Browning A bolt actions are second only to Weatherby. They have the potential to be better than Tikka, Remington, Savage etc. I honestly have to say I have not worked on building them that often. I did one 26 years ago and just finished up one about two weeks ago. I spoke with a lot of my friends in my circle that are very well known gunbuilders. They all do not want to work on them. This kinda gives the impression that they are not worth having for a build. This is far from the truth. There reasons are very valid though. (1) they have enough work on the easy actions that they have experience in. (2) they are not as common, so parts are not as readily available, The selection of stocks and other gadgets to sell and make money on are not there. THE FINAL PROBLEM IS...They are a true bitch to get the barrel off. If you do get it off , it should not go back on. To get them off you literally have to heat the action up. Put ice on the barrel. Put a clamp on the barrel and hit the clamp with a sledge. If that does not work then put a pipe wrench on it and sledge it again. Then the process of putting it back on. To use a reamer just to tune the factory barrel, to set the leade or freebore for what ever specified bullet will be used. Most will remove the bolt and go in from the rear, Hardly accurate. They do this because it is nearly impossible, to for above mentioned reasons, to take the barrel off and remove a couple threads off the barrel to take the factory slop out. Browning gunbuilders are few and far in between but the ones that truly know what the hell they are doing can deliver a superior product. I do not know Len Backus, The owner of this forum but some one might give him a ring to see if he has a great understanding of them and if he works on them. DO NOT ASK ME. I AM GRATEFULLY RETIRED. I was a slave to my passion, now I drink beer and sit on my bench and shoot. Not at the same time of coarse. If Len does not work on these then I will recommend a great gun builder that knows Brownings.
