I own a .223 Edge/Axis, bought from Wal Mart a couple of months ago for $257+tax. Also own a Stevens 200 in 7mm-08. Both are accurate. Both came with a factory trigger pull that left a lot to be desired, but after some trigger work, both are now acceptable to me. Stevens trigger design make it a little easier to lighten trigger pull if desired. Personally, I'd like to replace the stock on my Edge, like I did on the Stevens with a wood one I can make....but haven't tried yet due to Edge's detachable mag and needing to come up with a trigger guard for such a project....of course the lack of a recoil lug on receiver is a problem too.
Anyway, I think you may be right in preferring the Stevens over the Edge in the .223. I'm not happy with size of the Edge's ejection port and when extracting the spent brass, too often brass slips off extractor and stays in receiver when I don't firmly pull back on bolt. Old habit I have when shooting from bench at range so I don't have to pick up brass on ground. Also, used to loading rounds into rifle one at a time when shooting from bench, which is difficult to do thru ejection port due to its narrowness on the Edge. Another problem with Edge I've experienced is a vertical stock flex due to weakness of stock at wrist where rear of trigger guard piece mates with stock. When using my shooting cradle I can see up to a 1" movement of elevation crosshair on my 100 yard target, just from pressure of pulling trigger. Seems if you shoot from a cradle like me, it is more likely to happen than just shooting rifle from shoulder. I've posted about this stock flex problem here and on a couple of other gunsites. Other owners of an Edge have agreed wiith me on the stock flex and others have said they haven't noticed it or just blamed my shooting technique for problem. But as I've written before, my Edge does shoot some pretty good groups and have no problem busting clay pigeons on our two hundred yard berm.
