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The .243 project - Five rifles for the field

Official review in Australian Hunter 26

The decision to purchase a new centrefire firearm is a very personal thing. It’s a bit like buying a new car, but in the case of the latter, at least you can have a test drive - not so with a new rifle. We are very much aware that many people base their decisions on reviews and with this in mind, we take our reviews very seriously.
However, in the normal course of events, we do not own the firearms and we are limited in what we can do to them during reviews. We don’t touch triggers, but we do check to see that everything is done up the way it is supposed to be. The following exercise is going to be a little bit different. In this case, we do own the firearms and we will go to any lengths to extract the best performance out of them. It must be understood that the things we do are within the reach of any Australian shooter who wants ultimate performance from their favourite firearm. Some require the attention of a gunsmith, but it’s like anything else in life…how far do you want to go?
It is also important to understand that this review was not about finding a best and worst rifle. Our object was to buy what the customer buys and see how it performs and if there are any problems, we will tell you about them.

The rifles
We purchased five readily available hunting rifles (with scope mounts) from our advertisers, all in the same calibre. No heavy barrels or single-shots were allowed. We checked around the trade for retail prices, as we wanted a ceiling price of $1300 for a bare rifle. Yes, one can spend a lot more, but this review is directed at the average Aussie hunter who wants a good serviceable firearm at an affordable price.
It’s no secret that the emergence and popularity of the Weatherby Vanguard line of rifles forced other manufacturers to either lower their prices or to offer a quality budget-priced rifle to counteract them. Suddenly, we had quality rifles from manufacturers for less than $1000 - this was certainly a win-win situation for both dealers and shooters alike and sales of new rifles took off. It did put a bit of a downer on the secondhand market, as shooters considered that a new rifle might only cost them a few dollars more than the asking price for a secondhand one.
We wanted all of our chosen rifles to be in stainless steel where possible and preferably with synthetic stocks. With the harsh Australian climate, we felt that this is a good choice for all sorts of hunting situations. We nearly succeeded, but had to settle for wooden stock on two of them and of course, CZ don’t do stainless steel rifles. Again, it was a matter of supply - Australian sales are just a drop in the bucket when it comes to world numbers. One distributor told me that their annual order for a certain type of firearm did not equal the sales for one week in the US of the same rifle. That really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?
Scopes were provided by each distributor on a loan basis and were returned at the completion of the review. We asked that each distributor supply something from their optics range that would suit the rifle for a hunting situation. We appreciate that scopes are an individual thing and the scopes supplied may not be your choice, determined by cost or need.

The chosen rifle and scope combinations
Browning A-Bolt 11 Stainless Stalker with Meopta 4-12x42
CZ 550 American Hunter with Winchester 4-12x40
Remington SPS Stainless with Docter Optics 8x56
Tikka T3 Hunter Stainless with Burris Signature Series 3-10x40
Weatherby Fiberguard Stainless with Leupold VXII 4-12x40

Read about Accuracy seeking with handloads

Read about Modifications, range and equipment testing