Rifle

The bolt action rifle is an American favorite. Currently the American shooting public enjoys a greater selection and a higher quality of bolt action rifle than ever before. After the MSRP of a bolt action rifle passes a certain point (as the ones in this...

Many new hunters, or those looking for a second rifle, want a firearm that will consistently perform at a minimal cost. A nice bolt action rifle doesn’t need to break the bank and there are plenty of options that retail for under $500. In this ranking s...

The term cult following gets thrown around a lot, but in the case of Browning it’s nearing the truth (It has been pointed out to me that a block of wood bearing a Buckmark logo could be a good seller). Some people even go so far as to have Browning’s ver...

The folks at CZ have been building tough, reliable, Mauser-style controlled round feed actions almost as long as Mauser has. CZ, for the most part, specializes in offering rifles with old-world aesthetics and a decided lack of modern bells and whistles....

The Howa 1500 is the twin to the Weatherby Vanguard. For the most part only a stamp machine somewhere in Japan knows the difference between these two rifles. This is the case because Howa has been making very accurate rifles for decades and Weatherby...

This rifle was voted the deserved title of “Best Value” based upon a combination of features and MSRP. Marlin is a very old company that has largely worked in the lever action market. For over a century American gun nuts have bought half a dozen Win...

The Mossberg 4x4 is a rifle that that visually emulates its namesake. The first look at the rifle makes you think that you would not have a problem dragging it around in the mud or maybe slapping it off a few rocks. This is not to say that the 4x4 won’t b...

The Mossberg ATR is Mossberg’s first venture into the low-priced centerfire market and has been around for a few years now. The rifle is intentionally as plain as it gets. The only thing that sets it apart from the rest of its budget bolt action contemporaries i...

Based on several preceding designs by Remington, the 700 action is the final evolution of a concept that Remington began working with in 1948. What Remington wanted to create was a bolt-action rifle that would give the same reliability as existing models...

The Remington Model 770 is the company’s latest foray into the first-time hunter rifle market. Following in the footsteps of Remington’s first budget rifle, the Model 710, the 770 comes as close to a right-out-of-the-box hunting tool as possible. Th...

One of the most iconic images in our cinematic history is the American cowboy with his lever action rifle. John Wayne had his 1873 Winchester. Chuck Connors had an 1892 Winchester. Even Zoe carried a mare’s leg 1892 in the “Firefly” universe. The lever...

The Ruger American is the company’s first venture into any kind of entry-level bolt gun, although the price of all Ruger products has always been very reasonable for what you get. The American is a big divergence from the company’s previous bolt action off...

The second incarnation of the Ruger 77 has met with nothing but success. The Mark II is a controlled round feed action with dual-opposed locking lugs and a non-rotating claw extractor. In many ways the Mark II filled the gap left in the market when the...

Sako has been around for a long time but only sold its offerings on the European market until about 1950 when it began offering mini-Mauser type actions and rifles chambered for varmint hunters or target shooters in the US. For a long time the only Sako...

Imagine for a moment that it is around 1957, your name is Nicholas Brewer and you work for Savage Arms. Your boss walks into the office one day and says “Nick, we need you to design a bolt action rifle for us. This gun has to be as accurate and dependable a...

With the Savage Axis we see yet another repackaging of Savage’s previous highly successful bolt action rifles. The Axis does have a few differences though. The first thing noticeably different is the safety, which has been moved back to the tang. Tang s...

The Stevens 200 is intriguing, not because it is different from existing products, but because it is the same. The 200 is basically a repackaging of Savage’s tried and true 110. The 110 in its various incarnations has never been a pretty gun or particularly s...

Thompson Center is best known for single-shot rifles like the Encore, but its bolt action offerings are interesting. T/C seems to like their rifles to be different and the Venture is no exception. For starters, the Venture has three locking lugs. This...

Thompson Center is a relatively recent competitor in the bolt-action market. In spite of the difficulties facing a recent market entrant, T/C is doing well with the Icon rifle and it possesses some features that cannot be found elsewhere, which isn’t e...

Tikka is an offshoot of Sako and is essentially the vehicle Sako has chosen to market its lower-priced rifles to the American shooters. Tikkas tend to be a bit more in keeping with American tastes than many of Sako’s offerings and so far, the Tikka b...

The Vanguard rifle imported by Weatherby has been around for a long time. This action is a push feed design that features a relatively large rotating extractor affixed to one of the bolt lugs and an enclosed bolt face. In design the Vanguard is very...

The Weatherby Vanguard has been around for a while now. It was originally introduced to give people the option of having the Weatherby name without the high price tag of the company’s very popular, but rather expensive, Mark V rifles. The Vanguard i...

In the beginning, Peter Paul Mauser invented the 98. America “borrowed” the design for the 1903 Springfield, was sued, paid up and then after WWII Winchester “borrowed,” it again when Mauser wasn’t really in a position to complain. The Model 70, “The ...