Between my father and myself we've had 4 or 5 (or more) 742's around over the years. Long time ago we had one that acted up and dad sent back to Rem. for repairs, they replaced the receiver... The rest of them have been reliable and all have been plenty accurate for hunting use.

At the same time we've had several Browning auto's too. In general the Brownings were more accurate and less reliable. That is if you let them get any fowling in them at all. They had to be cleaned much more often than the Rems.!! The reason dad "really" wanted the Brownings was to get magnum cartridges!! We were doing quite a bit of moose hunting and where we hunted we were getting long shots... These days the Brownings are gone and we have a 742 in 30-06 around...

I'm going easy on my 742, it's only used for hunting, no more target shooting with it, as once they go bad i'm not sure you will ever beable to get it right again! I've heard there's quite a few of them floating around on dealers racks with bad receivers....

Drilling Man