Thread: Question: What’s the worst (hunting) rifle you've ever owned/used & why?

Browning X-Bolt 7mm RM (S/S).

Purchased it while working at Bass Pro in Calgary, AB, Canada in 2010. Spent months deliberating over what one rifle i was going to take back to NZ. Purchased the X-Bolt at a very good price, put a nice VX-3 on it and a few boxes of ammo and set it up to chase Whitetail for the season. Shot okay at the range (assumed it was the cheap ammo I was using) and restricted my max range to a couple of hundred yards to ensure a clean kill. Shot a couple of deer and a red fox in winter with it, so happy enough.

Then it got it back to NZ, started loading for it, tried 4 different projectiles and 3 different powders and could not get it to shoot. Groups averaged 2-3". Got it re-bedded (Factory bedding was shite), lightened trigger, double/tripled checked scope and rings, took it to two different gunsmiths and still no luck. Some talk from them brought up the possibility that the chamber may not be concentric to the bore.

Decided to save up and replace the barrel with a True Flight and 12months later when I sent it to Gunworks to be done, Robbie calls me up and says my barrel is wonky and that the walls of the action and stock are so thin he doesn't believe that re-barrelling it will fix the twisting/flexing of the action/stock every firing. My bubble completely burst then, couldn't send it to Camerons as I purchased it in Canada, and no way am I sending it back there.

So I traded it in with Robbie and got them to order me another Tikka T3, in 7mmRM, flute the bolt, put a brake on, slap my Leupy on it as well as a B&C stock and fark me...another Tikka that shoots minute of SFA with anything and a real pleasure to shoot. Lesson learnt.