I just bought a vangaurd in 300 wby mag, stainless synthetic, and i love the rifle, so far i have had my best luck shooting 165 gr factory loads, i have not had time to cook up any hand loads, as far as a brake goes, i personally would not hunt with one, i have found that the recoil is still manageable, if recoil is an issue there are many other calibers with excellent ballistics with a little less recoil, depends on what u wanna do with the gun. So far i have been shooting 1 moa at 200 yards with this rifle and have a total of 20 rounds down the tube, i should get better with some more practice, my best advice to you would be to buy what fits YOU the best, i can only say that so far this rifle is working great for me, and i do also like the sako and tikka's, i find the attention to detail is great but i was looking for something a little cheaper that i would not feel bad about getting a few scratches on.