Uhhh....uhh...Unfortunately,I can only tell you what I have brought up there which has been a fair bunch of stuff...dunno if its right or not but they have worked for me
FW 270 Winchester with 22 inch Krieger barrel and Brown Precision Poundr stock. Scope has been a 2.5-8x Leupold although today I think better glass is mo better up there...but it does work OK.
I have to endure the cat calls and ankle biting up there from other hunters who consider the rig too small for those huge northern whitetails,but the last one I killed,a buck grossing a bit over 160, was hightailing across a field at last light,blowing clouds of steam at 25 below zero, and caught a 130 Partition on the point of the shoulder and collapsed in a cloud of snow...pretty impressive I thought
This outfit works in the fields,is precise enough at distance,short enough to squeeze in a ground blind, and will not break you down if the day includes some still hunting or pushing bush where a fast off hand chance is possible.
IMHO here trajectory and PBR can be important and IME use the LRF before hand to plot the field or cut line,and NOT in the presence of the buck....as Dave alludes to you are not going to have time;the big mature Canadian bucks do not dilly dally crossing openings, appear suddenly, and you will have little time to react and kill,assuming that is that you can recover in time from the shock of the size of them to even shoot...it should be over in few seconds or forget it.He will be gone if you dilly dally
So, for me, 3 inches high with the 130 gr bullet, and zero at 275 yards, down about 8 at 350 and about 14 at 400,about as far as I have had to reach.
Up there if I had to trade skill sets between hitting at LR,or being good at game on the move, I will take the ability to hit moving game every time.IME really long shots are rare, but moving targets at medium distances are far more frequently encountered....at least for me, a tourist hunter with only 7 days to do it and maybe one chance at a good one in a weeks hunting.y
Your ability to hit gongs at 600-800 yards is largely irrelevant....your ability to hit a basketball at 300 or less,from unsteady positions and in a hurry,is more important.
A big buck does occasionally step casually into the open at great distance to gawk, but he is far more likely to be moving hard during the rut.Mostly you will be hard pressed to be deliberate.
Next choice is pretty much the same thing,slightly longer barrel, a bit heavier but still able to cover the open stuff or the bush chores,and is a 24 inch barreled 7 magnum of some stripe and the rifle should still be light.Any 7 mag will do.I would zero the same way and with a fast 140-150 gr you will better the trajectory of the 270 by a few inches at 400-500...
The longish PBR of the 270, 7 mags and their ilk simplify issues of holdover under stress...I would not even bring Dots and would easily prefer a simple duplex reticle zeroed for 300 yards....using a ranging reticle at anything under that distance is a distraction you will not need.Leave the B and C reticles at home, forget the bars and graffs....they cant be seen in real low light that well and are just a distraction anyway.
JMHO
Like others, I agree with Bob, on all points. Much more important to be quick onto the target and getting off your shot than absolute precision the vast majority of the time where I hunt. Most of my shooting practise is based on those conditions.
Deer aren't that hard to kill. Hard to find sometimes, hard to hit sometimes, but not hard to kill with any reasonable rifle.(hard to beat a 270, though I am temporarily without one!)
I am happy with a simple duplex reticle as well, for where I hunt (typical ranges being very close to 300 yards, with a few 400ish yard shots across a canyon with me moving through these areas throughout the day). I may have a different opinion if I hunted some of the wide open treeless areas or cultivated fields where you consistently take a very long shot or none at all.
