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Pistol grip for me also, I don't mind the alloy. If the wood is nice I'm good with either finish.

Depends on what you want and its use. I have owned several and none of them were "accurate"... 1 1/2"-1 3/4" is not accurate enough for me. HATED the triggers... I REALLY wanted to love them but they just did not do it for me. If I need a short range lever, I will use a 1941 model 94 with a red dot... better trigger than the BLR and just as accurate with the red dot on top.

i have seen my son shoot 1/2 - 3/4 inch 5 shot groups at 100 yards with his 308 alloy frame ,pistol grip BLR with a 3x9 Leupold and my ammo i handloaded , but he is 34 years old with good eyes , exceptional motor skills he is like a machine with guns , bows , golfing and knows how to shoot off a good cement bench . i seen him with my 300 Win. mag. BLR shoot 3/4 -1 inch groups with that shoulder beater with all that recoil . sure some BLR rifles need some trigger work but i have some BLR`S that shoot very good as do Savage 99`s but these are hunting rifles not meant for bench rest shooting but these fine lever rifles deserve a decent scope and steel scope mounts if you want the BLR to shoot well too.

I like my 358. I’d love to snag another in 7-08 should I find the right one. My 358 shoots well for what it’s meant for.

I started my hunting career with a BLR in 308 Win, used it for a couple of years and I started having trigger issues with it and I got rid of it, a few years later I came across another BLR in 308 Win and bought it and the same thing happened with the trigger, some times it wouldn't work so I got rid of it.....I really liked the looks of the BLR but I had issues with both of mine.

I'm curious to know what kind of trigger issues you had - so I will know what to keep my eye out for with mine.

I love my BLR’s especially the medium to larger bores. I’ve never had trigger work done on a gun in my life, I’m 62 if that means anything other than I’m getting old to dang quick. I have a 17, 22, 218 bee, 32-20, 357, 44, 30:06 and 450 and I shoot them all. The 32-20 is my all time favorite gun of all time, it isn’t good for much but varmints but I can shoot it and I love it today as the very 1st time. The gun simply fits me perfectly, I’m lucky I found a gun like that. The Remington 742 in 6mm is 2nd.
The Mirkou BLR’s in my humble opinion are the best lever guns on the market today. There’s a guy on here named Shrapnel I think that is mighty knowledgeable on Levers, much more than me. I just shoot them out of the box, I like Winchester’s to but only the Mirkou made as the one’s made in my life in the USA are horrible, maybe I should preface that with when I started buying and shooting them in earnest in the 90’s and later.
But you will love the Browning’s, they are work horses.

I would chamber a round and squeeze the trigger and the trigger wouldn't move...sometimes I would eject the round and try again and it would work, but that wasn't acceptable for a hunting rifle
both of my BLR's did that

That sounds like it didn't get closed fully. Maybe the chambers were tight or something.

I had trouble with one that I bought used. The gun was out of time. I think it is too temping for guys to try and take them apart... off by one tooth on the action gears and it would onl fire about 65% of the time.

I see that there are 2 variations of the pistol grip models, the lightweight, and the lightning. The lightweight has a squared off pistol grip, with a grip cap on the deluxe model. The lightning has a rounded grip, that looks slimmer than the lightweight. Can anyone comment on that? I would really prefer the lightning if it is in fact slimmer.

If I recall correctly, the Lightweight has an aluminum receiver and the Lightning has a steel receiver.
In other words, the Lightweight is the lighter of the two.

Maybe using reloads that weren't full length resized enough, or should have been loaded in small base dies??

My first gen, made in Japan, steel BLR .308 has a tight chamber that requires me to use small base dies. But I size them only just enough that they chamber easily and it shoots into .75 MOA. And it loves IMR 4064 and Varget.

Another possibility is that the bullets could have been seated a little long.

Mine will gobble the plain ol' yellow and green box Remington 150gr PSPCL and shoot them sub-MOA like they were custom loaded for it. I've recommended them for other folk's BLR .308s and if it won't shoot those well, then something serious is wrong.

One thing you've GOT to realize and remember with BLRs is that none of their actions have the camming power closing the bolt OR opening the bolt that a bolt action does. There is just not as much mechanical advantage with a rotary bolt-head lever action as there is with a bolt action. So, the ammo HAS to be more carefully checked to make sure it will chamber loaded cartridges and extract and eject fired cartridges.

I never shot anything but factory Remington 150gr ammo

my BLR rifles have always shot much better with my handloads ,besides i enjoy handloading all my ammo for target shooting and hunting .

I have a BLR lightweight Mirkou .308. It's a great gun. Beautiful and lightweight.

Right. My BLR lightweight has aluminum receiver.

I've had a BLR-81for a bit over 20 years and have hunted it a lot and hunted hard. It's a 358 I bought at a gunshow for a reasonable price especially since it was the only caliber I was looking for. It was literally the only gun I was looking for at the time and a guy had 2 of the steel framed guns and I just picked the better of the two and took it home.
I have never had any trouble with it at all. I did take some 000 steel wool to the stocks and toned them down so they are no longer shiny.
It took just a few loads to find that it likes 200gr Hornady round nose very well and will shoot them into an inch if I do my part. For the fun of it I've been hunting deer with the 225gr Nosler Partition that while not necessary for deer it is an emphatic killer.
I have found it to be a bit light at the muzzle but most carbines are so I have learned to live with it. The trigger is certainly not like that of a good bolt action but I've learned to live with it as well. All in all I truly like the BLR-81and the 358 combination. It suits the way that I hunt quite well and as long as I'm able to hunt I l hope that at least part of the time it's in my hands!

Goat

i had the trigger in my BLR 30-06 worked on its very nice now.