The advantages of stainless are well overstated.....there's nothing wrong with them but they're not much better.....I like the traditional blued steel and walnut stocks.....You should get whatever turns your crank!!!

I love blue and good wood nothing looks quite as good as it does but it really is not practical in most climates. SS does cut the maintenance down quite a bit and when its coated with teflon,nickel,np3,gun kote,cerracote it becomes even more maintenance free. You should have a little less throat erosion with SS as well. You can machine SS smoother which probably explains some accuracy advantages.

Actually bead blasted stainless shines much less than many blued barrels.

Stubblejumpers 1st post says it all, and the last one puts an exclamation point on it! From a functional standpoint, no doubt a SS and synthetic combo cannot be beat...period. That is if you "use" your rifle and expose it to the elements. The beaded SS looks like a bleached, dead branch when you see it. No shine whatsoever.

If you want a rifle that "looks" nice, get a nicely wood grained, high gloss blued barrel. If you want a great "hunting" weapon, get the above. Both of my rifles and muzzle loader are ss/synthetic combos and have seen some prety ugly weather over the years and still look and work great.

This is true. In the desert where I go, lots of gray / green sage and my rifle blends right in. Not a lot of jet black stuff out there.

BTW. DO NOT set your gun up against a shrub and run back to the ATV for refreshments. ask me how I know.

I'll bite...how?

Mike

Oh that was one of those rhetorical questions. I leaned my gun up against a sage brush thinking " it's only 80 yards back to the truck, I can find this bush"...which was in the middle of 14 acres of sage bush.

There was about 30 sec. of "sonafabitchin camo, I'm gonna paint this thing hunter orange"

For those worried about guns rusting or throat erosion...first most people will never fire their hunting rifle enough to worry about throat erosion, second if you clean you rifle appropriately and regularly you won't have to worry about rust.

What do you consider appropriately and regularly?I have been on ten day hunts where it rained every day.With my stainless rifles I gave them a quick wipe down at the end of every day whereas the hunters using blued rifles either spent a great deal of time cleaning and oiling ,or their rifles developed rust very quickly.The last thing that a person needs to do at the end of a long day of hunting is to have to spend a lot of time trying to rid his rifle rifle of all traces of moisture when his only shelter is a tent.

Most people don't go on ten day hunts in the rain....