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I bought a used Browning X-bolt stainless stalker in 325WSM about 10 years ago. It has Talley light weight (alloy) rings. It shoots consistently outstandingly (three quarter MOA) surprisingly given the skinny barrel profile.

The top rear Talley ring cap snapped not long after I got it, and before I knew the Talleys had a reputation for breaking, so I bought another identical set of Talleys (was on the shelf in the store at the time) and swapped them out thinking I now had a spare. Having not fired it in almost 2 years I pulled it out of the safe the other day and discovered the top rear ring had again broken, so replaced it with the spare - we'll see how long that lasts.

I also discovered the dreaded sticky stock syndrome that the Browning Duratouch finished synthetic stocks suffered from. I know Browning will swap out the stocks free of charge in the US but you have to return the entire rifle sans optics and mountings. Browning are handled by Winchester here in Australia so I wasn't sure how easy it was going to go that route, or if being secondhand might make warranty different.

Anyway I gave the Duratouch removal a go myself. I tried metho and then acetone on the easier sections of the stock but it wasn't all that effective. I then tried isopropyl alcohol and it worked really well, along with a nylon scour pad and firm effort. It only took a couple of hours and I was being fussy to remove it from every nook and cranny.

The source of the isopropyl alcohol was a bottle of sanitiser that we had been required to take to the rifle range as part of the conditions during covid restrictions. The bottle is largely unused as it was primarily used for public appearance purposes only. Apparently it's only 70% isopropyl alcohol and the rest is nice smelling moisturiser or something like that. So now my stock is smooth, smells nice and is moisturising for my hands.

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