My take on Winchesters is that they screwed the pooch when they left New Haven and opened up the new plant. When they started making their rifles again the price tags were quite a bit North of $700 for a stainless anything and their 94's were north of $800. When a guy could walk into a gun shop and Rem 700's, Rugers and M70's all sat side by side on the rack at or under $600 it was a matter of which one felt best or had the the best features (CRF, etc). Remington kept their price point of $550 or so for a stainless SPS, Ruger hovered around $600 and then there was the shiny Winchester without stainless and stickered at $758. I don't know anyone that's bought a new Winchester in the last 5-6 years.
On the flip side, sadly I think all 3 manufacturers are hell bent on making and selling as many of their low end almost all plastic cheap rifles anymore these days, pretty sad really.
