I appreciate you knowledge of original Winchesters, and certainly your collection, but I am still at a loss as to how Browning-marked and Winchester-marked Mirokus are different. They aren't made by different companies. The Browning B92 I owned and the Winchester 1892 I own are both made for Browning in the Miroku factory in Kochi, Japan. The only difference is that FN acquired Browning, and Browning acquired the right to use the Winchester name on their reproductions. But the Miroku product is the same. I haven't detected any degraded quality in my 1892 from the BL92 I owned.

These three Winchesters I own are the only Winchester repros I have, but I have several other Mirokus: BLR in .308, BLR in .358, XBolt in .30-06, XBolt in .270, BL22 x 2, SA-22, Auto 5, Citori, and maybe some others I'm foregetting. I've had Belgian made SA-22, BLR and Auto 5 and compared them to the Miroku-made guns, the Mirokus seems finished and fitted better and were every bit as reliable. As far as the BLR, I believe the present BLR is a better design than the older BLRs.

So I get what you are saying. I haven't seen any degraded quality in these lever guns marked Browning and the same guns marked Winchester. As far as the safety goes, that's entirely subjective. I don't mind it. I carry my levers, whether Marlins or Winchesters, with the safety off and on half cock (or hammer rebounded in the case of the Winchesters), and the only time the safety is on is when I am cycling rounds through it. It's a non-issue for me.

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