Thanks for the replies guys.

To answer some of the questions, the MRC actions are about as smooth as you would expect from an off the shelf gun. They could use a little work but they are pretty good. My action and barrel are chrome moly, not a fan of stainless. The barrel is one of MRC's, a number 5 contour. The stock is a Winchester LH take off stock. The footprint of the MRC is very close to the model 70. Some inletting is required but it works well.

A cost breakdown goes like this

Action-$350 (charter offer)
barrel installed-$300
Stock- $80
NEGC front sight-$70
3 blade rear sight-$55 (ebay)
moly finish on metal-$175
misc work-$100 (sights installed, bolt jewelled)

I probably could have gotten a Winchester LH 375 for the same money but gun nuts are never bound by logic.

I inletted the stock and full length bedded it myself. The rest of the work was done by my local smith. The rifle shoot more like a varmint rifle than a heavy game rifle. It came out weighing 9.5 pounds so is very comfortable to shoot from the bench or position shooting. It loves Sierra 300 grain boattails with almost any powder. Shoots them into tiny little sub 1" clusters. The 300 grain Partitions shoot well with Vihtavuori N160 (80 grains) but not well with 4350. Hornady 300 grain RN's and 260 grain Partitions shoot almost with the Sierra's for group size. All the 300's run right at 2500fps with the loads I am using. I will be using the 300 grain Partitions for my all around load.

I think a float and call trip for Spring black bear would be a great break in for the new shooter.

I have another MRC action, one of the short LH's. It is actually more of an intermediate length than a short. I have narrowed the choices for it down to three but waver back and forth from week to week. I can't decide between a sleek little octagon barrelled 257 Roberts, a classic light weight 7x57 for the sheep hunter in me, or a nice little mannlicher carbine in 9.3x57.

Thanks again for the replies. Mart