CFS:

What I am interested in would be a test to uncover typical design warts that can be expected of a gun when used under severe conditions. Most modern non-military weapons of any sort are not subjected to severe use and indeed, with the current wars we are fighting, higher echelon repair facilities are available to most units han was the case in many past wars.

DG hunting is frequently compared to war fighting and it only seems comon sense that a gun that might be needed to save a life should have all its weaknesses known to the hunter before the Day arrives. Back when I was selling guns, I told guys to work them hard and "beat them up a bit" but most were afraid to even rack the bolts hard for fear of "breaking it"...

You are right tho, maybe most think that a gun gets a great reputation because it never goes wrong. This is not, of course, true. ALL gun designs have limits, conditions under which they fail, and service life expectancies, both as a result of repeated mechanical functioning and subjection to repeated firing of live ammo.

Ordnance tests are fascinating reading because they expose each weapon's weaknesses, and then The-powers-That-Be have to decide which weakness or collection of weaknesses is less objectionable than anothers and then choose between the guns.

I just happen to be a Ruger M77MKII fan and they are my favorite modern mass production rifle actions. They have garnered a pretty solid reputation for reliability, but even the MKII has a couple weak spots that I personally would address before I would consider it acceptable off the shelf for DG hunting, or really, any hunting where alot of money exchanged hands. Especially with a large round like the .416, and ESPECIALLY when that round and rifle match is new and relatively untested {that is, the functioning of the round in multiple mass produced guns over time}.

All guns have warts. All of them. All my new guns acquire scuffs and dings and dents and such in the first weeks of ownership as I play with them and mess with them to purposefully find where their warts are. And always I uncover some, most of the time pretty early on.