I Tested Remington, Savage & Ruger Rifles — A Clear Winner!

📖 Get The Old Gun Hand, fifty years at the gunsmith's bench, written down: https://ivansjournal.com Walk up to any old gun counter and ask which bolt-action rifle to buy. For most of my life you'd have heard two words before you finished asking. Remington 700. This time I laid three rifles across the same bench. A Remington 700, a Savage 110, and a Ruger American Gen 2. The cheapest-looking one gave me the fewest reasons to complain, and the one I'd have picked without thinking was the one I hesitated over the longest. So nobody writes in about it, here is what this test was and wasn't. I'm not a lab. There was no machine rest and no spreadsheet. I did what an owner does. I ran the bolts, worked the safeties, felt the triggers, carried them, and asked what each one really costs at the counter. Then I asked the question I never used to ask at all. If something goes wrong with this rifle ten years from now, who answers the phone? That question came from the Remington. The Walker trigger was in its rifles from 1948 to 2006. Its replacement, the X-Mark Pro, was recalled in 2014 for excess bonding agent. A class action settlement ended up involving roughly seven and a half million firearms. Remington has always said the Walker trigger is neither defective nor unsafe. Then came the 2020 bankruptcy, the end of Ilion, New York, a LaGrange, Georgia plant facing foreclosure, and a new ownership deal announced just this past September. What we go through: Why the 700 became the default action everybody measured against The Walker trigger, the X-Mark Pro recall window, and why you check your serial number Chapter 11, RemArms, Ilion, LaGrange, and who owns Remington now The Savage 110, sold for about $110 in 1958, and the first commercial left-handed bolt gun The AccuTrigger and how the budget brand built its name on a trigger Why the AccuTrigger is no longer the advantage it was in 2003 The next-generation 110, AccuFit V2, and why it isn't cheap anymore The Ruger American, dismissed in 2012 and now the best-selling centerfire hunting rifle in America The Gen 2 three-position safety that lets you unload on safe Threaded muzzle, a 3 lb 7.7 oz trigger, and six and a half pounds in 6.5 Creedmoor Where the Ruger falls short, and the one case where I'd still buy a Remington first Said plainly on safety: if you own a 700 or Model Seven from inside the recall window, or an older one with the original trigger, don't guess. Check the serial number with the manufacturer or have a qualified gunsmith tell you what's in it. Suppressors are federally regulated and some states ban or restrict them, so check your own rules. Trigger adjustments are done with the rifle unloaded and by the manual. There is no brand loyalty in any of this. A rifle is a forty-year purchase. It isn't just steel and a stock. It's the company standing behind it for as long as you own it. If you're shopping, don't buy the name. Ask what the rifle gives you, what it really costs, and who will still be there to back it. The notes I've kept on every rifle, trigger, and regret became my book. You'll find it at ivansjournal.com Tell me in the comments which of these three you've kept the longest. And tell me this: would you buy that same brand again today?