This made me think...

[Wheels]

You should spend a few minutes looking at the FN made Browning Safari's. If you spend 2-3 months, you should be able to find one in the $1200-$2000 range. Yes they may be 50 years old but most probably haven't had too many rounds put through them. The actions worked like butter coming out of the box.

 

[Badboymelvin]

What a great rifle, Russ. Do you miss it?

Yeah mate, I do ...
One thing that lessens the blow is the fact that a well-known Australian gun-writer bought it and had big plans for it in regards to working up loads etc... It went to a good home.

But I really liked it and the magazine capacity was one thing it had over my beloved M70's.
Whenever you thought you'd run out of ammo there always seemed to be one more left in the mag!

I really liked the set-trigger too for range shooting... until I accidentally touched one off at the range when I was only 3/4 ready!
Result was an absolute ripper of a Weatherby eyebrow. Scared the crap out of me and if memory serves me right I went home after that. I'd had enough fun for one day!

I really do like the CZ's mate. I just sometimes think they let a rifle out the door that was only 3/4 finished...
But once a few things are sorted out they make great rifles

Cheers,

Russ

 

[CJW]

You should spend a few minutes looking at the FN made Browning Safari's. If you spend 2-3 months, you should be able to find one in the $1200-$2000 range. Yes they may be 50 years old but most probably haven't had too many rounds put through them. The actions worked like butter coming out of the box.

Found my 458wm for $1500. Looks brand new. The only work the previous owner had done was a quick work over to make sure it feeds big flat faced bullets 100%.

And yes the action is like butter.

 

[One Day...]

Yes, many actions will take the .300 / .338 / .458 Win Mag short magnum family of cartridges (and similar cartridges - 7 Rem Mag comes to mind), and some will take the .375 H&H length cartridges (although they are shoe-horned so tightly that the grand old .375 generally feeds well, but parallel walls, full-length, cartridges like the .416 Rem or .458 Lott are often a different story), and many of these rifles are beautiful indeed, including the FN made Browning Safari's Wheels indicates. These were made in different times with different quality standards. I had one in .308 Norma. I had it reamed into a .300 Win Mag when the .308 Norma ammo became too hard to find, and in the end I replaced it with a .300 Wby because I like the increased MPBR. Sadly, the action was too short to be converted to the Wby, save for deep and expensive alterations...

And this is the question that I always find interesting when folks adamantly condemn the CZ and hammer us (well, not really LOL) with doctoral and occasionally profanity-laced (although generally unsubstantiated) terminal posts: can the xxxxxxxxx action (insert the name of preferred action) house a .416 Rigby, .500 Jeffery, .505 Gibbs, etc. ? People in the know will of course understand that we are taking about both magazine length, width, and depth. If the answer is "no", well, this is a different discussion for those of us interested in these calibers, is not it... Heck, even the .458 Lott can be quite interesting to feed with flat nosed bullets in a .375 H&H length action... Why do you think the .458 Lott is not a standard factory Win 70 Safari Express chambering?

As previously mentioned, I own, and love my Win 70 limited series .300 Wby New Haven-made Classic Stainless, but good luck fitting a .416 Rigby in its action; good luck welding double square tops on it; good luck making it feed .458 Lott flat points without serious work (although it will feed OK most .416 Rem loads); etc. etc.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Bad Boy Melvin
I do believe that near perfection can be had in a rifle for fairly affordable prices if you are an eagle eyed searcher who knows the little places to look in .
View attachment 341120
Find a nice Springfield Model 1903 receiver and a straight or classic stock of French or Turkish walnut , order a Douglas barrel chambered in your desired caliber choice ( I am a 7 millimeter Remington Magnum man ) , and then find a competent gunsmith who can “ Do The Deed “ . I had a marvelous custom rifle maker named Mr. Jim Zahm of Oregon, USA build me exactly one such rifle in 1976 . In the last 44 years , it has not let me down even once. Be it for Sambhar Deer , Chital Deer , wild boars , Asian Sloth Bears or man eating Hunting Leopards .

Panther Shooter
My sentiments exactly. That way you can get exactly what you want and at a price that at times can be cheaper than buying something more upmarket. All my custom rifles cost me less than a new Winchester model 70 or a Sako. They may not be to some people's taste but they are functional and fit me like a pair of old slippers.
The secret is getting the donor rifle or actions at the right price.
My lowall originally cost me $125 and my Enfield was $150. The lowall cot $ 2000 to have done but that was with the fancy walnut and the Enfield was $1,100 all up. Both cheaper than a,Sako and the Enfield was $700 cheaper than a model 70.

