I'm purchasing a new Stainless Browning A Bolt in 375 HH.
Have any of you used this gun and how might you rate it?
Thanks,
Roger

Roger,
I routinely get beat up around these parts while extolling the virtues of the A-Bolt but I must convey to you that this is my favorite rifle. I've owned five Stainless Stalkers and still have three, one of which is chambered in .375. It feeds and extracts flawlessly. It's 26" tube gets the most out of the cartridge and shoots everything from 210 grains to 300 grains very fast and tight. I believe this action and magazine possess many innovative design features that do not receive the recognition they deserve, generally.

Roger,
I owned an A-Bolt Stainless Stalker for 13 years. It wasn't the 375 H&H--it was a 30-06 that was rechambered to 30 Gibbs--but it was quite accurate in both chamberings. I had less trouble with this particular rifle than with any other rifle I've ever owned. I don't remember speaking with anyone who owned one who didn't like it. FWIW

Good Hunting,

------------------
Andy Cooper

[This message has been edited by ACRecurve (edited 04-22-2002).]

I purchased a stainless stalker in 375H&H with the boss system for a moose hunt a couple years ago. I was a little disappointed with the gun when it came in. All literature that Browning publishes on this gun says 26" barrel. I waited about 2 months to get this gun and when the gun shop received it i picked it up and didn't really look at it for a couple of days. When I did the barrel was much shorter than I expected, to me a barrel must have rifling to be considered a barrel. With the bolt in and a dowel inserted the whole contraption comes in at 24", now the boss is is 3 1/4", leaving 20 3/4". Now a 375 H&H case is roughly 2 7/8", leaving only 17 7/8" of rifled barrel. Now that didn't upset me to bad until I went to the range and the best pattern I could get was well over 4" rested, to make along story short I kept complaining to the factory that the accuracy was totally unacceptable and I contributed that to the short barrel. I eventually sent it back telling them if they could not get it shoot under an inch to take off the barrel with boss and put a standard barrel on it. In 10 days I got it back with everything the same except the synthetic stock was reseated at the rear mounting bolt. The gun now shoots under 1". The gun has the smoothest actions of all the rifles I own closely followed by a Sako It has iron sites which I consider a must have, I always wondered what somebody does when there in the middle of nowhere and they drop and break the scope?. The recoil is not much more than my 30-06's. The Boss really tames the recoil, all you have to do is take it off to prove that. I used it on the Alaskan hunt and the gun was in the rain, snow and frost for 14 days without cleaning and it performed perfectly. The down side is it is not a CRF, it ownly has a 2 position safety, and it has a removal mag (which you can lose) other than that it is a well made well balance rifle which I do not intend on sellling. Good Luck.

A friend has an A bolt medallion in 7mag and hates it.

1. It shot like crap from the factory.

2. After bedding it shot ok with good handloads, and shot less than satisfactorily with factory loads.

3. After less than 500 rounds with 150 grain loads, the barrel shows serious erosion. They must use high sulfur steel to make them easy to machine, but that means they wear out in a jiffy.

4. He once got a dab of mud on the bolt when riding a 4 wheeler. The bolt was completely inoperable until disassembled and cleaned thoroughly. Mud won't slow down a mauser, in contrast.

500 Grains,
All this gleaned from a single example and second hand information, at that. Hardly enough to formulate an opinion, let alone post it. 500 rounds seems like quite a bit of shooting from a rifle that one "hates" and BTW, we're talkin' Stainless.

Wow 500 grains,that's a real nice bullshit story. Don't just stop at example 4 though. Add at least section 5-10.