Rifle rankings (was: General questions)
Toby Bradshaw
factory rifle makes. I place accuracy above all other rifle criteria,
so naturally I prefer Remington :) I have seen many people post that
their Ruger [just to pick a name at random :) ] shoots sub-MOA, which
seems plenty accurate. For big game hunting under most circumstances,
it is accurate _enough_, I agree. But good factory rifles will shoot
much better than this, under 0.5MOA out to 200 yards or so. Whether
this difference is meaningful to you depends on the type of hunting
and recreational shooting you do. A good custom rifle will shoot
better still, under 0.25MOA out to 300 yards at least (this is as
far as I have range facilities to test).
Some would (and have) placed Remington further down their list for
various reasons, some of which I think are valid. Here is my summary
of common rifle makes with my perceptions of their strengths and
weaknesses. Realize that the difference between individual factory
rifles of almost any of these is as great or greater than the
difference among brands.
Remington: Excellent barrel; potentially excellent trigger (Neil Jones
will take them to 8oz, and they are safe -- try that with other makes,
especially for just $30); excellent synthetic stocks (H&S on the
medium-priced varminters, requiring no pillar bedding), available as a
solid-bottom, single shot, very accurate version (40X); good concentricity
of major parts and pieces; available in stainless steel. OTOH, round
receiver not the best choice for big boomers or switch-barrel guns; action
does not feed as well as others from the magazine or when single loaded;
shiny stock finish and Monte Carlo stocks are hideous; extractor somewhat
suspect; poor support for balloon-head cartridges near the boltface (PPC
mainly); bolt hard to field strip; scope bases required.
Winchester: Excellent barrel; potentially very good trigger; excellent
feeding from magazine; good extractor; available in stainless; nice
stocks and metalwork; easy to bed and great for big boomers; easy to
field strip bolt. OTOH, no great stocks available (to my knowledge);
action is oversize for smaller cartridges; no solid-bottom action
available; scope bases required. Still an excellent value, and
can be the basis of a very nice custom hunting rifle.
Sako: Excellent barrel; very good trigger, at least on varmint models;
good extractor; well sized to match major classes of cartridges; easy
to bed and make switch-barrel-capable; solid-bottom action available;
integral scope bases; well-made overall. OTOH, not available in
stainless; stocks can be shiny (hence ugly); no great synthetic stocks
available; price out of proportion to performance (i.e. a good
custom will shoot twice as well for no more money). A Rem 40X is
about the same $$ as the Sako varminter, and the 40X will shoot
better, at least with handloads. I doubt if any more accurate
_factory_ combination exists than the Sako 6PPC varminter and Sako
ammunition, though. The ones I've seen at the range will hold
five shots in 0.5-0.75 at 200 yards every time.
Ruger: Potentially acceptable trigger; integral scope bases; stock shape
and finish good; some available in stainless. OTOH, suspect barrel;
ridiculous angled recoil lug with action screw in the bottom; no
solid-bottom action; poor reputation for even their "best" work (e.g.
Palma rifles).
Weatherby: I'm having a hard time coming up with anything I like
about these :) The action is smooth; the cartridges pack more
terminal performance in almost every caliber than any factory
offering (until recently, when others started chambering for
Weatherby rounds); the factory loads are hot, though still not
matching the published velocities. This is much better than
Remington selling .220 Swift at 3700fps, though. OTOH, long
throats are bad for fine accuracy; the styling of the stocks
leaves me nauseous; there is no way that all 9 of those locking
lugs are touching at one time, so the action is poor for
fine accuracy work; the trigger is lousy; the price is far,
far, _far_ out of proprtion to the performance. And you
thought I didn't like Rugers :)
Browning, Savage, Brno, Interarms, etc.: Not enough experience
with these to make a strong statement. None has an excellent
trigger and none to my knowledge has an excellent barrel. The
Savage, of which I have shot a couple in varmint configuration,
would make a nice budget switch-barrel rifle (bolt heads are
interchangeable -- .222, .308, 7mm Rem all possible in
one rifle!) if a good trigger was made. For big game hunting
the trigger is probably OK.
As you can tell, my interests are in target and live varmint shooting,
which I extend to antelope and deer in Wyoming every October (after
all, they're just big varmints). I place accuracy above all other
criteria, so almost all my centerfire experience is with bolt actions.
I don't mind packing a relatively heavy rifle since I don't hunt in
the mountains, and would rather take a pound off my midsection than
a pound out of my barrel :) Except for the factory class benchrest
matches, I shoot custom rifles. If I see you in Wyoming this
year I'll loan you my Rem 700/Krieger/Clifton/6.5-20X Leupold in
.300 Weatherby/short throat/125gr Nosler BT to make that long shot
on antelope :) After the dust from the muzzle brake settles, you
can wander over and put your head inside the exit wound to have
a look around :)
-Toby Bradshaw
to...@u.washington.edu
John S. Van Etten
[lots of stuff deleted]
>Ruger: Potentially acceptable trigger; integral scope bases; stock shape
>and finish good; some available in stainless. OTOH, suspect barrel;
>ridiculous angled recoil lug with action screw in the bottom; no
>solid-bottom action; poor reputation for even their "best" work (e.g.
