Found this thread after getting back from hunting. I'm a cheap bastid most of the time but appreciate old blue and walnut, american made rifles in my safe. Besides the couple splurges I made on 40X's, 52 B's, and a 52C (when mama wasn't watching), most of my stuff is pretty pedestrian- but very well made and excellent shooters to boot.
Hard to differentiate by ability to shoot because they all seem to shoot about the same on any given day if I do my part and feed them the right ammo- but here would be my list to watch for, especially at pawn shops, LGS, and other unsuspecting places where you might find a decent deal.
Winchester 69A- later ones have a groove top, all of them are available with excellent aperture sights if you are lucky enough to find one. My last two have Lyman 57 EW sights on them and they are excellent but scopes bring out the best with my old eyes
Winchester 75 Target and Sporter. Both shoot very well and the sporter is very light and well adorned with checkering and usually very nice wood. The 69A and 75 share the same action and trigger.
Winchester 72A- basically a 69A that is tube fed as opposed to magazine fed.
Winchester 9422 in several different configurations and the Marlin 39A are terrific lever actions and tons of fun to shoot. Henry and several others make lever actions the look somewhat like them, but if you pick up the Marlin and Winchester and work the actions and then the Henry and other look-alikes, you'll only look at the Winchesters and Marlins from then on.
Remington 541S and 541T- beautifully made rifles when Remington still cared about those things with excellent wood and handle exceptionally well. Both of mine are capable of very fine shooting- some days will give my 52B a run for it's money at 50 yards.
Remington 581, 582, 580 in the order I would put them in. The 581 is mag fed, 582 is tube fed IIRC, and the 580 is single shot.
Remington 5 teen rifles- 510, 511, 512, 513, 514
Mauser, Walther, Erma, and other German .22 trainers can be found for decent prices if you are very lucky and are all very good shooters.
There are lots of others, but these are my favorites to shop for. I would love to have a nice Anschutz or Sako, but they are just a little bit out of my budget and I'm having plenty of fun trying to keep these kids happy. My buddy owns the Remington teens and they are very good shooters- I haven't gotten that far yet....
If you budget is in the market for Remington 37's, 40X/40XB, or the Winchester 52's, the list gets much longer.....
Bob
