I have several mfj tuners ( 929 comes to mind) but I prefer a certain style rather than manufacturer. I buy most of my stuff used on ebay so I am fairly flexible.
What I want is a meter that has dual cross needle meters so you can see foward, reverse power and swr at the same time. great for tuning antennas, no push in and set, pull out and check.
So a nice dual cross needle meter and I prefer a cap/ switched coil/cap setup as they are easier for me to use. you can also get a cap/ rollor inductor/ cap style and a single cap/ coil model.
remember a 300 watt tuner is really only good for 100 watts if the swr is high. I also have a Big tuner, a dentron MP 2000 AT which easily handles legal limit and has no meter so I use it with an outboard cross needle meter.
Most all of my stuff now has autotuners on it. I like to contest and I don't have time to retune every few minutes while doing search and pounce so I use a ldg at 1000 for my pegasus and the als 600, and the 746 pro has an ic2-kl/ at500 set so it is auto tune auto bandswitch and the orion / alpha 87a runs straight into the antennas. the low band antenna is a gap voyager and I know and operate it in its "good area "( its fairly broad banded)and on the higher bands I use the 3 ele steppir so it needs no tuner as it will auto tune and follow the radio, as will the alpha 87a.
so in effect the orion is a legal limit transciever( the alpha autotunes) , and the pegasus is a 600 watt transciever ( I have to manually band switch that on) and the 746 pro is an 800 watt transciever. no tuning and it all keeps me from screwing up and making an expensive mistake.
it does make life easier.
so a good 300 watt manual tuner with dual cross needle meters, or an ldg tuner of sufficient capacity, or an autotune setup.
I am lazy and like the autotune setup.
by the way, with a manual tuner, make your self a matrix and write down the settings for like low middle and high on each antenna for each band. like with the c/l/c tuner the matrix may be
antenna a
14.100 5 c 7
14.200 5 d 8
14.300 6 f 9
so if you are going to work some one at 14.250 you could pre set you tuner to 5 1/2 e and 8 or 9 and be darn close and tweak it while talking. also you can "cheat" aas you learn that if you tune to a part of the band with no signal and tune for the loudest backround hiss you will find your self darn close
hope this helps her is a link to some picks of the stuff
http://hometown.aol.com/catfishtwo/N6AJR.html