chrisintexas
New member
Please classify them quality wise. Tier 1 for best tier 2 for second best and likewise.
Hunting rifles - please classify them in tiers per quality
- Thread starter chrisintexas
- Start date
Not speaking of handcrafted rifles such as purdey, or HH which are in the price range of house property value.
And not speaking about american made rifles.
I will stick to european industrial makers, only.
Top tier:
duoble barrel rifle:
Heym, kreighoff, chapuis.
(Chapuis: Although not a rifle, you may check their revolver manurhin famous for quality and accuracy, which is another of their products)
Single shot rifle,
Blaser k95, or haenel.
Turn bolt action:
Sako 85, CZ 550 (CRF) or CZ 557 (Push Feed), or modular Sauer 202/404 or masuer 03.
Linear bolt action:
merkel rx helix, blaser 03.
Semi auto:
benelli argo. (argo stands for: auto regulated gas operation) The only european hunting semi auto with ability to change barrels/calibers. In USA - goes under name R1.
That covers top tier hunting rifles. Everything else is 2nd tier, under condition that money is no object.
And not speaking about american made rifles.
I will stick to european industrial makers, only.
Top tier:
duoble barrel rifle:
Heym, kreighoff, chapuis.
(Chapuis: Although not a rifle, you may check their revolver manurhin famous for quality and accuracy, which is another of their products)
Single shot rifle,
Blaser k95, or haenel.
Turn bolt action:
Sako 85, CZ 550 (CRF) or CZ 557 (Push Feed), or modular Sauer 202/404 or masuer 03.
Linear bolt action:
merkel rx helix, blaser 03.
Semi auto:
benelli argo. (argo stands for: auto regulated gas operation) The only european hunting semi auto with ability to change barrels/calibers. In USA - goes under name R1.
That covers top tier hunting rifles. Everything else is 2nd tier, under condition that money is no object.
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Show horse or work horse? Do you define quality as highly polished blue steel and fancy wood, or is reliability and accuracy more important. The latter is more important to me. And I'll only cover bolt guns.
The best rifles will be custom's built on a Winchester or Mauser actions. You'll get the best reliability from those actions and with a quality barrel and custom fitting will result in great accuracy. And depending on your budget can have good wood and metal. A high quality synthetic stock such as McMillan will run $500-$600 and help improve accuracy and durability. A really nice looking piece of wood will cost 2X or 3X that much. If you go with synthetic stocks or average wood price can be in the $2000 range, not much more than many top end factory rifles.
Top factory: Winchester, Kimber, Sako, Styer, Montana Rifle Company, New Ultra Light Arms, and CZ come to mind. I may be leaving some out.
2nd tier: Remington, Savage 10/110, Ruger Hawkeye, Tikka,
Good budget rifles: Ruger American, Savage Axis, Mossberg, TC Venture.
I'm sure I've left something out and some would make a good argument that certain rifles should be in a different category. But that is the way I see it.
The best rifles will be custom's built on a Winchester or Mauser actions. You'll get the best reliability from those actions and with a quality barrel and custom fitting will result in great accuracy. And depending on your budget can have good wood and metal. A high quality synthetic stock such as McMillan will run $500-$600 and help improve accuracy and durability. A really nice looking piece of wood will cost 2X or 3X that much. If you go with synthetic stocks or average wood price can be in the $2000 range, not much more than many top end factory rifles.
Top factory: Winchester, Kimber, Sako, Styer, Montana Rifle Company, New Ultra Light Arms, and CZ come to mind. I may be leaving some out.
2nd tier: Remington, Savage 10/110, Ruger Hawkeye, Tikka,
Good budget rifles: Ruger American, Savage Axis, Mossberg, TC Venture.
I'm sure I've left something out and some would make a good argument that certain rifles should be in a different category. But that is the way I see it.
Interesting concept...I'll take a stab at it...Bolt actions
Full custom on custom action - Pick your gunsmith/builder and your options....$3000-$100,000 plus
Full custom on a factory action - $1500 - $100,000 plus bring in your rifle and what you want
Semi-custom- Montana Rifle Company, McMillan, numerous others including production custom shops - $1500 - $50,000 or so...
