This thread seems to have fixated into my mind and I awoke early this morning, thinking about the entire issue of what Brad, correctly describes as ...ungulate rifles..., as I doubt that many here actually HAVE specific rifles purpose-built and used only for wild sheep.
So, with the spare scope-no spare scope question and the issue of functional irons on such a rifle(s) and also the, I would have thought, obvious undertanding that a spare scope taken on a backpack hunt is left at your "spike" camp, NOT taken on a "stalk" of a ram or a billy, WHAT are the parameters of weight and design that those here consider correct for the entire rifle?
In Sept. 2012, on my last actual mountain backpack hunt, in the area of BC's sheep, etc. mountains where I was born and raised I carried a customized Dakota 76-.338WM, in a synthetic stock all work by Martini Gunmakers of Cranbrook, BC. This rifle, with it's irons and Leupold 1.75x6 scope weighs just a hair less than 8.5 lbs and would this be TOO heavy for the various sheep experts, which I am not and have never claimed to be, on this thread.
If so, WHAT do these guys carry AND is it perhaps doable to have a spare Leupy in TQDs, at an acceptable rifle weight, by cutting weight elsewhere, on the actual rifle, or, perhaps, leaving one's camera, whiskey or maybe Ipad, at home?
I am almost certainly now at the end of MY mountain hunting, but, remain as fascinated by all things concerned with the wilderness and high country I have spent so much of my 67+ years in that I find ALL the honest opinions here very interesting and fun to discuss.
