I tested an A-Bolt .270 in 1986 when they first appeared. It wasn't as classically pretty as some guns, but it shot very well and was pretty darn light. (You can buy A-Bolts in every weight from VERY light to pretty heavy.) My wife had been hunting for a coupleof years then, deer and antelope with my old Rem. 722 in .257 Roberts, but wanted to start hunting elk. She shot the A-Bolt and liked it, everything from the trigger to the light weight, so we bought it.
I worked up a couple loads that shot to the same place with the 130 Hornady and 150 Nosler Partition, and both loads shot very well too. She went on to hunt with the A-Bolt for five more seasons, at one time having a string of 10 1-shot kills on a row. These were mostly pronghorn, whitetail and mule deer, but included a couple of eating elk and a Shiras moose. One of the pronghorns was about 430 yards away, and one of the mule deer was the biggest buck she's ever killed. She quit using the A-Bolt only when she got a NULA .270, but we never had any trouble with the A-Bolt.
I have shot a few others over the years and all were very accurate, probably because (like some other accurate out-of-the-box bolt rifles such as Savage, Tikka and Sako) the barrel is free-floated. The one X-Bolt I've hunted with was also extremely accurate. I'm not crazy about some of the pot-metal parts, but Eileen obviously hunted her A-Bolt pretty hard and didn't have any problems.
There may be better trigger designs but the A-Bolt's is easier to adjust and smooth up (if need be) than many others. I have tuned up A-Bolt triggers for some friends and they were all happy.
They may be made in Japan but a lot of stuff is, and as somebody else pointed out not all American-made firearms are superb examples of manufacturing.
I probably wouldn't buy an A-Bolt to use as a wilderness rifle, but for most hunting they seem to work fine, and shoot great right out of the box.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
