If you have been lucky enough to have tried some of the many CRF actions out there,which has been your favorite? Some actions for example are the Granite Mountain,Ruger,Win,CZ,Mauser,Satterlee,Hartmann and Weiss,etc...

Favorite or best?

For purely personal and not necessarily rational reasons I truley love a double heat treated '03 Springfield. it is a trim action and as slick as they come - only a Krag or MS is smoother - and it comes with history of battle and tradition of hunting and of Stuart Edwin White, Teddy Roosevelt, Townsend Whelan, Griffen and Howe, Wundhammer. I'm fully aware of its "faults" but none make it unfit or unsafe and still I love the old soldier.

Jerry Liles

Toss up between the 1903,5,10 Mannlicher/Schoenauer and 98 Mauser. I do have a soft spot for the Model 70 Winchester but it would have to take a back seat to the first two.

Hands down favorite for me is the 1903 and even the 03A3. I like the M1917 for the big stuff (3.6 inches and up) but the 03 wins my heart every time.

Favorite because it can be anything, is the Model of 1917/P14 commonly called the Enfield. It can be made into the most elegant custom, and hold almost any cartridge. Or it can be a simple, cheap, thumper.

Favorite ready made, out of the box action is the Ruger RSM action. Not the prettiest, but bull strong and simple.

Jeremy

It would be this Pete Grisel action my 280 is built on.

My favorite action is the pre-64 M70 Winchester.

I still use the one I bought new in 1957 and have a battery of them.

Here is one I got with a custom stock. It's been re-barreled to 300 Win. M.

for me, it is the OM 70. Some models of the M98 are close, but the action length and flexibility of the Winchester make it the top choice.

I have factory M70's in 22 Hornet and 300 H&H, it amazes me that they could do that...

The new M70s out of SC are amazing (at least the ones I have owned). I also used to own a custom built on a Peter Noreen action that was sweet, shouldn't have let it get away. For the money, I own several, the CZ550s are really hard to beat.

Model 70 followed by CZ/Brno.

My new Model 70 is fantastic, but I also have a soft spot for the 1917 Enfield because my father had one which he left to me. The old 1917 is fun to pull out every now and then to knock the dust off of it so to speak.

I started my high power competetive shooting career with a double heat treat Springfield, which I continued to use for a number of years. Then I picked up a pre-64 Model 70 Winchester and the light bulb went on in my head. By the time I could make a Springfield useable with a modified bolt handle, a commercial trigger, drilled and tapped for scope and iron sights, I had spent more money than it would take to buy a nice used Model 70, already equipped with barrel and stock. I used Model 70's for the rest of my competetive shooting days.

I also had my first "African battery" built up on DHT Springfields: a .458 Winchester Magnum, a .375 Taylor (.375/.338) and a 7mm Remington Magnum. None of those rifles made it to Africa, but they still occupy places of honor in my gun room.

My first African wildcat cartridge, the .505 SRE, was built on a P-14 Enfield action, and it made it to Africa three times and accounted for three bull elephant, five Cape buffalo and a black rhino. It functioned flawlessly in the tightest of tight situations.

I also have Oberndorf commercial sporters, 1916 and 1922 Newtons, Remington Model 30's, BRNO 21H and 22F, a rifle bult on a G33/40 action and another on a Granite Mountain action, but by far the largest number of bolt guns in my gun room are pre-64 Model 70's. Some are as they came from the factory. Others have been the basis of custom rifles by Al Biesen, Roy Dunlap, Taylor & Robbins, and Griffin & Howe, among others. One battered old .300 H&H factory rifle has accounted for about 90 head of African plains game. They are my "go to" guns.

Ditto for the Winchester Pre-64 Model 70. Excellent trigger, extractor, ejector, bolt handle, bolt release, bottom metal, etc. They look great and work even better. Why add all the M70 features to actions that lack them (at considerable cost) when old Model 70 actions are still available at reasonable prices? And yes, I know the Post-war M70s lack the fine machining of early Mausers but that is splitting hairs. Model 70s also lack the gas shield on the bolt shroud, true enough. In 45+ years of shooting them I've never needed this feature, nor have thousands of guys who fired millions of rounds through M70 actions.

The truth is there are a lot of good bolt actions out there that function well. None are perfect but the old Model 70s came from the factory just about as close as you can get.

My favorite is the Dakota.

Price wise, Winchester, Ruger and CZ are great.

GMA, Dakota, Winchester. For me as a lefty, a FRED WELLS left hand mauser built entirely from bar stock with a Manlicher type rotary magazine would be the ultimate.

Now that I can no longer use my right eye to aim with, I find myself in the same boat as natural born left handed shooters, only trying to learn to manipulate a bolt with my weak hand.

My first LH rifle was a Ruger 77 MkII and I just received a Winchester Model 70 LH which I had PacNor barrel in .308 with a target weight barrel. After bore sighting, the first three shots at 50 yards went into one hole. I think it's a keeper. It's my first post 64 "Classic" and so far I have no complaints.

I choose as my favorite a GMA Espress Magnum. It is made with all the important 98 features.
Cnc"d of 8620 steel with double square bridges that are machined for Joe Smitsons wonderful scope mounts. With proper finishing and fiting it is total function. I own many fine custom Mausers and oberndorf sporters but when I am serious I choose this GMA.

COMPLETE MAUSER LARGE RING EUROPEAN COMMERCIAL ACTIONS MANUFACTURED BY THE FAMED FIREARMS MAKER DUMOULIN OF ‘BELGIUM’

$295

Agree that the pre-64 M70 is good. A pre-war 270 of mine.



A 358 Win of mine.

+1 for Dakota of the standard manufacturers actions, although I haven't had much exposure to the more custom stuff.

My Winchester Model 70s. Most of mine are customized pre-64 actions, control round feed.

Remington Model 725 in .280 Remington. Factory, except for the compass about the diameter of a dime someone inlet into the comb. Topped with a Leupold VXIII 2.5-8x scope. Enough gun for anything I'll ever hunt.