I bought....I mean Santa was good to me this year and delivered a CVA Cascade SB from Sportsman's Warehouse (for $529)....figured what the heck its worth a try. It's a 223 in the same model as Ross1147 has in his picture above. I actually like the shorty 18" barrel setup, it feels and swings great when seated on the ground or in a low chair. Easy to carry too, I pack it around opposite the tripod on my big boy hunting backpack when I walk the dog every evening. It slings over the shoulder very easily as well.
Fit and finish is good enough, I agree with Ross that its quite better feel than a Savage axis. I don't particularly like the oversized bolt handle, but I don't wear heavy duty gloves down here in the Southwest so I prefer a smaller handle. The stock looks perty decent, my barrel channel lined up mostly straight, and the feel of it is good with a slight soft touch finish and modest palm swell. To me it "feels" a wee bit chunky in the middle near the action, feeling just a slight bit wider (maybe 1/8" wider each side) in girth than most small caliber wood stocked rifles I'm used to. I like the magazine, it functions well and also like being able to push the rounds straight down from the top makes it easy to load. It can actually be loaded through the ejection port if for some weird reason its absolutely necessary. The cerakote finish is not super premium, but very nice, and its a fresh change for me I've usually had blued rifles in the past. Bolt action to me is just a little gritty, but a few drops of oil helped out alot. I may polish it out with some Flitz and elbow grease later.
The first set of patches I ran through it straight out of the box came out nasty black. No big deal, but it took a few more than I expected. For break in/assessment I set it up with an old (but fairly decent) Nikon 4-12 target scope. Still waiting on the TBAC Ultra 7 suppressor we discussed a couple months back so I screwed my AAC 30 caliber can on (this 223 has a heavy barrel and 5/8 threads so viola....too easy). I bore sighted it then shot 4x three round "groups" at a rock about 200yds down my driveway, cleaning fairly thorough each time using Patch out which has a light hint of copper solvent in it.
Now for the good part....rounds 13-16 and 17-20 I started shooting 4 round groups at an amazon box on a sawhorse in front of the ditch bank down the driveway (shooting out of my garage suppressed makes me cheat and not go to the range). Shot two groups with two different house do-all handloads, cleaned in between groups with two wet patches followed 5 minutes later with 3-4 dry. Never looked closely at the target in the meantime. Being very roughly sighted in on a rock, I don't expect to hit the paster and cant see the groups on the buff cardboard through the scope unless I look for them which I didn't. Finally walked down there and it surprised the hell outta me on close inspection. Minus the first shot (I assume the fouler) each group had 3 really tight shots with rounds touching in each. One of the groups (50gr Vmax, 25gr Varget) they were all piled on top of each other like a 70's "dance party." The other was 55gr Vmax, 25gr H335 just under 3/8".
I'll keep posted after I finish with break in, but the plans for this weekend include a few calling sets so I'll keep it at 4-6 rounds each morning and then a simple clean...well actually I hope its 10 rounds but most likely not. I'll shoot groups on paper after 40-50 rounds as convenient. Using a suppressor for most of my hunting rifles, I do lightly clean semi-regularly but just with a swipe and wipe or two of Patchout or Butch's bore shine or something easy like that to get the black stuff out. I hardly ever scrub them till they're NASA telescope clean.
Overall, I'm very pleased with this inexpensive rifle.