Browning X Bolt

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hottopic

Well-Known Member
I currently have a couple of Browning A bolt rifles, they are excellent out of the box accuracy and not to badly finished given the price. They do the job and I am pleased with them.

I got my NGO magazine today and entered the raffle to win the X bolt already but it got me thinking and I went to my local gun shop to look at one. They had a stainless fluted barrel plastic stock model which I am quite taken with. The list price was £900 (so there should be some movement on that) and I am thinking about buying one in .223 - I will get the .308 when I win the NGO raffle.

Has anybody got any thoughts on them or use one?

I am going to be at the NGO Deer AGM and I see that Browning are one of the speakers so I will quiz them on it as well.
 
I have the x-bolt stainless stalker with fluted barrel in 308. Spent ages looking about and decided that was the best overall deal overall. Its a great rifle

If I had a copy of the magazine and a memebr of NGO I would try and win another that would beel cool :cool:
 
Bought the SS .223 when they first came out, never had a problem with it. Great for fox and small deer.
sinbad
 
Xbolt?!... Urgh. I'd rather drink a broken glass milkshake than own another one!

magazine is poor, accuracy is substandard, threading is bad, mounting system is awful, etc, etc!

as for browning customer service... They were even worse than Vodafone!

Dont take my word for it - look at the American forums.

get a tikka, or if looks bother you get a sako 85 - you won't regret either of these.
 
Well one negative and 14 positive comments, I think an X bolt it is then.

I don't think you need to be an NGO member to enter the raffle. You can buy tickets at shows and from the office. Anyway I am not taking any chances and going to order mine at the deer branch AGM.


newbie69 said:
I have the x-bolt stainless stalker with fluted barrel in 308. Spent ages looking about and decided that was the best overall deal overall. Its a great rifle

If I had a copy of the magazine and a memebr of NGO I would try and win another that would beel cool :cool:
Click to expand...
 
hottopic said:
Well one negative and 14 positive comments, I think an X bolt it is then.

I don't think you need to be an NGO member to enter the raffle. You can buy tickets at shows and from the office. Anyway I am not taking any chances and going to order mine at the deer branch AGM.
Click to expand...

your call - do yourself a favour though and at least try searching "problems with browning xbolt" online. I've used dozens of different centrefires and the xbolt is by far the worst. Sako, tikka, CZ, Howa - all worth a look
 
I've looked at several, and all had a rather stiff trigger, which I was told is not easily improved.

And some minor things which irritated me:

The bolt cannot be de-cocked in the normal way to ease the spring, it has to be dry fired. This may seem trivial, but it means that once you have e.g. unloaded and closed the bolt to keep dirt out, the cocking piece will show that the rifle is cocked. I use the position of the cocking piece to tell me whether the gun is loaded and ready to fire, or closed on an empty chamber.

The Browning design means you have to dry-fire to release it, which introduces a whole host of potential safety issues, nevermind the noise and possibility of damage.

The bolt cannot be stripped easily for cleaning, lubrication, drying out etc, I think it requires a pin to be punched out and perhaps some other tools. I expect for many owners this will mean it is never serviced.
 
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I had one in .223, yes trigger is a bit stiff, but very clean and crisp, I managed to reduce the pressure easily.
The so called factory thread was terrible, and I'm not convinced it actually is a factory thread at all.
Everything else was fine, the mounting system I liked, once I dumped the silly alloy weaver style bases.
I used Leupold double dovetail bases and low 1 inch rings, (which I still have, for sale)

Neil. :)
 
artschool said:
the trigger has an allen key adjustment, i ordered a replacement spring to make the pull even lighter and it wasnt difficult to fit.
Click to expand...

I cut the spring down in mine after failing to find a lighter spring from anybody who would ship to the uk.
Only slight pain is stripping the trigger unit down to change or cut the spring, mine came out a nice 1lb 12 oz
But the only cure for the thread was having it re done, the importers offered to replace the rifle, but that meant a variation.

Neil. :)
 
i got a friend of mine in the states to get me one from ernie the gunsmith.

the thread on my barrel seems fine.

edit: he no longer sells them.

"We have discontinued the sale of this spring, and have removed them from our web site. here is a short description of why:
When the task of installing a new spring in a Browning X-Bolt trigger is accomplished with care and attention to detail, it is not a difficult job. However, when a person with little experience in this type of work, does not pay due attention to detail, problems can arise. This is not my fault, nor is it the fault of the spring. However, after more than a year of answering questions about how to take the trigger apart and how to put it back together, I just decided that both my customers and myself would have fewer problems if I simply stopped selling it.
Regards, Ernie "
 
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i have one in 270 win great bit of kit 1/2 ins groups with hornady 130 grn superformance ammo even better with my reloads 130 grn game kings and h414, atb steve
 
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