Most "cheap" guns arnt poorly made, they are poorly finished.....and who ever designs the stocks has a taste for abstract art it seem....
Look at the Tikkas, they are a cheap design, but they arnt cheaply finished, and you pay for it. The 700s and Savages were similarly designed to be lower cost to produce.
Ive had most of the cheap guns now, and theres a couple designs i dont want to work with (savage Axis being the first to pop into my head), and a few i wouldnt recommend (rem 710/770 series), but for the most part they all go bang when you tell em too, hit what you point at, and clean up real nicely.
I let anyone who asks shoot my guns.
Nearly everyone brave enough to asks wants to shoot the Ridgeline once or twice, and most shoot a few shots out of the Christensen barreled 700.
Usually the .375 gets passed around some.....
The only gun that i never get to use my self is my 6.5 American in a boyds stock.
It looks cool, works as smoothly as my 1800 dollar christensen, and is easier to shoot.
Triggers stoned and the spring swapped. Bolts polished. Ive added a Boyds prov stock with AI mag kit and Gama vg6 brake.
Whole shebang cost something like 750 dollars and an hour of elbow grease, so at my 23 bucks an hour....lets call it 775 +/-
What gun can I buy with a laminate target stock, 2lb trigger, VG6 muzzle brake, nice full length aluminum picatinny scope rail, AICS mags, one finger bolt operation, and sub, sub moa accuracy......all for less than 800 bucks?
And why arnt ALL of my guns Ruger Americans ?
Well cause that would be boring.
Im willing to find the money to buy nicer things to a point. My Christensen for instance, and eventually im (almost) positive ill order a Cooper 52 Western Classic with embellishments, because i want them.
And Im mostly buying features and feel, not accuracy.
If i was only interested in accuracy, id buy 5 identical Axis or Americans and sell all but the most accurate at a 25-50% loss. Im positive id have a gun that shoots fantastically, still only cost a grand, and shoots the ammo I WANT it to, not just what it likes best.
To be fair most of us CHOOSE to hunt, fish, shoot etc. We also CHOOSE the gear we use.
Our means, interests, approach and our priorities are different. That affects the choices we make.
Im a gun Nerd, Tinkerfreak, and like wierd stuff, but nothing i do with my firearms is super critical. I buy what I think ill enjoy to use and work on....that shows in my spending and purchases
...and sometimes im horribly wrong and someone else gets free stuff, even if its actually really GOOD stuff because id rather see it used than not.
