RE: First Rifle - Please Help
Eliminate the Remington right off the top because of the trigger/safety design. Bolt can be opened when safety on and eneviditably it will open from being snagged on brush, rubbed against a tree or just from bringing it from a slung position to a shooting position. It doesn't fire well with the bolt open. I know a fellow who lost the best buck he ever saw because of it. He immediately sold his Remington and bought a Winchester. He's still on the soap box lecturing others not to make the same mistake he did. Of the remaining two it's a toss up. Quality control is not what it should be at Winchester but it does have an easily adjustable trigger and it looks and feels good. Ruger quality (I think) is better than Winchester and it comes with rings but has a heavy non-adjustable trigger. A smith can polish up the Ruger trigger to about a 4 lb. release which is not bad for a hunting rifle. Out of the box accuracy is about the same for both Winchester & Ruger at about 1.5 to 2 MOA. I have a Ruger M77 Mk2 300 Win Mag and Winchester Compact Classic 7mm.08 which I have equal fondness for. My favorite, however, is my Win. Classic Stainless 300 WSM & Leupold Vari-X 111 2.5 to 8.
The Mauser style action which both Winchester & Ruger have gives you "control round feed (CRF)" instead of a push feed. This means as the bolt thrusts forward it picks up the round and securely holds it under the large claw extractor guiding it into the chamber. Remington and most others just push the round into the chamber. Advantages and disadvantages will be debated for ever and ever. Fact is most dangerous game rifles use CRF - this should tell you something about reliability. The other big advantage of the Mauser style action is the three position safety: when fully on it locks the bolt closed; at half position it's still on safe but the bolt can be opened to safely eject round(s) and full off to fire. I recommend you buy the Ruger, no the Winchester, on second thought get the Ruger, mmmmmmm maybe you should get the Winchester, either that or the Ruger... Good luck gg
"The instant you start talking about what you'll do if you lose, you have lost."