First of all – check out my latest installment of The Painter over at Glibertarians!

Now then:  Bearing Arms recently had a review of something called the Aero Precision Bolt Action SOLUS Competition Model.  If you look at Aero Precision’s web site, this piece has a recommended retail price of $1,999.

Wow.  Excerpt:

The SOLUS Competition Model is an improvement upon the former iterations of the SOLUS rifle. So this is not Aero’s first foray into the world of bolt actions, but I’m going to guess their former success made them realize there’s a market for these rifles built by them. Why wouldn’t there be? After all Aero is a trusted and high-quality manufacturer of firearms, firearm parts, and everything that goes bang.

After chatting with the representative for a bit about the rifle, he handed me a loaded box magazine and I bellied up to the bench where the SOLUS Competition rifle was sitting. The rifle comes in different chamberings with the one at industry day in 6.5 Creedmoor. The rifles are based on the Remington 700 short action footprint and are configured to accommodate AICS/AIAW magazines. The model was also outfitted with one of Aero’s new suppressors, a Lahar-30.

OK, so it’s a bolt gun in Tacticool trim, and that’s groovy, if that’s your thing.  You could point to my own favorite bolt gun, the veteran Thunder Speaker, with its Kevlar stock and question my demurring on Tacticool, but Thunder Speaker has a traditional rifle form, a hunting-style scope, polished, blued steel and a 1908 DWM Mauser action.  The Kevlar stock is the only concession to modern furniture on what is 100% a hunting rifle, and I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about that concession.

See, here’s the kind of thing I like in a rifle:If Tacticool is your thing, that’s great.  More power to you, and I hope Aero Precision sees nothing but success with this model and, indeed, with their entire lineup.  But if I’m spending $2k on a rifle, I want it to look good.  I know some folks (correctly) point out that function has a beauty all its own, but I still love nice walnut and polished, blued steel.

As my late Grandpa used to say, “every cat its own rat.”