WoodieBoater

Blue Cote works well but it stings like a bastard so break her in slow on that. The bag balm works very well too. It's hard to prevent them from gettin tore up especially if the coat is thin. I put r Kevlar vest on my bird dogs. It's a trade off between getting hung up and protecting them

That letter from walker in 1946 blows my mind.

I agree with your #1 rule for sure. I think Remington has an issue. How severe and at what capacity it is... who knows. The media probably blew it out of proportion. But it seems like there is a consistently repeating issue with the same system. that would point to a design flaw in my opinion. Did the media blow it up? yeah probly. Are there plenty of guns that don't have any issues after thousands of rounds of use? definitely. are there guns that are misfiring? seems like that's the case. and if that's the case, I don't need it in my life. that's my opinion.

I do believe Remington redesigned the trigger set once they started getting taken to court for accidents. the new 700's are a different design. here's an interesting David Petzal article that I just found. He stands firmly behind the 700. Thoughts on this piece of literature? http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2010/10/petzal-different-look-remington-model-700-trigger

"fire at any time" pretty accurately describes it I think. from what I understand after use the mating of the trigger and the sear wears causing accidental discharge when the bolt or safety is touched.

there are a lot of sad stories associated with that malfunction. And in my opinion Remington is doing a terrible job of fessing up and handling the situation. This has been going on for years

Congrats on the new browning. I felt the same way about the new a-5. I shot quite a bit of steel through my 1954 a-5 without any visible or measurable damage (I'm super paranoid about gun care and I measure my bores after every season)... but that's not to say that you should get into the habit of doing it. I always preferred to shoot Kent from that shotgun, but ill tell you a short story about why. I have another a-5, a 1964 Magnum 12 that USED to have a 32" aftermarket Hastings barrel with screw in chokes. Here's what happened. I bought a couple boxes of Hevi-Steel, the mid range steel shot made by HEVI-Shot. I went up north to hunt geese with my new box of shells and relatively new to me shotgun. A few birds came in, I pulled the trigger once and thought huh... i was pretty sure i had that bird dead to rights. Pulled the trigger again and heard a strange phwumpp. I had a look at my barrel and 2 inches from the end, right where the choke started there was a very large disturbing goose egg lump. Now i was pretty depressed and upset with myself thinking it was user error, i stuck my barrel in the mud or something right? I brought the barrel to pro-gun and had them cut it and rethread it for new tubes. Three weeks later i got a formal letter from HEVI-Shot stating they had a defective batch of wads (which i had purchased and shot). The wads were shattering on ignition, causing low pressure, in turn causing the shot package to get stuck somewhere in the barrel. The representative was more than happy to work with me as i wasn't missing an eye or a finger or anything. all she had to do was pay for barrel work. Now as you could understand, I was pretty peeved and have vowed not to shoot or purchase another HEVI-Shot product in my entire life. Call me stubborn, call it over-reacting, maybe i should take it easier on the folks at HEVI-Shot. But I'm sticking to it. I went to Kent and never looked back. I think Kent products are reasonably priced and they preform very well. So take that story for what its worth to you. You could shoot steel out of that old a-5 for the rest of your life and not have an issue, or you could have a freak (luckily not too damaging) accident like i did.