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

DJ;
Thanks for the fine thread and the wonderful responses it's been getting. I hope that this finds you all doing well and it's good to see that your kids got out hunting a bit this fall. Please pass along congratulations to them on the very nice deer.

For me there have been a few rifles that were good decisions, but I'll have to say that first place is a tie between two.

In 1984 we'd moved off the farm and out here to BC where my folks lived. After a couple years of going along on occasion with my wife and I hunting, my now passed on father decided he wanted to get back into hunting. As he'd given me his hunting rifle he asked me to look into what he should buy.

So unbeknownst to him, I ordered up an "extra clean" 96 Swede from Century Arms in Montreal. If memory serves it was something under $60 landed here. Anyway, I bobbed 8" off of the barrel, remade an end cap from the existing parts, recontoured and checkered the stock, bedded it, drilled and tapped it, installed a low scope safety and had a local welding shop mig a different bolt handle onto it.

We were buying those Bushnell 4X Sportviews for around $30 US back then in Oroville, so including some used rings and some trading I was into the rifle for less than $120 give or take.

This is the day I gave it to him in 1986.


That rifle was a catalyst to get him out hunting with us for the next decade and a lot of great memories were forged between us - in part because of it.

As time passed, Dad's health deteriorated to the point where he couldn't ride in the pickup on the mountain roads anymore. He gave the Swede back to me, saying he hoped that perhaps one of the grand kids could make some use of it someday.

Here is a shot of the rifle with a different scope on it.


Although Dad passed on before she claimed it, as it turned out it was our eldest who claimed her Grandad's rifle, though I did have to add a Dayton Traister cock on open kit to it for her to manipulate it when she was younger.

Now about that time our youngest decided she wanted to hunt as well, so I looked around for something to suit our budget and the low recoil that she preferred.

A good friend of mine - now gone as well - had recently purchased a number of rifles from an estate and offered me a screaming deal on a .250AI built on a Remington 722 using an RKS stainless barrel, complete with a 2-7 Leupold Compact on it. I don't think he asked more than $450 for it, which even then was very, very reasonable.

I extensively modified a 788 stock that had been cut down to 12�" pull and that met our youngest daughter's needs to a T.

Here it is with it's most recent ADL stock, a 3-9 Leupold, Talleys and a 700 trigger now too.


Anyway DJ, these two bargain rifles allowed this "best hunting day ever" to happen for me.


Well, I just got a call that I need to go pick up the .250AI shooter from her basketball games, so I've got to fly.

All the best to you and your family DJ and thanks again for the thread.

Dwayne