I have owned a 742 that I purchased in 1974. I remember it jammed once when using winchester ammo therefore I only use remington corelokt in it. It does havesome creep in the trigger but I have gotten use to it and it works fine for me. As far as cleaninggoes i do not do anything specialin comparision to my other guns. My primary weapon is a browning A-bolt SS(purchased 1995)and the remington is my back up when I travel to Canada or down south. Since both guns are 30-06 it enables me to bring the same ammo for both of them. Only reason I bought the Browning was because I was going to Canada and everyone told me to buy a bolt gun as a semi could freeze in saskatchewan/manitoba. The 7400/742seem to be very reasonable priced when buying used and you may want to consider that route.If I had to do it over again I would have bought the carbine version( available in 30-06 only) as it weighs a little less andappears to be more manuverable. My browning is 6 3/4 lbs whereas the remington is 7 1/2 lbs.