Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Cheap Rifles and expensive scopes

Buy the best. Life is short

I guess that depends on how you define quality. As you define it, I'd agree but if you define it as accuracy vs. cost, I'd tend to disagree.

It seems to me that quality is getting worse too, but there is no denying that accuracy is improving.

If you are talking one of the classic Japan made World Class scopes, you are in business. They were well made and reliable. Anything else needed for 99.9% of big game hunting? Not every rifle needs a 50mm+ European objective on it.

Well, just to be the oddball, if I could go back and do it again with what I know now, I'd take one of the two Mauser 98's my father brought back from WWII, have a good gunsmith polish it up and turn it into a .30-06 with a nice piece of stable walnut cut to fit me perfectly, and put a peep sight on it.

Then I'd go out and kill the same game at the same ranges in the same terrain and never miss a beat.

And since "going back" would mean to the mid-late 60's, I'd pick up a really good 1950's vintage Winchester 94 .30-30 and put a peep sight on it as well, for those times when I didn't need or want to shoot a .30-06.




Doesn't mean I wouldn't also get many dozens of other rifles and scopes of all sizes 'cause, ya know, loonyism, but two sturdy, dependable rifles with sturdy sighting systems are all I'd really need...

I guess we are being conditioned to believe that the cheaper the rifle the better it will shoot; like higher quality and accuracy are somehow mutually exclusive objectives that somehow never overlap and we're supposed to be happy about it.

Buddy of mine had one of these cheapie in 223...it shot lights out until the trigger housing fell apart after 300-400 rounds.

He asked my advice,which was "Fix that POS, dump it,and don't ever buy another one".

While it can be disappointing sometimes to see how the higher dollar rifles will sometimes not shoot as well nor as easily as some of the cheap ones being built these days, I still much prefer the basic simple (reliable) construction of some of the more expensive rifles - like the Ruger 77 and Winchester 70 for example. It's really amazing how worthwhile a couple hundred dollars can be when applied to a M77 or M70 to 'clean things up a bit' or tweak and tune. Of course, one can spend more too, but often the law of diminishing returns kicks in quickly. I have more than one rifle which has sleds tracks on it with nary a glitch beyond some cosmetic defects. Obviously they were worth recovering, something I'm less confident about with some of the lowest priced stuff.

Let's not even get into the infamous Kimber Montana "I'm so reliable I need my own fix-it thread" rifle.

Remington 700's arent the cheap rifles anymore?

Remington ADL's still shoot, btw. They have fallen out of favor as an "out of the box" accurate rifle for some reason.

I shot two in 7 rem this week, neither cost over 400, both stacked 160gr accubond factory loads on top of each other.

Same story with most 700's I shoot.

I admit to making a few bolt and trigger mods on my personal 700's, to put my mind at ease. But I cant think of a singe factory rifle I wouldnt make at least a few tweaks on.

Ive tried savage, tikka and ruger american..I'll keep buying bargain Remingtons for my el'cheapo's

An ADL in 7rem, topped with a 10X SS is about the best bargain big game rig I can think of. JMO

My experience mirrors yours with the ADL 7mm Mags.

I have to agree with all of this post!

Rem 700's aren't the "cheap" rifles Im talking about......I can't recall any that did not shoot well. I will take a 1980's era MR in 270 or 280 over about any of these current cheapies.

Ditto a 7 Rem Mag.

I have one 700, a .270 ADL. It is very accurate with 130 grain Corelokts, the only ammunition I've ever shot through it. I don't consider it a cheap rifle and I also happen to like blind magazines. It's not a hardship to me to cycle the rounds through the rifle to unload it. Plus, if you point the rifle in a safe direction and keep your finger off the trigger nothing bad is going to happen.

The ADL's that Walmart, Cabela's, Academy, et al have made don't seem as nicely finished as the regular production ones were. I'd still rather have one of them than a RAR, Axis or 783. Nothing wrong with those rifles, I just prefer an ADL.

Some years ago at the Shot Show in Vegas, I stopped to rest, leaning up against one of the walls of Remington's booth. The had little cubicles inside for buyers to discuss purchasing with the reps in private. From my position, I could hear parts of the conversation inside about an order that Dick's Sporting Goods was making for 870 shotguns. They were discussing how to lower the cost by less finish on the stocks and bluing. So yes there is a difference between big box stores and your local gunshop in quality and price.

Have no jamming issues with the RAR .223 Compact we have.

Rifle was $379.00 at Wal Mart combo with a scope Remington had a $75.00 rebate.Put what I consider mid priced VX 3 3.5-10 on it and sold the Remington scope for $35.00 It shot so well I put it in a McMillan Hunter.

[img:center]http://[/img] [img:center]http://[/img] [img:center]http://[/img] [img:center]http://[/img]

JB in the spirit of always needing sources of good reliable scopes and since you seem to have the ear of the folks at Redfield/Leupold. Maybe you can convince them that a redfield fixed 4x and 6x line aka the old m8 line at a lower price point thanthe current FX Leupold line would be a good expansion to the redfield revolution lineup.

My friend bought a case of the Tasco WorldClass variables because he liked them so much.

He has them on all sorts of rifles, including a bunch of rifles he built with the gunsmith in town. Some really nice rifles!

I dont like spending more than 450 on a scope. But then again I dont like Accu-Triggers, plastic stocks, and 6.5 Creedmoors or .300 BLKs.



I got a kick out of that Mule Deer, bitching about guns for decades!

Probably right! Music, tastes in food, tattoos, piercings.....

Sure is nice to have something to bitch about!

In the spirit of the post ahead of my first, how about some more gloss finished scopes?

Jim Conrad,

Here's a quote from an article I wrote on "affordable rifles" three years ago for AMERICAN RIFLEMAN:

"In autumn Americans follow many old traditions, including hunting, eating turkey, and throwing sales across the country. During the fall of 2013 the following prices appeared before, during and after big game season in my part of Montana:

Mossberg ATR $289.99
Remington 783 $319.99
Ruger American $299.99
Savage Axis $299.99

"Do these rifles mean the end of civilization as we know it? Well, they don’t look like the rifles many hunters grew up shooting, but some historical perspective might be useful. In the 1958 issue of Gun Digest well-known writer Bob Wallack reviewed recent American factory rifles, and had this to say about the Remington 721 and 722, the long and short-action versions of the company’s post-war bolt action rifle: “The motto at Remington these days…is ‘all for production,’ so their rifles are designed for ease of manufacture and to sell at a certain price. Every part that can possibly be banged out on a punch press is banged out on a punch press, much to the sorrow of any real gun bug. Such methods do not affect the handling qualities or functioning of a rifle, certainly, but neither do they add up to a gun that a guy’d want to own with pride.” Though written over half a century ago, the spirit of Wallack’s comments would fit right in among many Internet posts.

"Mass manufacturing really began when practical steam engines were developed in the late 1700’s, about the time the United States was founded. In the 20th century electricity speeded up assembly lines considerably by giving machine tools individual motors, rather than relying on belts off an overhead, steam-driven shaft. As a result average Americans could afford not only functional firearms and sewing machines, but Model T Fords and Frigidaire refrigerators. Yet many of us still somehow believe any factory-made products made before right now were of much finer quality, the reason many shooters now call the 721 and 722 Remingtons “classics.”