RE: Favorite brand of gun??
No contest....Ruger. My Red Label over/under is devastating on the skeet field, points fast on grouse and when choked right with 6's over my Shorthairdumps pheasants like a sack of rocks. My 77M in -06 has been responsible for a proverbial herd of deer being packed into my freezer. Shots as close as 10 feet out to a measured 326 yards across the alfalfa field (Nosler ballistic tips are a wonderful thing.....). I have dropped it down a slide in the rocks of Wyoming, battered it hauling it up into treestands and bounced it around on way to many kamikaze quad rides - but the damn thing continues to shoot better than any other rifle I have ever owned. When I carry that rifle I know in my heart that ANY deer I see lives only because I make the choice not to harvest it.