Savage Shows Palma Rifle at NRA Meeting

At the NRA Annual Meeting, Savage Arms has its latest long-range precision rifle on display — a Palma rifle, chambered in .308 Winchester. Team Savage Captain Stan Pate will be manning the Savage booth (#527) during the show and can answer questions about the new gun.

The .308 Palma is made for 1K prone competition with iron sights and sling. It comes with Savage’s Target AccuTrigger, adjustable down to six ounces. The rifle features a 30-inch heavy barrel tapered to accept standard aftermarket sights. The stock has an adjustable cheekpiece, 3-way adjustable buttplate, and forearm accessory rail. Currently, Savage is the only large manufacturer producing “factory rifles” for Palma competition.

Savage also produces rifles for F-Class Open and F-T/R disciplines. The Palma and F-Class guns, including a new 6mmBR F-Classer, “were made to compete and win against the most expensive custom guns.” Savage VP of Sales and Marketing Brian Herrick said. Terry Brady has been testing a 6mmBR Savage F-Classer for AccurateShooter.com. He reports: “It looks good. I still need to work up a load and chron it, but I’ve been able to shoot sub-inch groups at 300 yards in early testing.”

Outdoor Channel Loses Popular TV Shows to The Sportsman Channel.

Ten Intermedia Outdoors television shows, including popular shooting sports shows, will no longer be broadcast on the Outdoor Channel next season. The line-up of shows includes: “Guns & Ammo Television,” “Guns & Ammo Television Classics,” “In-Fisherman Television,” “In-Fisherman Critical Concepts,” “North American Whitetail Television,” “Bowhunter Magazine TV,” “Personal Defense TV,” “Shallow Water Angler,” “In-Fisherman Professional Walleye Trail” and “Petersen’s Hunting ADVENTURE Television.”

These shows will continue to run, but on a different cable network — The Sportsman Channel (TSC), which Intermedia Outdoors acquired last year. (See Related Story).

Intermedia pulled a large block of TV content from the Outdoor Channel and will use those shows in the future as the backbone of its own network. In a press release, Intermedia Outdoors CEO Jeff Paro declared: “We are going to build The Sportsman Channel into the leading outdoor network, both in distribution and ratings. Shifting all of our programming to TSC is a major first step in that direction. We have led in every outdoors category we have entered-magazine, internet, and television production-and now we will lead in networks.” Paro continued: “We will actively and aggressively program TSC with hunting, shooting and fishing content, with a focus on high-quality original programming….”

Jim Shepard, editor of The Outdoor Wire, believes that the Outdoor Channel was hit hard by Intermedia’s decision to move its TV shows: “In one shot, InterMedia Outdoors has announced to the television industry that it not only intends to become the major player in outdoor television, it is quite willing to hammer its former partner in a very public manner.”