Quilly: "i look at it this way.. i would rather by them now than down the road when i am married."

Good plan! ;-)

Quilly: "why is browning overated?? i think it's a fine firearm. "

They are a bit pricey, once you add a BOSS and go to stainless...but the Stainless Stalker I owned back in 1991 was very nice. I regret selling it, but I will likely replace it with a Composite Stalker in .270, going with the basic matte blued finish to save the $120 or so...

Of the 4 rifles I bought in the last 30 years 2 have been Brownings. The 4 rifles were Win 70, 7mm in 1974; Browning BLR 308 in 1971 and another BLR in 2000 and a 700 Rem. ADL 7mm08 in 2001. Right out of the box the 2 Brownings and the Win. M70 shot MOA, the Rem. 700 shot a group at least 3 times larger. The Browning workmanship is as good if not better than the Winchester's, and much better than that of the Rem 700. Many times I have gone to the range and out shot lots of bolt actions with my lever action Browning. Of course this was when most of the shooters were sharpening up for deer season so I was not shooting against the bench rest shooters with their tack drivers. Everyone I have shot with has been impressed with the accuracy of my Browning lever actions. And the cost of the Browning is not that much more than the others.
I don't think there is a better whitetail, muledeer, blackbear, and light duty elk rifle than the BLR in 308.
This is my opinion and ONLY based on experience with my Brownings and not opinions repeated by others.

onpoint

I LOVE my Marlin MR7, 30-06. Great gun, with a little trigger work and hand loads I am hitting .5" groups at 100 yds all day. Sometimes I can go better even.

I never hear people mention the MR7, get a little excited I guess.

The savage is a great gun for the price, but the ones I have shot had thin barrels, #3-#4 shots would be thrown thanks to the heat.

Moseberg shotguns seem cheap thanks to the foregrip that shakes, but a lot of cops swear by them for reliability (but my Rem 870 is great too, bought it back in 88 I think).
--Jim

Quilly, I will tell you why I think they are over priced.

I bought a new 270 A-Bolt Med. with a boss when I got it the stock was busted it looked like it came that way from the factory. I had to get a new stock the company was very hard to deal with. I have spent over 100.00 in shell and tried 5 different type of ammo try to get the boss set. I took it to a gun smith and let them shoot it in a vice and he said something was wrong with the bedding of the barrel they could not get the group to pull any tighter than 1 1/2 inch. at 100 yd some would be as wide as 3". So I am going to have to send it back to the company to get it worked on again. If I pay 700.00 dollars I expect it to shoot better than my cheap savage but was I fooled by all the hipe.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote<font size=1 face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
Anything chambered in Short Magnum.
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' size=2 id=quote>Please elaborate on this statement. I'm in the process of researching a Remington 7mm Ultra Mag. I havn't heard anything negative yet. I have heard to very strong testimonials for the Ultra Mag. Don't want to spend big bucks if it isn't all what the Remington says it is.

My opinion on the short mags is marketing hype. I will agree that the full size Ultra Mags are awesome and ballistically better than WBY. That hurts,just saying that .....

Remi700
Most of the people I have seen have had good luck loading the RUM's. I say go ahead get one. They are fast, fun, and accurate. I actually am getting better speeds than factory. When I ask people to elaborate on why they don't like a round (that they don't have in a rifle and have very little experience), usually, it comes down to they don't have one or they have something simular and people are generally insercure with thier own stuff and not having what their neighbors have. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any round that I hate. Sorry, I hate the .25APC. Forgot about that one. I have a 300RUM, in retrospec, I would have liked the 300WSM better. Don't worry, I will get one of those too. I am envious of my friend getting one 270WSM custom built. So until I get one, &quot;Short Mags suck&quot;.

in the past few years the browning price has gone up but the quality of their guns has gone down- their biggest mistake was doing away with the Auto-5 and replacing it with the gold wich the porest example ive seen in auto loading shot guns

the problems i've had haven't been with manufacturers, it's been with models, the last run of savage99's were really bad, the but stock looked like american black walnut and the fore end stock looked the hardwood, it didn't fit into the receiver right, and when i shot it after the shot was fired the safety would engage for no apparent reason. they discontinued the model about a year after i bought that one. as for big mistakes, i'de have to say remington stopping production of 12 guage model 1100 shotguns, i don't count the english field