Scope sounds excessive. I'd go for a 3x9 first. I have a really neat Weaver 2x10 on my Remington M7 in .308, love that combination! For hunting, I am more more interested in the lower power than the higher. Anything over 7x is excessive on most big game rifles. If you hunt prairie dogs at 500 yards with a Swift, well, 14x might come in handy. Leupold's are strong scopes, decent optics, a little over priced, but you have to pay for the name, ya know. Remington rifles have always proved to me that they can produce 1 MOA or less, even the soda straw barrel on the little M7. I have a Savage, everyone raves about Savage accuracy and I have a couple of loads for the gun (in 7 mag) that are 1 MOA, but my most accurate rifles are Remingtons. That Savage is real picky about what it likes, too. The Remingtons are more forgiving, more consistently accurate with a wider variety of ammo/bullets. Just my experience, anyway. I really don't know why Savage is so widely praised. They are a LOT of rifle for the money, but IMHO, the Remington is better looking, more refined, more accurate, just a better rifle all around. I won't sell the Savage, though, gets the job done and the big 7 is fun to blast from the bench with in a masochistic sort of way. I don't use it much anymore for hunting, just hunt deer and hogs and not that far away anymore, and my .308 is awesome. If I ever go after elk, I'll carry that 7 with Nosler 160 partitions, though, but for deer/hog around here, there is little reason to carry such a big, heavy long action gun. The .308 works great!