Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Best money you ever spent on a rifle?

Hard to say.

The Browning semi-auto .22 I bought new when I got out of the service in '74? Cost me $125 and I've put thousands of rounds through it. Best .22 rifle design ever IMHO, but 'm a bit biased. Grew up shooting Granddad's Remington version that he paid ~$25 for during the depression. Figured I'd never live long enough to inherit it. Granddad died last year at age 100 and Dad has the rifle now. I'd still be waiting.

The Ruger 7mm RM that served as my only bolt-action big game rifle for 20+ years and took everything from prairie dogs to coyotes to antelope to deer to elk? Maybe the used Ruger #1 in .20 Rem I stumbled into at the LGS that scratched a long-standing itch?


Maybe the Marlin levers? $250 for a 336CS in .3030, $350 for the Model 375 in .375 Win or $249.95 for a 1895 in .45-70, all used but in excellent condition?


How about the Ithaca Model 49 for $105 to replace the one I got as a pre-teen but later foolishly sold?


One of these .30-06's? Got the Ruger M77 on the left, used, while my wife was receiving leukemia treatment at MD Anderson in Houston. Thought I'd go pig hunting but it didn't work out. Two years later came the Remington M700, a bargain at Dicks. Then in 2010 the used stainless Ruger MKII.


Nope. This is the one. A 1989 Ruger M77 in .257 Roberts, my favorite rifle. Literally bumped into a guy carrying it at a gun show in 2004. He claimed it had less than a box of ammo through it and the lack of scratches in the bluing under the slide safety, something I 'fixed' in the first couple trips to the range, attested to its lack of use.