Do any of our brethren have experience or own a Colt Sauer Rifle, made in Germany? What is your experience and opinion of them as a plains game and/or DG rifle?
Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by dogcat:
Do any of our brethren have experience or own a Colt Sauer Rifle, made in Germany? What is your experience and opinion of them as a plains game and/or DG rifle?
Thanks

The Sauer, like the Steyr Mannlicher rifle is a well made, and reliable rifle. They are extremely accurate, and come in some good chamberings for general hunting. The only two drawbacks to these two rifles are, first they are pushfeed systems, and IMO, thus not well suited for dangerous game hunting. Secondly, both action's ejection ports are too closed in, makeing it difficult to clear a jam quickly.

Too bad, because they are both very well made rifles, if they only had the CRF feature, they would be hard to choose between! For plains game, they are both very good choices, and if you want a push feed DGR these two are about he best made anyplace! I simply will not use a push feed roifle for a DGR!

I've seen and handled them. They used to make rifles for Weatherby until 1972-1973.

They are well-made push-feed rifles. I do not know if replacement parts are readily available, however.

George

They are excellent rifles with great fit and finish and the Saur 90 I had fit me better than any other rifle I ever owned. The drawback in my opinion is the clip magazine which could cause problems in the heat the moment.

Didn't the Colt Sauer have the retracting locking lugs? Something that I would be leary of. If those lugs didn't fall into position when the rifle was made to fire, bad things could happen, it seems.

Refering to the Sauer 90 above. I have used one in .30-06 a few times and shot one in 8x68S.
When you initially handle them, the action doesn't seem very robust with those camming rear-lugs, but as they say, the proof of the pudding...

The stock fit was superb. At6'4" I found they really fit me well and the design was very comfortable. Accuracy with plain PMP factory ammo in the .30-06 (168gr) was excellent. In my limited use, very reliable. We used one as a training rifle for field guide shooting training and under rapid fire, after many shots it still performed flawlessly - I think having the single stack mag makes for great feeding, everything is aligned and the cartridges only need to make one alignment change upwards instead of the 's' type bend out of a staggered mag.

When you get past the 'flimsy' looking PF action, they are great shooters! Well made. reflected in the price!

The PF vs CRF debate will go on forever, but I don't personally believe there's anything wrong with a PF rifle....As far as the rest of the Sauer rifles go the ones I've seen are far too shiny for Africa..... sure they look pretty but they glint like hell.

I also don't like the removeable magazine and I like the safety catch in the trigger guard even less......but that's all my personal preferences...... A lot of hunters love 'em and use 'em very successfully.

I was a collector at one time they are a very good rifle. There are 4 grades . the higher grades have excelent wood and ingraving.They shoot very well ,smoothe action , All around well made gun. They are getting harder to find. They made them in about 17- 18 diffrent calibers . I thnk from 22-250 up to .458 win.

The .458 stock was some kind of really heavy, dense wood called "bubinga". I had a standard .375 H&H Colt Sauer. I had a hard time getting the scope mounted far enough forward to keep from getting a scope cut. Finally put a 2.5 Leupold compact in the two piece Redfield mounts and got by with it. Only used it on one safari. Shot a Cape Buff. and a really big Lichtehsteins's hartebeest in Zambia in 1980 with the combo.

Rich Elliott

i have a sauer 90 in 375H&H, i picked it up as my back up rifle, mounted a leupold VX-III 1.5-5 illuminated reticle on leupold QR 30mm rings, plenty of eye relief. it is one of the smoothest actions, a very accurate rifle. i would have no problem in using it for DG if i have to shoot past 100yd, if not i'll stick with my double 500, but really a CRF and a push feed makes no difference to me i have both, the sauer is a great gun and very accurate. and if you run into any problems with them you can get them fixed from sig arms in exeter,NH. they are the dealer for sauer,sig-arms,and blaser firearms, and have onsight repair facility.

I took a Sauer 90 .375 H&H (same as Colt Sauer) to Zimbabwe on my first trip to Africa. It performed superbly. It was accurate and had an exceptionally smooth action. Great balance and feel.

I took it for plains game and decided for DG that I needed CRF and non-detachable magazine.

They are great guns. I recommend them highly if they are to your taste. Mine was the flat oil finish stock, not the ultra high gloss variety.