Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Thoughts on the Browning BAR Mark 3 aluminum receiver rifles

at just under 7 pounds in 308 winchester the aluminum receiver Mark 3 guns with chrome lined chamber seem to be an improvement over the older steel receiver guns. Any thoughts or reports on this rifle?

If light weight is your sole criterion, then I suppose it is an improvement. Some of us prefer steel for its aesthetics. Many of the newer Brownings look too racy for me as well, and incorporate plastic in places I'd rather not have it, but I'm a fussy old fart with archaic notions about how things should look and be made. A lot of excellent Eupopean rifles have the same "problem" in my view.

You buy what makes you happy.

The only improvement is to Brownings bottom line. Plastic trigger assembly .

The aluminum receiver has been around quite a while already. The BAR MKII had it, and the next version of the ShortTrac/LongTrac had it too. Actually I was disappointed when I saw the newer BAR MK3.

Browning did away with having two different action lengths of the ShortTrac/LongTrac which was a nice weight/size savings (not huge, but noticeable) for the short action calibers. I have a ShortTrac .308 fluted 18" barrel carbine that was a special run for Performance Shooting last year. I don't think you could find a more lightweight and compact semi-auto deer rifle. Love it, shoots well with factory ammo too. I also have a BAR MKII that shoots fantastic. Triggers on both are not the greatest.

The MK3 is back to having all one action length regardless of chambering.

Jimmy,

While I have not had any experience with Browning marked version, I shot two .308Win FNAR versions of the rifle a week ago. One was the FNAR Competition with the laminated stock, the other was the FNAR Heavy with a synthetic stock identical to the wood BAR stock.

Both functioned flawlessly (as you would expect from a rifle costing over $1K), both were accurate, but the FNAR Heavy was decidedly more accurate with factory ammo than the Competition. Both have a heavy, fluted barrel.

The Heavy is threaded for a suppressor or compensator/brake, and the Competition has a short Picatinny rail at the muzzle end of the barrel for mounting your choice of front sight.

The one thing I discovered about the Competition was that it demanded a strong grip on the rifle for it to shoot well. The Heavy could be shot with a tight grip or a relatively loose grip and point of impact would be the same where the Competition would change point of impact some 3" @ 200 yards if I changed my grip.

I'm much more fond of the old style BAR than the new ones. My neighbor has an old style, short action in .308 and I believe it would hang right in there with the FNAR Heavy and Competition so far as accuracy goes, and beats the hell out of the new ones for aesthetics and handling.

Ed

Well-said, and ditto FWIW..

sounds like the Safari steel receiver 30-06 is the sweet spot for this gun. Did not realize they had abandoned the short trac action.

Blackfrog, just FYI in speaking with Browning there is a long action and a short action, the receiver length is the same but the actions are different according to the man I spoke with. In the past a single action length was used. He also indicated the magazine is not a long action magazine with a spacer in it.

so the Mark3 308 is looking better.

I never liked the Short/Long track series, just couldn't get over the looks. The MKIII looks more like the old safari to me...that's a good things. My Dad has shot a Safari 30-06 all my life. So I have a soft spot for them. That old rifle has no blueing, the checkering is worn smooth in sever places, the stock looks bleached, eats 165 sierra gamekings for dinner. He wouldn't hesitated to shoot at a deer 350 yards away right now. That rite thur is a hunting rifle.

yep my buddy has one of the safari's in 30-06. Has a bit of rust in the barrel, he dropped it out of a tree stand two weeks ago to plant it like a tomato stake, we cleaned out the bore, fired a test round, then he shot another deer with it that evening. That gun has killed more deer than I can recall, figuring about 3-5 per year for the last 24 years.