back into the mag.
At the end of a long afternoon hunt my loading fingers would be black from powder on the mag face. Next problem is the plastic ammo rotor, there is a plastic tang that hits a stop point once all rounds are fired. This was not straight and showing weakness . The mag is a mongrel to put back together also and despite the big clean it still played up and two weeks later the before mentioned plastic tang snapped off making the mag totally inoperable and the rifle redundant till another replacement mag was obtained. Not impressed.
So the rifle has being traded and gone as I cannot afford the unreliability with and volume of shooting to be done.
Overall I like the rifle and I may just have been unlucky with a faulty mag . For a shooter who isn't out doing a huge volume it would make an excellent choice. Apart from the mag it showed some design thought and flair.
Accuracy 7 / 10
Ergonomics 9 / 10
Fit and Finish 6 / 10
Reliability ( mag aside ) 8 / 10 and maybe the jams I did have were still caused by poor feeding from the mag.
It would have been a winner but let down by poor mag design and poor materials in the mag.
