Rifles

The closure of Winchester's New Haven factory in 2006 made everyone in the shooting industry wince. Now what would happen to Browning, also owned by industrial giant Fabrique Nationale? A year and a half after the lights at 275 Winchester Avenue went out, I visited Browning's offices near Morgan, Utah. Surely these people had some news... .

"Browning and Winchester are thriving," Scott Grange assured me. "Both are putting news-making firearms on the shelf next year." Product managers from both houses then inundated me with photographs, specifications and marketing hyperbole. "You'll have the X-Bolt with you in the hills for a couple of days," said Denny Wilcox, who tends the Browning line. "We're proud of it."

The rifle he showed me had a trim three-lug action with detachable, spool-fed polymer magazine. The checkered walnut stock, finished in traditional Browning gloss, had a long grip. Shadow-line detailing gave the butt a streamlined look. A button on the bolt shank base enabled me to cycle the bolt with the two-position tang safety engaged. The gold-plated trigger, garish as ever, hung from a three-lever mechanism that tripped like an icicle snap at 31⁄2 pounds. "It adjusts from three to five pounds," said Denny.

"It looks like a refined A-Bolt," I ventured tactlessly. "Is it a replacement?"

Denny assured me it was not.

Browning wanted to partner the X-Bolt with the A-Bolt the way it had the Cynergy shotgun with the Citori. "It's a styling option," he said, "with mechanical improvements like the rotary magazine, on-safe bolt movement and the new trigger. Finish on production rifles will be more satin than gloss."

He then handed me an X-Bolt in .308, and Scott ushered me to the range. The scope needed some adjustment after I shoved it ahead to accommodate my stock-crawling habit. When it printed two inches high at 100 yards, the next three 150-grain Barnes TSX bullets punched a .7-inch group.

Field testing is hardly necessary for most rifles. Lab and range tests tell all you must know except how the iron feels hanging from your shoulder after a day in the hills. The .308 cartridge has killed a lot of deer, and this rifle's sub-MOA accuracy delivered more reach than I could match as a marksman. Still, I never refuse a chance to hunt. "Let's see if it works on deer," I said, as if I had doubts.

Troy Justensen met us at the mouth of a long canyon hemmed by sage hills. Toward the Uintas, darker conifer slopes held a sugaring of October snow. We climbed ranch roads to a small, winter-wearied mobile home. It was comfortable, though, and anchored smack in the middle of a superb mule deer range.