Rifles
A couple of days after our Best of the Best tests, I judged a cowboy poetry contest. Cowboy poetry is filled with nuance and subtlety. A rifle is not. It either works or it doesn't. It's either accurate or it isn't. Three of us were on the rifle test crew. We each shot all the guns and compared thoughts. This took place over two days at Tamarack Preserve in Millbrook, N.Y., in April. The .22s (including the Rossi Trifecta) were tested at 50 yards, using high- and standard-velocity, solid- and hollow-point ammo, and match ammunition to shoot five-shot groups over a rest. Wind flags were set up at 25 and 45 yards. The Ruger M77 Hawkeye was shot for groups with a 3X-"9X scope over a rest at 100 yards with Hornady 270-grain soft points, 300-grain soft points, and 300-grain full-metal jackets. Then the scope was dismounted, and the two right-handed shooters fired four shots (one in the magazine, three in the chamber) offhand at a bull's-eye target at 15 yards, working the action as fast as they could. The Nosler Model 48 was fired for group size at 100 yards over a rest, using a Leupold 3.5X-"10X scope, Winchester factory ammo, custom ammo supplied by Nosler, and handloads. The Marlin 308MXLR faced the same test as the Nosler but using Hornady 160-grain LeverEvolution ammo. We also shot it at a life-size whitetail target (again, over a rest) at 200 and 300 yards. By David E. Petzal

F&S Test Crew
Between them, Joseph V. Caccamo Jr., 58, John Blauvelt, 51, and David E. Petzal, 65, have well over 100 years of gun-related experience. Caccamo hunts with handguns and rifles and teaches hunter safety and pistol shooting. Blauvelt is a gunsmith, a hunter, and a competitive pistol shooter. Deputy editor Petzal hunts, shoots competitively, and teaches shooting.

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Best Of The Best Winner
Nosler Custom Model 48 Bolt Action
$2,595
541-382-3921
nosler.com

The Model 48 is an authentic super gun, the creation of fanatic hunters who happen to be mechanically inclined rather than mechanical engineers who hunt once in a while if the weather isn't too bad. Named for the year (1948) in which John Nosler the elder began making his dual-cored bullets, it costs $2,595.

For all that money, you get a firearm that is the absolute cutting edge of advanced hunting riflery. There is nothing you can do to the Model 48 to make it any better. It is very light-"61⁄2 pounds-"and guaranteed to shoot sub-minute-of-angle groups. The one F&S tested did just that. Every metal part of it is coated: ¿¿CeraKote on the exterior surfaces and MicroSlick on the interiors. The trigger, made by Timney, is set at 3 pounds.

Not one iota of extra steel goes into this rifle, which is built around Nosler's own push-feed action. All nonfunctional weight was boiled out at the gun's inception. And the odd thing is, it's an absolute bargain. To get its equivalent you'd have to pay a custom gunmaker $500 to $2,000 more, and wait anywhere from six months to a year or longer.