>Palma rifles).
Toby, you left out one thing about Rugers which you sort of alluded to
earlier. That's the pitiful excuse for fire control (pitiful is too
nice a word). You mentioned that you had a friend that had one with
an off-center firing pin hole, that didn't go Bang predictably. Well,
it's been my experience that the mechanism sucks in general. I've
owned and shot several M77's and they are notorious for light primer
strikes. In fact, I missed tagging a spike at 35 yards broadside just
this past season with my .358 because it went "click" instead of Bang.
The damn things just won't work in cold weather. Nor will they even
work consistently at the range with Winchester primers, due to the
thick cups. Rechamber the same round, and it goes Bang on the second
strike. Knock on wood, I've never missed a buck yet with my .284
(although it will have a light strike every so often at the range). I
have missed two deer because the .358 didn't fire (both rounds were
then fired on the second primer hit). The problem was also present in
the .30-06 and .270, so those were sold off at a loss, since Ruger
claimed they were in spec when sent back for repairs. I guess it's
just another Ruger "feature."
John
--
******************************************************************************
John S. Van Etten vane...@unix.cie.rpi.edu
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1000 MIPS GaAs F-RISC Project
--"If sand didn't irritate oysters, there would be no pearls"--
Mika Matti Jalava
<to...@stein.u.washington.edu> writes:
>Sako:
...
>integral scope bases; well-made overall. OTOH, not available in
>stainless; stocks can be shiny (hence ugly); no great synthetic stocks
>available;
Check the sporter models of the TRG: stainless, syth stock. There is
also some more conventional hunting rifle with a synthetic stock, it
is also stainless.
>price out of proportion to performance
Don't know about the proportion to performance, but yes, they are too
expensive at least for me.
Mika
K. Karcich
writes:
>Toby Bradshaw writes:
John, I don't especially like rugers, but why don't you put a stronger
mainspring ( aftermarket speedlock ) in those guns. Then you won't have
to put up with deer running away because the gun went click. Cost about
ten bucks for a new spring. Another thing folks do is to shim up the original
mainspring to increase its pressure. I've done this on other actions, but
never on a ruger, but I bet it couldn't be too hard.
regards, Ken Karcich
Toby Bradshaw
Mika Matti Jalava <mja...@alpha.hut.fi> wrote:
>In article <25ar2r$9...@news.u.washington.edu> Toby Bradshaw
> <to...@stein.u.washington.edu> writes:
>>Sako:
>...
>>integral scope bases; well-made overall. OTOH, not available in
>>stainless; stocks can be shiny (hence ugly); no great synthetic stocks
>>available;
>
>Check the sporter models of the TRG: stainless, syth stock. There is
>also some more conventional hunting rifle with a synthetic stock, it
>is also stainless.
Thanks for the update. If you take away any more of the Sako negatives,
there won't be any left :)
>>price out of proportion to performance
>
>Don't know about the proportion to performance, but yes, they are too
>expensive at least for me.
If I had the money and no desire to own a custom rifle, I'd head for
the Sako rack. I don't know what it is about Finland, but the Finns
know how to produce fine machined goods. I just turned the necks
on some Lapua .220 Russian cases for my 6PPC benchrest rifle last
night. It gives me mixed feelings to see the unbelievably fine
quality of the Lapua brass (which proves convincingly that near-
perfect brass can be made), but on the other hand to know that
no U.S. manufacturer cares enough about perfection to produce match-
quality brass. I'm sure that the majority of the .220 Russian and
6PPC (from Sako, and just as good) brass goes to the U.S., and it
must be good for Finland's economy because the brass is over $1
each, about 3-6 times the price of U.S.-made brass. But, starting
with the cheaper American brass will have you rejecting so many
cases (for match use) that the Finnish (and Swedish Norma) brass
is actually cheaper in the long run.
I'll go on to lament that the same situation exists for .22 match
ammunition, where no U.S. manufacturer (possibly excepting Federal,
we'll see) will produce tackdriver .22 rimfire ammo. I know there's
money in it, since Eley BR Gold runs about $8.50 a box (50 rounds!).
It seems that the U.S. companies don't care enough about the small,
but influential, target shooters to cater to them. A cynic might
conclude that the U.S. comapanies are incapable of producing
excellent components, but I don't think (hope) this is the case.
-Toby Bradshaw
to...@u.washington.edu