The Enfield

The lowall
Just my 2 cents worth
Cheers mate Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Yes, many actions will take the .300 / .338 / .458 Win Mag short magnum family of cartridges (and similar cartridges - 7 Rem Mag comes to mind), and some will take the .375 H&H length cartridges (although they are shoe-horned so tightly that the grand old .375 generally feeds well, but parallel walls, full-length, cartridges like the .416 Rem or .458 Lott are often a different story), and many of these rifles are beautiful indeed, including the FN made Browning Safari's Wheels indicates. These were made in different times with different quality standards. I had one in .308 Norma. I had it reamed into a .300 Win Mag when the .308 Norma ammo became too hard to find, and in the end I replaced it with a .300 Wby because I like the increased MPBR. Sadly, the action was too short to be converted to the Wby, save for deep and expensive alterations...

And this is the question that I always find interesting when folks adamantly condemn the CZ and hammer us (well, not really LOL) with doctoral and occasionally profanity-laced (although generally unsubstantiated) terminal posts: can the xxxxxxxxx action (insert the name of preferred action) house a .416 Rigby, .500 Jeffery, .505 Gibbs, etc. ? People in the know will of course understand that we are taking about both magazine length, width, and depth. If the answer is "no", well, this is a different discussion for those of us interested in these calibers, is not it... Heck, even the .458 Lott can be quite interesting to feed with flat nosed bullets in a .375 H&H length action... Why do you think the .458 Lott is not a standard factory Win 70 Safari Express chambering?

As previously mentioned, I own, and love my Win 70 limited series .300 Wby New Haven-made Classic Stainless, but good luck fitting a .416 Rigby in its action; good luck welding double square tops on it; good luck making it feed .458 Lott flat points without serious work (although it will feed OK most .416 Rem loads); etc. etc.

One Day
One action that is usually overlooked is the M17 Enfield. It can easily be converted to any of the bid cals within reason. My gunsmith built a beautiful 505 Gibbs on an Enfield and Art Alpin used the M17 action for his big cartridges. Stronger and smoother than any Mauser ever made and already almost magnum length.
Cheers mate Bob.

 

[Major Khan]

One Day
One action that is usually overlooked is the M17 Enfield. It can easily be converted to any of the bid cals within reason. My gunsmith built a beautiful 505 Gibbs on an Enfield and Art Alpin used the M17 action for his big cartridges. Stronger and smoother than any Mauser ever made and already almost magnum length.
Cheers mate Bob.

1 of my favorite rifle actions of all time .
Also , do not forget the Pattern 14 Enfield action , Bob !
Truly wonderful magnum length actions.

 

[Major Khan]

And herein lays the true take-home-point of this thread in my mind.

There is no such thing as a DG-ready rifle out of the box, regardless of how much you pay for it and regardless of the reputation it comes with. One would have to be out of their mind to trust their life to a rifle without testing it and likely tuning it up. In my experience, I am afraid that "the rifle that does not need any work done to it" does not exist in a price bracket most can afford...

Admittedly chances for quality increase with the price tag, but based on personal experience one needs to climb pretty high up the price ladder to get a reasonable expectation that indeed "surely they tested for this before putting it on the market?"

Sure, I too "would still rather pay a bit more for the rifle initially" but the reality is that "a bit more" could buy you a bolt-mounted safety or a barrel band front swivel on a CZ for example (I would have happily shelled out an additional $250 for those), and that same reality is that you have to spend exponentially more to get the hours of hand labor that give you poop-through-goose smooth feeding, glass-rod-breaking trigger break, etc. i.e. everything that a machine cannot do or control, and that requires good old elbow grease.

As previously stated, it all boils down to a costs/benefits analysis, but I believe that the premise that one can buy best-artisan hand-made quality at the price of machine-made high volume production is likely unrealistic. In so many words, if one wants perfection, it can likely be purchased, but at perfection price, which is waaaayyyy higher than just "a bit more."

To me, the factory CZ 550 IS a heck of "a good rifle for the money." Under the rough is a diamond. Just my$0.02

I will be damned !It looks like the Winchester Model 70 bolt rifle is not completely immune to the odd " slip up " as well , One Day .
During my 10 year career as a professional shikaree ... I have also seen bespoke top grade Holland & Holland bolt rifles , built on Pattern 14 Enfield actions ( which those cheap light weight metal alloy magazines ) develop feeding problems in the field .

