The Best and the Worse Brought to Life:
John I'll my two cents, being the Savage 340 kicked off the rant
“Just wondering what Rifles people have owned that have turned out to be just a waste of money or one that they wish they had left back at the shop? Tell me whats your best also? I have only had one bad Rifle. This was a Savage model 340 in .222. What a piece of crap! Every 2 shots it would not eject the case and at night this proved to be just a pain in the ass. I have to mess around trying to retrieve the shell. while my mates were getting all the foxes! Asked the shop about it and they told me it was very common in this Model.”
I have to guess that old Savage 340 had been around a lot of years. Looking back a “LOT” of years I recall a friend who lived out on a ranch having a Savage 340 in .222 Remington. It was a low cost rifle, and I am remembering back fifty or so years but I think it had a feeding issue.
He was deadly on coyotes, jackrabbits, digger squirrels, and other small critters with his .222. He made a mess of a very large buck with it. He did everything right getting close to a large buck on the ranch. But he was using a bullet designed to break-up on impact. That is exactly what his dad wanted, because he did not want a ricocheting bullet killing a cow. I believe he emptied the rifle on the buck hitting it every shot.
While we envied his having the run of the ranch nobody was jealous of the rifle. But we did admire his shooting ability.
Another friend has a Savage 340 in 30-30 Winchester, I doubt if it has been out of the gun rack except for cleaning in 40-years. If somebody in the family wants to carry a 30-30 a Marlin setting next to it is the rifle of choice.
The worse rifle I used deer hunting was an old Winchester Saddle Ring, Nickel-plated, Model 94 in 25-35 Winchester. It would have been a fine adventure if a horse came with the leather saddle scabbard. The rifle had belonged to a rancher and it had spent a lot of time in the scabbard on board a horse during the 1920 and 1940 period. The nickel was worn, but the rifle did not have any rusted on it.
The problem was when the action was opened at times a live round would drop from the carrier and become trapped in the lever mechanisms. For a mechanical inept 12-yearold this was a pain in the #@$%. It was more fun to watch adults try and retrieve the stuck round out of the mechanism. It was not long and I was carrying a far more adequate Savage 99, in the .303 Savage. The Savage 99 was everything the old 94 was not. The Savage 99 was an old rifle that had been well cared for. It may have been as old as the Model 94.
