Q: Like yourself, I am a traditionalist with regard to rifles. I definitely prefer all-steel parts in a nicely finished sporter and a well-figured, carefully inletted and precisely checkered stock elegantly shaped in the classic style. Alas, many factory guns have alloy or polymer parts, particularly the trigger guards, bolt shrouds and magazine boxes. This is all right in an economy class rifle, but even some more expensive guns like Steyr have synthetic parts. Don’t you agree with me that standards have been relaxed a long way in recent years?
Ken Hughes
A: I know where you are coming from, but many modern manufacturing methods are just as good as the old, and some like the Winchester Model 70 may even be better. Many parts made by the investment casting-process are just as good as those made by forging and machining.
Receivers are investment cast, barrels made by new processes like hammer forging around a mandrel and button rifling are cheaper to make and probably better than barrels drilled, reamed and rifled one groove at a time. A rifle with an aluminium trigger guard and floorplate shoots just as well as one with those parts made of blued steel. But while I’ll suffer alloy parts, I am not enthused about polymer parts, although I’ll admit that some budgetary rifles feed smoothly and are accurate into the bargain.
A rifle with a fibreglass stock handles and shoots as well as one with a stock of fine walnut that’s been hand-checkered. Ultimately, I guess it is largely a matter of how much you want to pay for a rifle that limits your choices. If you are prepared to pay big bucks, you can have a fine custom rifle built to your own specifications by a dedicated craftsman.
These days I’m not fussy and have a number of modern rifles in my rack with synthetic stocks that I use for hunting and have no fault to find with them. And I’d bet what pleases me also pleases a sufficient number of other people.
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