Lee. My 725 had under a thousand rounds. Browning admits that they don't check stock bolt tightness at the factory
I'm sorry, but for 3500 bucks. They damned well ought to
I totally agree... In fact, just yesterday I had a BRAND NEW M725 in the shop due to the owner could not lock down the fore-end!!! And I thought the same thing as you - why in hell didn't Browning check the fit of a complete assembly BEFORE they ship it???
Fitting the latch to the barrel lug is a process that is done
slowly and carefully! Using layout fluid and careful filing I have it so the fore-end lock goes into place with slight pressure.. Since the gun is literally new and will loosen up a tad with use this lock should also ease up after a year or two..
Id be willing to bet none of the other large producers check the stock bolt tightness either, especially low priced models as that would be labor intensive which would up costs.
I have seen only one shotgun with a loose stock and it too was a Browning. It came from Miami in August to MN. I shot it that fall and put it up until early Feburary. I pulled it out to shoot a local tourney and felt the looseness when I opened the gun. 1/16-1/8 of a turn had it tight again. Odds are the change in humidity caused the looseness as the gun was a couple years old before I bought it. A new gun can suffer the same problem or the stock could have been a little green when pulled from the rack and dried a bit by the time it was sold. In any case, I can't blame the manufacturer for a "problem" one should notice before damage occurs. It's kind of like turning up the radio when a knock is heard in the engine. If one does not recognize the problem before it causes damage, it is still not the manufacturer's fault.
Probably the weakest link is the internal parts. One thing all critiques I have read on Turkish (actually all guns built to low price points) has been the large variance in internal part quality and finish.The hardening of wear surfaces can vary between minimal to adequate which can affect the time between part replacement. How well these parts fit together also plays a role as the fit and finish can affect how quickly a part fails. Huglu has suggested their guns should go as many as 50,000 rounds with recommended care before needing a rebuild. The key word is "should" with a number of inexpensive guns not reaching that point.
Exactly!!
My former Citori was well over 150,000 rounds and did not need rebuilding yet. My current Citori has about half that number of rounds and is far from needing a rebuild. If/when it reaches that point it will cost me $380 to repair for another couple hundred thousand rounds. If a low price point shotgun needs a rebuild at a much lower round count and a similar price to rebuild, if someone will even do so, would it even be cost effective?
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I've had O/Us in with loose stocks - and others that had the buttstock so tight (including Brownings) I literally had to use an extension and a ratchet handle to get 'em loose... Every year I repair probably a dozen cracked stocks; mostly shotguns but rifles in the mix as well - and it seems to matter not whether the attaching bolt was loose or not. A lot of it is just the wood itself and the fit (too tight?) at the tang.. Not much one can do about those.
