My wife hunted with a Thompson Center Encore in 7mm-08 for several years. What could be better. Single shot, break open, hammer gun? The answer? Almost anything. NOTHING but troubles with that gun. Converted it into a pro-hunter. Even WORSE. My son and I were in a LGS and he saw a Ruger American in 7MM-08. I grabbed it immediately. I was happy as a clam to find it. NOT SO with my wife. She HATED the trigger. I bought her a Timney trigger and installed it. She went from a single shot, to a bolt gun repeater. The gun is lightweight, compact, and fits her perfectly. She has had it now for over 5 years and killed over a dozen whitetails with it. NEVER ANY ISSUES WHATSOEVER.
I've also had good luck with RARs, but I have a friend who bought a 243 for a ranch rifle and says that he has sent the rifle back to Ruger twice for warranty work. Any manufacturing process is likely to have a small percentage of imbedded errors, often at a rate of less than 1%.
