Have one in blued. Only regret was I wish they made it in stainless when I bought it. They now do. Love it, great shooting rifle. shoots real well, and going to be using it this year on mule deer hunt. Going to be using hornady superperformance 150g sst's. Was hard to beat for the bang for the buck. Trigger is real nice, has adjustable pull on it.

boyds makes some nice stocks for them.

We have an XL7 in 30'06. By its serial number, its an early run, and has a real nice wood stock. It has a really nice weight to it and feel, but havent had alot of luck with accuracy. I blame the cheapo simmons scope I had laying around, that I stuck on it. I have a feeling that once I put a good scope on it, it'll shoot nice. For an inexpensive gun, you cant beat them. You could only do worse.

i have a marlin xl7 .270. i have shot my dads ruger m77 hawkeye to compare. accuracy wise exactly the same. We could both hit quarters 100 yards away, i even hit a pepsi can at 300 yd. @streetglideok i use remington corelokts in 150 gr. and my gun loves them! I am not bragging about my accuracy im telling you guys what this gun is capable of for such a low price. I love the trigger on it too. if you outfit it with a decent scope and see what ammo shoots best im sure you'll love it! IMO the best bargain for a rifle today.