The Steyr Scout is a modern scoped bolt-action rifle manufactured by Steyr Mannlicher and chambered primarily for 7.62 NATO, although other caliber options are offered commercially. It is intended to fill the role of a versatile, lightweight all-around rifle as specified in Jeff Cooper'sscout rifle concept. Apart from the barrel and action, it is made primarily of polymers and is designed to be accurate to at least 300–400 meters. The Steyr Scout is also available in 5.56 NATO,.243 Winchester, 6.5 Creedmoor,.376 Steyr and 7mm-08 Remington.
Overview
The Steyr Scout has the following features:
Removable box magazines with a magazine cut-off, individual rounds can be manually loaded through the ejection port, allowing for the magazine to be kept in reserve.
Second spare magazine stored in the butt of the rifle.
There were early reports of problems with the Steyr Scout rifle relating to breakage of the bipodpivot pin. The affected part was subsequently redesigned to improve its strength. Some shooters complained that the bipod was too tall. The Weaverrail above the action and barrel allows either for conventional positioning of a scope with normal 1.5–3.5 in eye relief or for the forward placement of an intermediate/long eye relief "scout scope". The latter is more faithful to Cooper's Scout concept, and the Steyr-Mannlicher rifle can be ordered from the factory with a low-magnification Leupold scope with long eye relief.
Variants
Steyr Elite
A variant and effectively the successor of the Scout is the Steyr Elite, a more robustly constructed model with many of the same features of the Scout, but designed primarily for the law enforcement market for an urban tactical role. Differences to the standard Scout include an extended STANAG type mounting rail, an enlarged bolt knob of the SSG type, an adjustable cheek piece, and a height-adjustable buttpad. It is fitted with a heavy barrel, and can produce high muzzle velocities due to a "fast" internal profile. The additional features of the Elite give it a weight of over, which makes it fall outside the definition of a scout rifle. Although intended for intermediate ranges, with match grade 7.62 mm ammunition and 10.0 g projectiles, entirely acceptable performance at up to has been recorded, making it a good all-rounder. It is standard with a synthetic 5-round magazine, but an external adaptor kit can be attached to fit a 10-round magazine. It is normally available in two calibers; 5.56 NATO and 7.62 NATO, but can be specially ordered in 7 mm-08 Remington upon request.
Steyr Scout RFR
Also referred to as the Scout Survival, the Scout RFR is the rimfire version of the Scout, with three caliber choices of.17 HMR,.22 LR and.22 WMR. It is a new addition to the lineup, formally introduced in the 2017 SHOT Show. The RFR has an ISSC SPA-style "toggle" straight-pull action and a UNF 1/2"-20 threaded heavy blued barrel, with an overall rifle length of and weighing. It comes with a 10-round metal box magazine, and an optional survival knife that can be hidden in the storage cavity in the buttstock. It has a full-length Picatinny rail over the handguard in front of the receiver, which has dovetail grooves but includes two Weaver-style adaptor bases for mounting optics. Unlike the centerfire models, which have three attachment points for using Ching slings, the RFR only has two attachment points for using conventional slings.
