Of the current crop of econo rifles on the market, I favor the Marlin X7 / XS7 rifles. My real preference though is for used commercial mauser variants. There are plenty of sub $400 Zastava variants (Interarms MK X, Parker Hale, Charles Daly, etc) as well as FNs ( JC Higgins, Westernfield) and Husqvarna ( Check Simpsons Ltd).
I'm pretty sure that I get to Simpsons, LTD., in Galesburg, IL, more often than 99% of the people on this site and I would have a really hard time recommending that anyone buy from them without visiting the store and holding the firearm in question. Their website descriptions tend to be a little "inconsistent", in that you probably have less than a 50/50 chance of getting a firearm that is in sync with the website's description. That said, just like anyplace, there are occasionally firearms priced for less than their real value, but just like anyplace, those situations are typically few and far between.
