I started wondering what everyone thought about todays quality of firearms they purchased. Chaded post about his recent Knight purchase and it seems all of us are in search of the next best CVA-T/C....etc. I personally think my older guns are a higher quality. My Winchester 270 pre 64 and Renegade both were handed down by my Dad and still are in awesome shape 30 plus years. Only time will tell how my Encore's hold up plastic stocks and all.

I have a dozen answers to your thoughts, but what it really comes down to is the cost foreign labor versus the cost of American labor and all of that is settled in the competition at the market place in the United States.

Quality has diminished on some manufacturer's guns but not all. IMO the bottom line comes first in most manufacturing while quality comes second. Plus, I think you don't have the 'craftsmen' you had years ago. A lot of people just "go to work" and get a paycheck. They don't take pride in their work as in the past. But its just a spin off from this fast paced world we live in. Just look around you. The grocery store or Walmart is a great example. People hate to wait in line. You can see the disgust in there mannerisms. Or they're on the phone or doing something else. Always rush, rush, rush.

I had to give this some thought before writing a reply. I disagree a little bit. Let me explain. Computer control of metal machining processes (CNC) has had a dramatic impact on the tolerances and repeatability of metal working. This is the main reason for the inherent accuracy we enjoy today from rifle out of the box. As an example take a look at Savage rifles. most of them are easily capable of 1.5 MOA. A good percentage are capable of better than one MOA.

Add to these facts the incredible advances that have been made in metallurgy over the last 40 years and I have to argue that the "quality", meaning tight tolerances and repeatablity, of the metal parts is much better than days of old.

However when you consider the craftsmanship part of building a rifle, we definitely had it better in the old days. Not only was the quality of the hand work better, but the pressure to cheapen the materials (low quality wood or plastic) was not as it is today. No one 40 years ago would dream of a plastic trigger guard on a rifle. Well maybe Remington did with the Nylon 66 etc., but I digress. Also back in the old days our society was much more interesting in maintaining our culture and industry. We valued American made products and wanted to buy American all the time.

Today we suffer from the Walmart mentality of getting it cheap. This change shows in the cheap materials and lack of craftsmanship in our firearms. But they sure are accurate!

I have seen some muzzleloaders of today that are of low quality and also have seen some of good. And of course your going to get different opinions about what high quality and good craftsmanship is. The mentality of today is what I like to call the "throw away" mentality. Most people would rather get something cheap and then just throw it away so to speak and get another one. Personally I would rather have a fine product that will last and I'm willing to pay more for it because if I feel that it is junk I'm not going to keep it and more than likely not going to buy it. Now I will say that I like the synthetic stocks better than wood. A good synthetic stock if you know what I mean, not a stock that feels like it will break in my hand and feels like a toy, but I'm sure some of you probably think that all synthetic stocks feel that way. I just feel that there is a difference in some plastic stocks vs others.

All of my rifles are in the lower end price range and I am completely satisfied with all of them. Both in function and accuracy. I certainly don't expect much as far as the appearance goes in this price range so for as far as that goes I have also been completely satisfied. Not to down anyone's preference for 6 or 8 hundred dollar rifles but I prefer to take the same amount and have three or four times as many rifles to play with. And when we meet at the range and you out shoot me with that Mountaineer I will just say "What do you expect? Your rifle cost 3 times as much." But when I out shoot you with my 150 dollar Wolf, What will you say?

Dutch you bring up a good point with the repeatability of CNC machining. Something I know of but totally dimissed in my response. Also the polymers of today - some are actually stronger than steel. Same for aluminum. Its unreal what they can do with synthetics.
Chaded - you're also correct. Some stocks are cheapos. But the higher end synthetics are super tough. I can tolerate these good synthetic stocks but nothing beats the feel and beauty of a finely grained wood stock.
Pluckit - There's a fine line between cheap and inexpensive. I may get some flak here but as an example take a CVA Accura V2 vs a T/C Encore. The CVA will shoot right along with the T/C and be just as reliable in the field, but cost a whole lot less. But, if you take the flip side of this and put a T/C Hawken up against a Traditions caplock. IMO there is no comparison either in quality or performance.

pluckit, if you shot better than me at the range I would say good job and if I out shot you at the range I wouldn't necessarily say it was because you had a cheaper gun. I remember my first shotgun was just an old single shot that cost about 90 bucks because it was all I could afford. Not much to look at but when rabbit season rolled around I took plenty and usually more than some of the guys with expensive autoloaders in our group. I guess my point in my previous post is that for me it is not all about accuracy even though that is very important. I like everything about the gun to be quality and good. I don't mean to offend but I just have no interest in a cheap gun even if it does shoot along with a higher quality one. I like to buy the best that I can afford.

bronko22000, I absolutley agree with you on the stock. To me there is nothing like the looks and feel of wood but I found for me personally that when I have a fine piece of wood for a stock I get paranoid about getting even the slightest nick or scratch on it. So this of course doesn't allow me to enjoy the gun as to how I think I should.

I got past that years ago and now have several guns with well dinged and scratched nicely figured wood stocks. It only hurts the first few times.

+1
Dents and dings are character marks to remind one of a memorable hunt!