When last we heard from the self-proclaimed Gun Nuts, they were telling the world that they accidentally on purpose forget to review crap guns. With their lack of credibility firmly established, they’ve moved on to recommending guns they don’t recommend. “. . . there is no logical reason to buy one. I love the things, and use them almost exclusively, but there is nothing [a custom rifle] can do that I couldn’t get done by a good factory rifle. So why bother?” Four reasons given: artistic patronage (“you are buying is the ideas and skills of the man who made the rifle”), quality (“they are supposed to work perfectly”), exclusivity (“Not every honyak in camp will be carrying a rifle made by Mark Bansner, or Nosler, or Kenny Jarrett”) and, again, quality (“the cutting edge of performance”). So, “If some or all of this is important to you, start saving your money.” Do people in that price range—$3k to $6k—have to save to buy a custom rifle? How . . . jejune. And yet how deeply reassuring re: the future of American manufacturing. In some ways.
“Only accurate rifles are interesting,” opined Townsend Whelen.
In which case, an off-the-shelf, ugly-as-sin Savage is plenty darn interesting, but not very exotic and certainly not sexy.
Furthermore, it was Col Jeff Cooper who reminded us that, “rare is the rifleman that can shoot up to his rifle.” In fact, the Guru went on to claim that less than one percent of all shooters worldwide can make their rifle do what it was designed to do — every time.
Yep. The out-of-the-box, blue-collar priced Savage is a better rifle than any of us deserve. Including me, seeing as I have a M12 precision varminter which I can make miss as consistently as anyone.
But do I want a super lightweight mountain rifle — say sub-five pounds — with a #1 contour barrel at a mere 18 1/2 inches, on a lightness-added Remington short action (with titanium bits), a compact Zeiss 4x scope and a McMillan ultralight graphite stock with pillar bedding in 308 Win?
Oh God, yes.
Cooper may have been helping the gun manufacturers when he said most folks are not up a firearms capability. Hogwash!
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