I like the NEF design for a number of reasons:
#1: It's cheaper
#2: The hammer. I don't like safteys, I don't trust them. I like the idea of carrying it with a loaded chamber but with the hammer down while hunting. Its safe, but still fast when it comes time to shoot. It also makes alot less noise than the "clicky" sound the safteys make on most bolt action rifles. I carry my Model 1894 Winchester this way when I hunt with it.
#3: It's accurate. My "Ultra" NEF in .22 WMR out shoots rifles that cost 3 times more...
I also have a 12 ga NEF shotgun, but it suffered a terrible accident. Not long after buying it (about a year ago), I took it target shooting. A friend (and co-worker) of mine was with me, and he invited one of the girls we work with to go too, because she had never shot before and wanted to learn. Anyway, we get up to our shooting spot out in the woods and teach the newby all the saftey stuff and then teach her to shoot handguns. My NEF 12 ga was the only long gun we had on this trip, and she wanted to try something different (I guess the handguns were getting boring). So I said it was okay, but that she should beware of the recoil, and asked if she still wanted to try it, knowing that it would kick. She said yes, so I gave her a 2 and 3/4 inch shell with #7 shot, that was the lightest load I had at the time (I also had some 3 inch mags with #4 buckshot). Anyway, to make a long story short, the 12 ga kicked more than she thought it would, and she droped it on the ground after firing it, I guess because it was scary. This of course bent the barrel a little, and my brand new shotgun doesn't shoot so good anymore. Its no good for trap shooting, but it works for shooting at pop cans at 10 feet, so it isn't a total loss. And it was only $80.00, but it still made me angry...
Anyway, back on topic...
Most the calibers avaible are too small. The ones I'm really considering are .270, 7mm-08, .308, .30-06, and .280. At first I thought I wanted a .270, but then I looked it up in my Speer reloading manual and compared it to .280, and noticed that I get similar preformance but a much wider range of bullet weights with the .280. So .270 is pretty much at the bottom of my list right now. Then I looked at 7mm-08 because it had similar preformance to the .280, but in a smaller package. So thats why .280 and 7mm-08 are at the top of my list...