NEF is the only firearms company around that proof fires every single gun. The workmanship is nice, the stocks are American hardwood and nicely finished. The barrels are American steel. If you had a problem with the gun, I'd say it was operator error as are nearly all problems with firearms. Rugers are pot metal. Remingtons and NEF products are steel.
Where, dear fellow, do you come up with this authoritative cluelessness? Rugers, Remingtons, Marlins, and Winchesters are all good guns relying on differing manufacturing methods. None, that I am aware of, is made of pot metal anymore than the pistons in your automobile or truck likely are. I did have a cast bolt handle come off from my most recent Remingtons which, BTW, cost me more than $70 even under warranty while the last Ruger I returned to the factory - it was a really beat up old rifle - came back with a repair bill plastered with "N/C" all over it. That cost a few dollars postage only.
It is true that Ruger uses cast metal in many of its components as well as aluminum alloys in some of them. They hardly qualify as "pot metal" anymore than do the similar castings used by the other companies, Remington not excluded. Remington does use sintered metal for its sights as well, a process I do not hold in especially high regard and about as close to "pot metal" as anything on any of them.
There's nothing wrong with using inexpensive rifles if that's what fits one's budget. There's also no reason to assume that those who buy more expensive rifles do so because they need them to overcome inadequacies in skill or wish to do it out of snobbish boorishness.
