What do you think? Like, not like?

I like them but not because they won't rust. I like them because they are easier to make look new when they do rust.

Like!

I like.
Have at least a dozen
And another on the way.

I only have one, but I like it.

Most match barrels are made of stainless steel. Obviously a huge simplification of a match barrels, but generally the steel itself and manufacturing process with stainless is more conducive for better accuracy.

I like 'em. Had lots of rainy or snowy opening days over the years. Add a scope with rainguard coated lenses and you're good to go.

This ^^^

I like the looks of blue and stainless both.

Stainless is a lot easier to take care of but don't be fooled into thinking they can't rust because they can and they do.

Finnlite is uber

I like blue better, but I’m old.

Went through the plastic/stainless/camo phase but am back to the esthetics of blue and well done walnut. Guessing it's a pretty common cycle. Never had a problem with CM rusting. .

I use a lot of stainless rifles. The appearance doesn't bother me, especially in a big game rifle. They're a bit easier to deal with in the rain and snow. I still enjoy blued and wood though.

I like to have one or two around to make my blue/walnut guns look that much better.

I like stainless and blue, and cerakote too.

I like them, and also like the full camo ones. Nothing is as nice to look as good wood and blued metal, but I don't hunt with anything like that anymore. I have a couple of my first deer rifles, a Marlin 336 and a Remington 700 Classic that have been relegated to safe queen status because they're just what I prefer to hunt with these days.

Stainless in a swirly for me please.
Blued?.....yuck.

I must be conflicted because I really like stainless actions and barrels but I like them in a nice walnut stock.

drover

Me too. Or laminate.

I like both blued rifles and SS rifles. I guess I’m a bit of a slut.

I like them. Drop a SS barreled action in a synthetic stock and fuggedaboudit when the weather gets nasty. Like the others have said, they will rust though. One of the worst rusting rifles I ever had was a stainless Ruger that I had bead blasted. I think the rough surface on the metal held moisture more than a smooth one.

SS and laminate. Nutmeg is first choice but pepper will work too.

Have one, a 77/44 SS. A rainy day gun. The others make fun of it all the time. Raincoat and umbrella jokes mostly.

i have a few. foul weather guns mostly but a few that are SS and walnut. i like blued and walnut guns personally but when the weather is schit, i grab my ruger 77 frontier 338 fed. 16.5" SS gun with laminated stock. it never used to bother me to take my old timers out in the rain but some of them are approaching 100 years old so i figure they've seen enough schit weather and leave the nasty days to the youngins'

I prefer nice wood and blue. I have a couple stainless custom barrels, but mostly blue. As for taking the old timers out in the rain, around here I'm the old timer and I ain't goin out in that stuff.

Is there something else, synthetic stocks and stainless.....rifles are tools and meant to be used! Though most of ours are.....blue! memtb

I have SS/Synthetic rifles and appreciate how easy the SS is to care for. But I don't see it as that much of an advantage. I have blue rifles and shotguns that are 50-70 years old that have been used in some harsh conditions. They require a little more care to keep them from rusting and will develop many more "character marks" as well as having spots where the blue gets worn thin. But any issue with a blue gun bad enough to cause a failure is due to negligence and the same negligence will cause a SS gun to fail. Any more I'd just as soon have one of the durable coatings in a dark color mated with a synthetic stock.

Where I draw the line is wood stocks, even laminate. Compared to even cheap tupperware stocks wood can, and will fail with no advance warning regardless of how well they are cared for. I've seen it happen too many times to trust any wood stock for more than a wall hanger.

Stainless machines better and laps better. It is not as durable as steel. not that it matters on that last point.

I was going to say just about the same thing. With stainless and synthetic I don't have to fret about light precipitation, but even with ss and synthetic if I get caught in a heavy rain I will put the rifle in the case and take it out when it is over or I need to shoot.

I like stainless just fine but would guess that most contain non stainless components. I paint my hunting rifles so it doesn't matter much to me. My most used rifle is a 10/22 in wood and blue and it still shoots good, steel wool works.


mike r

Rather eat some grub, drink a glass of whiskey, brush my teeth, shower, and get a good night sleep rather than clean a rain soaked gun in the evening.

whats not to like ?

walnut & SS.............

I absolutely love stainless rifles! I have several in my gun safe. The ONLY drawback to stainless is that they do look as "pretty" as a gloss blued rifle. But they sure are awesome in every other way.

. . . with sugar and spice and everything nice.

I like both, I'm easy to please!

I'm of the old school in which blued steel and walnut make a real gun; but I like the low maintenance aspects of stainless and synthetic. Like the lady says, "You pays your money and you takes your choice!"

I like to look at blued guns in pretty wood...........as long as they belong to other people. Every rifle in my safe is stainless steel, handguns too except for my little LCP pistol. And if Ruger ever makes it in stainless, I’ll trade. And I AM an old guy.

I'm undecided.

I think the worst thing about stainless rifles is that people have taken that to mean they won't rust, that you can use them in the rain with impunity, and they don't need the sort of care other rifles need. It isn't so.

The stainless used in rifles comes in different grades. Barrels are usually 416 or something similar, a grade of stainless which actually isn't all that corrosion resistant as stainless steels go. It certainly will rust, if you don't look after it. A matte finish, such as you might want for the reduction of visibility in a hunting rifle, further reduces what rust resistance it has. As well, if you tear your rifle down and have a good close look you'll almost certainly find there are parts which actually aren't stainless at all - springs in particular, as well as pins and clips and other parts hidden away in the stock.

