10 Trophy Hunter XP vs 11 Trophy Hunter XP

I'm thinking of taking advantage of the $75 rebate right now and picking up either a 10 or 11 Trophy Hunter XP package. The end game would be to build a precision gun off of the action with a nice aftermarket varmint contour barrel and aftermarket stock. My questions are:

1. What's the difference between the two? Is it just the wood vs synthetic stock?

2. Are these good models to build off of? Any gotchas that would cause compatibility headaches later with aftermarket parts? (Blind magazine is fine, no need for a DBM since I'll be single loading mostly anyway)

3. Which one? My plan is to swap out the barrel immediately but try and save up for a nicer stock (HS Precision, Manners, maybe even McMillan) instead of upgrading that right away. I know both are going to need to have the existing stock's barrel channel opened up for the Varmint profile barrel I plan on using. I have some experience with this on wood stocks (10/22 with dowel, sandpaper, and elbow grease), but haven't tried with a synthetic one before. I know the synthetic ones are flimsy, I owned a 10FP a while ago, but I guess I could always open up the channel more to make sure the barrel stays floating. Do you guys think the wood stock with the 10 TH is worth the extra $50-60 bucks, considering in around 1 year it will be swapped out anyway?

Thanks for the help guys, nice site you all have here.

Based on your plans I would say look at hog hunter. Its blind mag top bolt release and the barrel is worth more on resale. More options for aftermarket stocks and no need to mess with questionable scope. No rebate but its priced right anyhow at Buds and cheaperthandirt. The trophy hunters are not all that suitable for altering due to axis style magazine, bottom bolt release, unknown resale value of scope and few stockmakers.

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Originally Posted by foxx

The trophy hunters are not all that suitable for altering due to axis style magazine, bottom bolt release, unknown resale value of scope and few stockmakers.

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I'm glad I asked. :)

Thanks for the suggestion on the Hog Hunter. My other two options were the 10FP-SR and the 10 Precision Carbine. Both would put off/eliminate some of the upgrades I was planning by being closer to what I want out of the box.

Those are good, too, but the key to the Hog Hunter is the top bolt release. The bottom bolt release is, in my opinion, a BIG mistake. The change to the bottom bolt release was done for aesthetic reasons and it really just makes the bolt much harder to remove and keeps you from using the better aftermarket triggers like Rifle Basix Sav-2 and SSS Competition Trigger. And, it makes aftermarket stocks more difficult to make work. If it weren't for the Hog Hunter, I would say go with the others. And the Accustock is not all it is cracked-up to be.

I agree the hog hunter is the way to go