Price point MUST be a factor in these discussions. Some would say that the Savage Axis is the best. My brother is one of them, and he is a serious, hardcore hunter for over four decades. He has owned several Ruger 77's, some Remington 7 and 700's, Winchester 70's in a couple configurations, several Brownings (mostly A-bolts), and many, many Walmart-special Savages. He now prefers the bargain Savages. I agree with his reasoning, if not his pick of guns. I'll expand.
Bed the crap stock, mount quality optic, fire-lap the often rough bore, treat the bore, work up sweet hunting load, blood the rifle. I've seen him do it several times. He now openly prefers sub-$300 Savages. His kids have been set up with them, because they are light, easy to carry, and very serviceable (when not dropped in snow in sub-zero temps).
These Savages are capable of very fine accuracy, at least for the experienced handloader. I've seen it over and over in the past several years, using the process outlined above.
And the last significant point: they are cheap, so if some accident befalls them, or if they get banged around a lot, it's no biggie. I suppose this is a big deal to me because I carried my father's cherished hunting rifles for some years as a teen over much rugged terrain with lots of steep climbing and hiking in nasty mountains, and I was terrified of even dinging or scratching the finish on them. I have several scars and old aches from protecting a rifle during a slip-and-fall. It warped my sense of what the real priorities in that situation were. Now I prefer to hunt with beater rifles, where I don't have to worry about the guns, as long as the scope doesn't get knocked off its zero.
