A couple of my hunting buds have SBEII's and they are a great gun - that's for sure.

But I tell you what... Two of us have Winchester Superx2 auto's and those guns hang right in there. In fact I would say in harsh hunting conditions, the SX2's have probably outperformed the SBEII's... I've hunted in some pretty nasty conditions and it's usually rock solid. Not sure where the price is currently (since I've had mine for 5+ years), but I think it's close to half the price of the SBEII's...