Top tier production - Kimber, CZ premium models, Sako
Good production - Savage, Winchester, Remington, Ruger, Tikka
Bargain - Ruger American, Mossberg
Full custom on custom action - Pick your gunsmith/builder and your options....$3000-$100,000 plus
Full custom on a factory action - $1500 - $100,000 plus bring in your rifle and what you want
Semi-custom- Montana Rifle Company, McMillan, numerous others including production custom shops - $1500 - $50,000 or so...
Top tier production - Kimber, CZ premium models, Sako
Good production - Savage, Winchester, Remington, Ruger, Tikka
Bargain - Ruger American, Mossberg
Don Fischer
New member
Don't think there's an answer for that. Quality is pretty much hat you say it is!
I've owned mostly Remington's in my life, easy for me to bed them and I love the old trigger. I have my third Winchester now, and I've never shot a head of game with any of them but, really nice rifle's. I recently bought a Mossberg Patriot, first Mossberg rifle I ever owned. It's one of the nicest handling rifle's I've ever had. That of course is my opinion. I got the wood stock model! Now the rifle has plastic part's where most people that can afford a more expensive rifle will turn their nose up at. It also has the best out of the box trigger I have ever seen, thing breaks a 2 1/2# according to my fish scale! No over travel nd no take up. I say that because my favorite trigger is on a custom 03 Springfield. It's the two stage military trigge cleaned up. Had no idea they could be that nice.
Everyone that has ever fired one of my Rem 700's has let off the fire round by mistake and their trigger's are all set at 3#! A good shooter would not do that with a 3# trigger! But placing in tier's will be difficult at best, we all have different ideas of what quality really is.
I've owned mostly Remington's in my life, easy for me to bed them and I love the old trigger. I have my third Winchester now, and I've never shot a head of game with any of them but, really nice rifle's. I recently bought a Mossberg Patriot, first Mossberg rifle I ever owned. It's one of the nicest handling rifle's I've ever had. That of course is my opinion. I got the wood stock model! Now the rifle has plastic part's where most people that can afford a more expensive rifle will turn their nose up at. It also has the best out of the box trigger I have ever seen, thing breaks a 2 1/2# according to my fish scale! No over travel nd no take up. I say that because my favorite trigger is on a custom 03 Springfield. It's the two stage military trigge cleaned up. Had no idea they could be that nice.
Everyone that has ever fired one of my Rem 700's has let off the fire round by mistake and their trigger's are all set at 3#! A good shooter would not do that with a 3# trigger! But placing in tier's will be difficult at best, we all have different ideas of what quality really is.
Others have said it.
In the end,the measure of quality is how you feel about the value you received for your money.
Price is one factor. A $400 rifle that delivers a dependable 1 1/4 MOA might represent more quality than a $2000 rifle that does the same thing.
How much does it matter TO YOU if its old school forging and walnut with hand cut checkering versus a tubing receiver with stamped parts and a polymer stock?
You are the boss!
What properties,or qualities matter to you? Rank them. We can help more then.
In the end,the measure of quality is how you feel about the value you received for your money.
Price is one factor. A $400 rifle that delivers a dependable 1 1/4 MOA might represent more quality than a $2000 rifle that does the same thing.
How much does it matter TO YOU if its old school forging and walnut with hand cut checkering versus a tubing receiver with stamped parts and a polymer stock?
You are the boss!
What properties,or qualities matter to you? Rank them. We can help more then.
dakota.potts
New member
It's hard to break them down into two tiers.
For instance, I would take a Remington 700 any day over the abomination they call a 770. Still better (in my personal opinion) would be a CZ or maybe a Winchester Model 70. Up from there you get into custom shop actions. Then you get into entire custom rifles built by guys like McWhorter's (just one named example) and you can go all the way up to a $100,000 rifle from there.
For instance, I would take a Remington 700 any day over the abomination they call a 770. Still better (in my personal opinion) would be a CZ or maybe a Winchester Model 70. Up from there you get into custom shop actions. Then you get into entire custom rifles built by guys like McWhorter's (just one named example) and you can go all the way up to a $100,000 rifle from there.