After the statutory 4 hours cleaning, fiddling, adjusting & admiring we were ready to go; ready for the thrill of shooting a new gat for the first time – would it feed, would it hell! No matter how much your humble correspondent tweaked, prised, hammered & swore, the magazine simply wouldn’t consistently raise the nose of the round high enough to feed smoothly …. Damnit! Seems as though either the mag or the mag spring is tonk. Pah! Who wants a 5 round mag anyway – better order something a lot more substantial.

As for the moderator

after feeding a few rounds by hand, it doesn’t seem a lot noisier that your average air rifle – although I hope to be able to test that a little more scientifically in a few weeks time.

Fully kitted, the once svelte Savage now tips the scales at a slightly more portly 10.8lbs – however this isn’t the end of the world as she will spend most of her working life(& I do mean working) being used on vermin control duties, over the back of a Landrover.

Sadly, notwithstanding magazine issues, zeroing will probably have to wait for a couple of weeks as next weekend I will be in my own private little hell – but more on that towards the end of the week!

P.S. & to those I you who notice these things & you know who you are: YES, I really have bought a wooden stocked rifle.

* I use the term dealer in its ‘street’ sense here, being a long term sufferer of CFPD**

** CFPD (Compulsive Firearms Purchasing Disorder)