savageshooter86 said:
anyone with first hand experience on Deviant actions?
Yes, we have four shooters and four Defiance Deviants for F-TR and F-Open. Over 100K rounds downrange and in the field: they work great. Glen Harrison runs a wonderful company and his actions are on par with any of the top customs. Glen founded Nesika bay, the first custom action company that I know of. He's been around the block a few times and many of the other top folks in the industry worked for him at one point or another.
Defiance makes true Remington clones that will work with any remington stock or trigger. His picatinny rail is MILSPEC....not a Weaver variant or some other bastardization. Defiance actions can be customized: magwell cut, repeater or single-shot, ejection port, bolt face, tang, ejector, firing pin size, swept or straight bolt handle... just about anything you'd want to specify. His bolts are one piece and the Deviant includes an integral rail and recoil lug...meaningful improvements in my opinion.
His actions are extremely popular with the tactical/repeater crowd, but you see quite a few in F-Class as well. I'm a minimalist and wanted one action that could be used for F-Open, hunting, and tactical matches. I chose a Defiance Deviant with an AICs magwell cut, target port, standard tang. The action weighs 34 oz and is very stiff with the integral rail and smallish mag & eject port cut-outs. It has exceeded my expectations when used for any of the aforementioned tasks.
Any issue I've had, Glen and company have made right at their expense...and they always did it promptly. Well after buying the actions, I asked if Defiance would time the bolt to new triggers I purchased....they did so at no cost with a fast turn-around. Now the bolt opens and closes as smooth as butter.
There are a wealth of great custom actions available: comes down to the features you seek and the kind of company you want to work with...and how much you want to pay. If you are looking for a top-performing & customizable Remington clone with great fit/finish and innovations like integral rail, lug, one-piece bolt, then Defiance is a good choice. If you want cheap.....not the best choice ;D
PS. I don't have any ownership interest in Defiance....just a pain-in-the-a** customer of theirs.