They are solid, very good shooting out of the box, inexpensive.
Look also at the Marlin XS7 in .260 Rem ( hard to find chambering). The Marlin also comes in left hand and is owned by the same parent company as Savage. Its design employs some of the best features of proven rifles, like the Remington 700, Savage 110, and others. It uses the Savage barrels and the method of attaching them to the action with a barrel nut, which means you can buy inexpensive barrels and change the caliber yourself, from .260 to 7mm-08, to .308 Win, to .243.
What about looking for a 6.5 X 55 in left handed? Maybe more choice? Heard they are pretty similar calibres (though never seen or handled a 260 someone on here will no doubt confirm or rebut)Thanks for all the replies gents, it's a pain being a lefty as so little choice. Savage is only maker I have found that do .260 in anything longer than 22in barrel.
thanks again
8x57- you are right. ATK now owns Savage Arms.
But many of the Savage barrels will fit the Marlin XL7 and XS7. ( Some older Savage barrels will not, as they have different, square threads).
Arthur Savage is an interesting character. He was an American, educated some in England, went to Australia with his wife and was a pioneer in a covered wagon, where he amassed a huge cattle ranch. He sold it and moved to Jamaica, where he built up a coffee plantation and sold that. Moved to Utica, New York, which was a center of shotgun and knife manufacturing.
He invented a lawn mower, as he saw the development of suburbs around Chicago, with lawns. He took a job in a gun magazine factory to learn more about firearms. He and his son designed the Model 1899 lever action, to submit it to trials for the US Army. They did not accept it, but he thought a removable clip was great idea, patented it, and later incorporated it into the civilian Model 99. He invented torpedoes, perhaps a bazooka type of shoulder fired rocket launcher, and other things.
There are a lot a connections to England. Savage Arms produced 70,000 Lewis machineguns during the 1920s. They were making the No.4 MkI Enfield in the 1930s and supplying England, who did not have a factory for them until 1941. IIRC, they built about 1,200,000 Enfields.
PS: A friend of mine owns one of the 1899 Savage rifles sold to the U.S. Army for trials. It is really beautiful, a big, hefty rifle with a crescent buttplate. It is in .30-40 Krag. The later .300 Savage was an obvious inspiration for the 7.62x51mm cartridge.
I always thought that Savage was one of the U.S. companies supplied Britain and not just England during the war years, I wonder who supplied the rest of the U.K. ?
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I have never found any original records of Savage shipping to any country other than England, but a friend is a firearms dealer who specializes in military rifles, and is a collector of Enfields, with so rare pieces, like the Savage No. 6 left hand model. I will ask him.
Canada had its own Longbranch factory, and was producing rifles for England. The original orders were for a 5-groove barrel, but Longbranch and Savage independently tried 4, 3, and 2-groove barrels, and demonstrated no loss of accuracy, so permission was given to build them as 2-groove.
Australia had its own Lithgow factory, India was producing variations of the No. 1 at Ishapore, and Pakistan had POF. India and Pakistan shipped to England during the war.
Canada had come into WWI with the .280 Ross, but had abandoned them, as their soldiers picked up the No.1 MkIIIs left by killed and wounded British soldiers. So Canada took back with them Enfields made in England.
The US also supplied about 90,000 P-17s in .30-06, which were used in the Second World War.
A piece of history not taught in school is that Franklin Roosevelt in WWI was Undersecretary of the Navy. His counterpart in England was Winston Churchill, and they conspired for the US to secretly supply England with rifles and ammunition. The Lusitania and its sister ship, the Mauritania, carried munitions from Remington and DuPont along with passengers, to Ireland. That is why the Kaiser took out a full page ad in the New York Times warning passengers that those ships were considered fair game.
When I worked, on several occasions, as a consultant in ocean shipping, I had the benefit of access to the records of liner companies acquired by my clients, going back to Cunard, and even to the time of Elizabeth I.