  We present a framework for phenomenological lattice QCD calculations which
makes use of a tree level Symanzink improved action for gluons and stout-link
Wilson fermions. We give details of our efficient HMC/RHMC algorithm and
present a scaling study of the low-lying N_f=3 baryon spectrum. We find a
scaling region that extends to a~<0.16fm and conclude that our action and
algorithm are suitable for large scale phenomenological investigations of
N_f=2+1 QCD. We expect this conclusion to hold for other comparable actions.
