After waiting nearly a week for the Savage Axis XP in .308 to get in stock, I wanted to shoot so badly, I booked it after work for an evening shooting session.

I have been in the market for a hunting rifle for quite some time now. As much as I wanted to get a CZ-527 Carbine (I still do), I was realizing that it was out of my price range and I wanted a caliber that was a little more geared towards hunting than 7.62x39, which says "military" and not "hunting" to some people. So I looked around. I could go the route of a Remington, and I do like Remington quite a lot, but I didn't want to be like every other person in the world with a Remington 700 in .308. So I went the back alley route and went with a Savage Axis XP. It felt ligher than the Remington and just overall had a comfortable fit. So after waiting about a week for the .308 to get in, I finally bought it. And by that time, I was starting to have bad flashbacks of being in California with ridiculous waiting periods. But, it was a gun well worth the wait.

The Specs
Caliber: .308
Magazine Capacity: 4 rounds
Recoil: Low.
Ease of use: Because it's a full sized gun, it shoots nicely, sights are easy to line up quickly, but if you are the kind of person who gets frustrated with a lot of buttons, you probably won't enjoy the Sig and it's decocker button.
Cost: Sometimes you sacrifice quality when you go down in cost. The nice thing about this guy is, that's not the case. They retail around $325 give or take and come in a wide range of calibers and also a camo stock version as well.
Misc: This gun comes stock with a Bushnell scope. I don't know much about scopes, but the clarity on it is pretty decent.

How Does The Gunslinging Housewife Rate It?
Pro: First off, .308 is a very nice all encompassing round for hunting. You can take anything from hogs, to deer, to elk, even, with it. Long story short, if you're hunting in North America, you can't go wrong with .308. Additionally, this is a very lightweight rifle. My first though when I held it was that it was going to be a super butt-kicking caliber and the gun would go all over the place because it was so light, but 40 rounds later, I shocked to learn that it was completely opposite of what my expectations were. It's got a smooth bolt action, but there is a quirk I have in the cons which needs further evaluation. Finally, it has a very smooth trigger.

Cons: There aren't any back up iron sights. If your scope gets misaligned, that's it. You're done for. So just make sure when you get your scope aligned, you do something to ensure it will stay in place. Also, this gun isn't meant to shoot a lot of rounds in one time frame. It's function is as a hunting rifle. It may be because it's new or the ammo I was using, I'll still need to do more testing on this, but it seems like it gets hot pretty easily and once that happens, the bolt starts to want to stick a bit. However, when the bolt isn't sticking, it's a very smooth action and nice to shoot.