The net effect is that a stainless rifle will need to be looked after. It may offer some benefits in terms of resistance to bore erosion, and may or may not offer a bit more resistance to corrosion than some of the finishes used on plain carbon steel or CrMo steel, but all of them will need some looking after. There are much better options if you want a rifle to resist corrosion, such as nitriding.

I'm not against stainless, and I do own a stainless/synthetic rifle. I own a lot more which aren't stainless/synthetic though, and they all have survived hunting in all sorts of conditions, including rain, some for many, many years. I think a good coat of wax, on all surfaces, and a tear down and clean after going out in the rain, is a better solution than relying on the dubious idea that a stainless/synthetic lets you off the hook.

I guess that us Louisiana boys think a lot alike! memtb

Ya wanna look at it or hunt with it?

Wood and blue have a beauty I like, yet I way prefer stainless for most of my hunting. East of the coast range predator hunting in cold winters, blue and wood is what I use with no thought to wet. But hunting blacktails or Roosevelts in places like Vancouver Island or the Olympic Peninsula, it is stainless for me.

Yes, stainless will rust, and will rust pretty fast, but nothing like blued steel. I have field tested those comments.

I have a custom rifle in swirly walnut and smooooth blue barrel. It is a shame what that thing looks like now after years of backpack hunts for a week or so in rain and snow, and how beat up it is and needing a refinish. It is retired from such hunts and stainless synthetic has replaced it. We hunt for days on end in the rain and if camping the rifles stay outside overnights. Except in freeze/thaw cycles when it takes some internal drying to keep the trigger/action functioning, I'm not gonna dry and wipe and do much waterproofing etc. till I get home or maybe even till the end of the season. Stainless give more margin is all.

Now days my favorite rifles are the Kimber Montana. I recently bought 2 CZ 455s in synthetic and stainless. And searched out a Winchester Classic stainless synthetic in 375 H&H.

In 1991, before stainless was common, I had my M77 25-06 Tefloned and bedded in a Brown Precision stock.

I had a walnut, blued action, stainless barrel 22-250. It is now Cerakoted desert tan in a brown spiderweb tan Wildcat stock. My 17 Fireball is a Remington Model 7 Predator. Camo painted metal and a fairly stiff Tupperware stock.

My shotguns are synthetic stocked. 50% of my handguns are stainless, mostly rubber gripped.

My preference is stainless synthetic.

I could be swayed to blued walnut if someone were to buy me a Heym Martini, or a new Maurer 98, or Rigby, or a Holland and Holkand. 😉

Listening to this lot it's a miracle the west was ever settled or that our soldiers ever survived the two world wars with their blue steel wood stocked rifles. Course they didn't use their guns as hard a ya'll do.

Bottom line...they both need to be maintained and either one will last you a lifetime if you do.

I switched to all stainless rifles a decade ago, the blued ones stay at home looking pretty.

I don’t care how they do it out west.

I have both but like the blued.

Right? Still can't figure why we've moved away from prop planes for warfare, celestial navigation or fallen for Polio vaccines.

I like SS simply because it is more utilitarian.

Blue and walnut are far prettier to my eye.

+1 for stainless and wood.

I love the look. I love the reduced maintenance requirements.

We hunt some really [bleep] weather with rain and snow a given, and though I always hated the looks of the stainless and plastic guns, but after hunting with them I'm sold, there is nothing like the deep silver blueing on an old Browning or Sako , but for hunting I will take the ugly rifle everytime.

When you use/need a gun to feed yourself, keep yourself from getting slow roasted by native American Redskins, or survive a World War, you don't worry about the gun getting scratched or a little rusty. I have a 22 rifle that was used hard by my Granddaddy, my Dad, and his brothers from the 1940's to the 1970's. Granddaddy carried it everyday on his tractor or in a vehicle in case he ran across a snake or something else that needed shooting. To them it was a tool, no different than a hammer or an axe. By the time I got it, it had no finish on the barrel or stock, the bolt was broken off and replaced with a screw, and half the butt plate was broken off. However, it still shot as well as a new one. Dad wanted to fix it up and we did. It got new parts, reblued, and I refinished the stock. Sometimes I think we should have left it alone.

Good morning guys!
I guess it is really a individual thing! For myself, deer hunting in fir/spruce thick brush in snow with a wood/blued color case M-93 or M-94 carbine in 38-55 or even a 30-30 is hard to beat!! On the other hand, as much as I like nice walnut and blued rifles, I find use for stainless synthetic rifles for moose. Especially with the need to canoe across lakes and all the rain we get during moose season in October...

[align:left][/align]I wouldn't have anything but stainless, given a choice and wood is for guitars and campfires.

A can of Krylon only costs a few bucks....

Both.

Stainless and blue: Check



Cerakote: Check (actually GunKote)

I like um both. I have both. They both work just fine. Depending on how I plan to use it determines the one I take.

I like stainless especially M70 stainless.

.338-06


.30-06


.270

And I love this SS/Walnut stuff: M70 custom - .358 STA.. NIB.

I have three stainless bolt actions with synthetic stocks and three blued walnut stocked rifles in the same chambering.

Stainless and composite stock. I’ll never buy another blued firearm.

"One of the very first accuracy killers in a previously good shooting barrel is throat erosion"

"The type of stainless steel used in good rifle barrels does not erode as quickly as carbon steel"

This ^ is my number one reason for liking SS. There are other reasons, but the longer barrel life I get with SS is the only excuse I need.