I am with Mr. Ed, the savage lrh would be hard to beat, at any price. Savage has good Quality control, 15 minutes to rebarrel, change the bolt head from a 30/06 to 300 win in another 10 minutes, have done this myself. I have built 12 custom rifles on savage long actions, for long range shooting, hunting and F classs, and there is a huge after market variety of parts such as bolthandles,recoil lugs, barrels, stocks and tooling. I true my own actions, tune or replace the triggers, bed in a quality stock with alum. pillars or bedding block, and often add muzzle brakes. I recently did a .300 build, with a 30/06 as described above, bought the 30/06 for $250, sold barrel and stock for$90, bought a new HOlland recoil lug, indicated and trued action, put on Shilen heavy sporter SS barrel and Boss type Muzzle brake, put in a B&C medalist stock that I skim bedded and used the Leupold bases that already were on the action. I did redrill and tap the mount/screw holes for 8/40 screws for more strength. Added a quality scope and with my old standby handload with 180gr. Sierra, will easiy shoot 1/2 inch 5 shot groups at 100yds, and hang at 1inch at 200yds first load, no workup. Total cost was less than $1000 not counting the scope. I have 2 similar rifles in 6.5x284 that I built and they are my go to guns here in KY. Most shots here will be 500yds and under varmint or deer, just the lay of the land. JMHO. Sam.