 

[AES]

Russ, if you find yourself wanting a 458 that works perfectly, every time, I have a relatively inexpensive custom build on a Mauser action that I would be happy to sell you. It's a fantastic gun but I don't need a 458 given the rest of my line-up.

 

[WAB]

I agree with One Day to a point. You should not take any rifle on any hunt without thoroughly checking it out. However, my experience with the new M-70’s has been that they function flawlessly out of the box. I have the new M70’s in .243, .325 WSM, .375 H&H and .458. All functioned flawlessly. This is not a large enough sample size to be statistically significant, but it gives me a great deal of confidence in the rifle.

Please note, in each case I checked the rifle out thoroughly, mounted scopes and tuned loads. Eventually all but the .243 were customized because I just can’t help myself.

Bottom line, if I wanted a reasonably priced DG rifle that in all likelihood would not need any work after being checked out, I would buy a Winchester M70 in .375 or .458.

 

[Panther Shooter]

Panther Shooter
My sentiments exactly. That way you can get exactly what you want and at a price that at times can be cheaper than buying something more upmarket. All my custom rifles cost me less than a new Winchester model 70 or a Sako. They may not be to some people's taste but they are functional and fit me like a pair of old slippers.
The secret is getting the donor rifle or actions at the right price.
My lowall originally cost me $125 and my Enfield was $150. The lowall cot $ 2000 to have done but that was with the fancy walnut and the Enfield was $1,100 all up. Both cheaper than a,Sako and the Enfield was $700 cheaper than a model 70.View attachment 341241
The Enfield
View attachment 341242
The lowall
Just my 2 cents worth
Cheers mate Bob

Bob
Those are some beautiful looking rifles ! Your .35 Whelen is my favorite rifle from your entire battery . Built on a Savage Model 110 receiver , too .
What wood is the stock on your Enfield Model 1917 receiver rifle ?

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Bob
Those are some beautiful looking rifles ! Your .35 Whelen is my favorite rifle from your entire battery . Built on a Savage Model 110 receiver , too .
What wood is the stock on your Enfield Model 1917 receiver rifle ?

Friend Panther Shooter
It's a Boyds replacement stock in American walnut. I was lucky enough to get a nice piece. All my stocks are hand rubbed with Linspeed oil( no it's not a spelling mistake). It is a linseed oil with the rubbish taken out so it dries properly. All my wooden stocks are polished with Gilleys gun polish wax after each use. It makes water and dust no problems then, water beads and runs off the wood and dust just wipes off. I use it on all the metal work as well.
A friend sold me the savage/ Stevens 200 for 350 dollars and as my 25 does everything the 270 will do and more I decided that a 35 Whelen would be nice. I told my gunsmith Rob Spittles in Rylestone to build me the most accurate 35 he has ever done. This he did, that rifle shot a 10 shot group with 5 different projectiles and 5 different shooters into a 1.2 inch group at 100 yards in Namibia. My PH fell in love with the rifle.
All up cost for the rifle was $1,550 and that included the original rifle, New barrel and gunsmithing and Zeiss 3-9X40 scope and rifle basix trigger. A new Winchester model 70 in Australia is $1,700 without a scope.
Keep safe and well my friend
Bob Nelson

 

[CJW]

Bob, I'll have to look into that linspeed oil. I'm redoing a stick right now and debated using linseed oil but I don't want any troubles with drying.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Bob, I'll have to look into that linspeed oil. I'm redoing a stick right now and debated using linseed oil but I don't want any troubles with drying.

CJW
Make sure you follow the directions and don't use a filler to fill the pores in the wood. I finished my prep work with 0000 steel wool then followed the directions.
If you want a really nice finish I applied six coats using the directions then waited a month and finished with Gilleys gun polish wax.
Enjoy finishing your stick mate you won't be disappointed just take your time.
Cheers mate Bob

 

[Badboymelvin]

Russ, if you find yourself wanting a 458 that works perfectly, every time, I have a relatively inexpensive custom build on a Mauser action that I would be happy to sell you. It's a fantastic gun but I don't need a 458 given the rest of my line-up.

Hey mate,

Thank you for the offer - and a few months ago I probably would've taken you up on it as I was desperately looking for a reasonably priced .458
But I managed to find a brand-new Zastava .458 that only needed a stock change (they split) to make it fully serviceable.

Thanks again for the offer

Russ