Browning Bar .308 go or no go

[scruffy_smith]

I guess I've been real lucky with that gun, I've only had one situation where it failed to fully feed the shell and that was due to plastic bolt cover hanging, just broke it off at the truck and test fired it at our range the next day. I didn't know anything about that gun when I bought it and no one I knew had any experience with them. Today I was in a Pawn shop in Valdosta talking to the gun guru there, talking about several rifles, and asked him about the gun, he told me they won't even take them in as a trade and have several in the back that they won't even put on the shelf. Wish I had known this way back, as I have had several people shoot the gun and ask to buy it. I will not sell it to someone now that I know the deal, I wouldn't knowingly sell a gun that has the reputation I now know a 742 has to a friend of mine.

[chadbag]

I guess I've been real lucky with that gun, I've only had one situation where it failed to fully feed the shell and that was due to plastic bolt cover hanging, just broke it off at the truck and test fired it at our range the next day. I didn't know anything about that gun when I bought it and no one I knew had any experience with them. Today I was in a Pawn shop in Valdosta talking to the gun guru there, talking about several rifles, and asked him about the gun, he told me they won't even take them in as a trade and have several in the back that they won't even put on the shelf. Wish I had known this way back, as I have had several people shoot the gun and ask to buy it. I will not sell it to someone now that I know the deal, I wouldn't knowingly sell a gun that has the reputation I now know a 742 has to a friend of mine.

There is nothing wrong with selling it to someone since you know it works. The problem is when you know it has a problem and sell it to offload the problem on to someone else.

Not every specimen of something with a bad reputation is a lemon.

[scruffy_smith]

In the long talk today at the pawn shop he basically told me the bad history of the gun led to it being "fixed" and then became the 7400 Remington. Everyone I knew that had one had problems, some gave the guns away for free to others. My problem has been that everyone who has wanted it has been a good friend , and if the gun becomes problematic for one of them, I would rather keep it and loan it to them then to sell a gun to them. This way, if it messes up, there's no real problem. Now if I was somewhere shooting and an offer was made for it by someone I didn't know, I would consider it. I have always held onto the gun because I knew I would have to replace it, as it was my primary deer hunting rifle, only thing else I had was a black powder rifle, and that is used only to hunt a week earlier than everyone else that hunts at our farm. I know I have been sold a problematic vehicle by a buddy, everyone who found out what was wrong with the truck I got was mad that a friend sold me a lemon, but i knew the truck had problems when i bought it , that's why I got it cheap, still had to smooth some feathers when I called and needed someone to pull me back home when the truck would strand me.

[Suwannee Tim]

Seriously, the 742 is not that bad for what it was designed for. I had several friends who used them with good success. They will not fire thousands and thousands of rounds and keep going, they will break. They usually string shots as they heat up. My buddies killed a lot of deer with them and a couple are still being used by children or grandchildren. One friend, the late Havard Hodges killed three deer with three shots in about six seconds at ranges from 150 to 215 yards with a 742 30-06. He thought he was shooting at and missing one deer.