Review: Winchester SXR2 pump-action

The SXR2 is Winchester’s dive into the realm of the pump-action hunting rifle. We haven’t seen anything quite like this from Winchester before, and it’s designed to put serious firepower down range as quickly and accurately as possible.

Similar to the semi-automatic SXR2 available in the USA, the pump-action is a modified version for European and Australian markets where self-loaders are heavily restricted.

Winchester SXR2 pump-action rifle review — The SXR2 is a versatile hunting rifle, with the capacity to cull mobs of ferals as well as the calibres to drop big game

Winchester hasn’t produced a pump-action rifle since the Model 62 rimfire in the 1950s, a far cry from the futuristic-looking SXR2’s modern design and large-calibre capability. The fact that factory chamberings start at .308 gives you an idea that the SXR2 means business.

The black steel receiver is drilled and tapped for a picatinny rail. Lockup is achieved by a rotating bolt head with seven locking lugs. A red indicator on the bolt helps you see quickly when the action is closed and you’re ready to roll.

The barrel is an impressive piece of gear. At 53cm (21”) long it provides a great middle ground between maintaining decent velocities and being able to be swung around quickly at moving targets. The sporter profile has a slight taper to it, going from 19mm at the front of the battue sight down to 17mm at the muzzle.

That barrel on this rifle, chambered in .308, was very easy to handle but I imagine the .300 Win Mag version might be a tad lively and fairly loud!

Being cold hammer forged by FN Herstal in Europe, the barrel is of a very high quality and I found it was very consistent with different types of ammunition, even when it started to get a little warm.

It’s threaded and capped at the muzzle and has a fully adjustable fibre-optic front sight. The rear of the barrel features a battue-style rear sight that provides a very fast sight picture and would work well for those of us who wish to run the rifle without a scope.

The trigger is advertised as releasing at 1.4kg (or 3lb) and the rifle I had for testing let off at an average of 1.5kg over a dozen pulls. Very close to advertised specs. There is no adjustability offered but the weight is about where you’d want it to be. Too light a trigger could be problematic when things speed up.

A bit of creep is almost unavoidable in a trigger of this style, which uses a hammer to hit the firing pin, rather than just releasing a spring-loaded firing pin. Despite this, I found the trigger decent to use and it helped me shoot groups that were better than I was expecting out of this rifle.

There is a cross-bolt safety located at the front of the trigger guard which feels positive. It can be easily reversed by a gunsmith for left-handed shooters.

The stock on this model is a durable composite material with chequering in all the right places. The sling-swivel stud at the front is far enough forward that the rifle carries nice and low, keeping the muzzle out of brush as you walk.

The rifle comes with six shims that allow you to adjust the pitch and cast of the stock at the receiver, ensuring it fits perfectly, a detail that is essential to making fast follow-up shots.

The recoil pad feels good and offers similar adjustability, although the spacers for this part are available separately.

I found the standard stock setup from the factory just right for me, but I should point out that I’m 172cm tall and don’t often have the need to add spacers and shims to stocks for this reason.

It’s also worth noting that cheek pieces are available separately for the synthetic stocks, and Winchester is bringing other models into the country with walnut and camo stocks, so there are options that should suit most shooters.

The pump-action slide is where this rifle starts to peel away from the crowd. The fore-end of the stock is fixed to the receiver, and the slide is mounted separately. It makes cycling the action feel very smooth, as you effectively have fewer big parts of the rifle moving backwards and forwards.

Further to this, a recoil spring helps move the slide and bolt forward once you’ve cycled the action backwards. Limiting the effort required to reload makes a dramatic difference in target acquisition when shooting quickly, and it makes it hard to go back to pump-action rifles that lack this feature.

A couple of Allen screws on the pump slide and a bolt on the front of the stock are easily removed to take off the fore-end and clean those hard-to-get places. Maintaining this rifle isn’t too much to ask.

A slide catch holds the action open when you eject the last cartridge in your magazine. It’s a great feature that will prevent you from closing the bolt on an empty chamber, only to hear a click when you squeeze the trigger. I came to appreciate it. It saves you having to count your rounds off, or wasting time dry-firing once before inserting a full magazine. Overall, it makes for more successful operation of the rifle.

Speaking of magazines, they don’t scrimp from the factory here. The .308 and .30-06 models comes with nine- and ten-round magazines respectively, and four-round magazines can be purchased if need be. With the .300 Win Mag being a larger, belted case, the only choice is a three-rounder.

I think the rifle looks the best with the smaller three- or four-round magazines, which sit nice and flush with the bottom of the stock, but there is no denying that nine rounds of .308 can be very tempting and useful in some situations.

The bigger magazine hangs down and kicks backwards, which looks a little awkward, but in my testing and carrying I didn’t find it got in the way at all.

The magazine release is located in front of the trigger guard and the index finger on my shooting hand found it easily. Pull the release lever and the magazine pops out into your other hand. Putting in new magazines was a little tricky until I got used to inserting the front first, when it became second nature.

Hitting the slide catch once a new magazine is in will chamber a new round with the spring-assisted cycling, and you’re in business again.

The Winchester balances and points well with the Meopta 1-6x24mm scope on it, keeping the majority of the weight where it needs to be. With the scope and nine-round magazine filled with 150gn factory loads, the SXR2 weighs 4.5kg. Perhaps a little hefty for some, but most people using the high-capacity magazines are either going to be shooting from vehicles or walking in places where they’ve tossed up their options and are willing to carry some extra grams to have a bit more firepower.

In that configuration the rifle was very pleasant to shoot as far as a .308 is concerned. If I were still living out west and chasing pigs across stubble paddocks from quad bikes, this rifle and scope would perhaps be the perfect choice for that task.

Given many hunters might be shooting rounds through this rifle in high quantities, I tested it with affordable varieties of 150gn factory ammunition from Remington, PPU and Winchester, and some 130gn HP from Sako. Calibre Country in Tamworth looked after me with the ammunition, as well as some other equipment to help carry out the tests. I shot over several days with temperatures around the 17°C mark, with solid rests, minimal wind and the 1-6x24mm scope.

While I had a couple of three-shot groups around the 1.8 MOA mark at 100m, the majority of the groups were around 1.4 MOA. I did jag a .8 group with the Sako 130gn HP. Nothing to complain about in the accuracy department.

I can see this rifle being useful in the thick river flats of sambar country, where most shots might be close but the chance of a cross-gully poke is on the cards. The rifle is accurate enough to make shots on deer sized game out to 300 metres without much hassle, and a slightly bigger scope such as the Meopta 3-15x44mm I used in some other tests might be a good choice for that task.

A hunter chasing versatility might have two scopes in quick release rings such as the ones I used in testing, and press the rifle into service both on culling operations and modest cross-gully shots on the honkers.

Winchester has shown us that pump-action rifles can have a bit more finesse about them than we’ve come to expect from other comparable rifles. It points and balances well enough for quick shooting, but is accurate enough to be your main stalking rifle if that’s what you need it to be.