Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Which is your least favorite hunting rifle you own?

I have 7 hunting rifles and love most of them. However, my Rem 700 SPS Stainless .223 is my least favorite because the barrel is too long and the gun is too heavy for a .223 in my opinion. I like it and it shoots pretty well at 1-1 1/2 moa but really don't love it and have no emotional attachment to it. I never killed anything with it but did miss a coyote at 200 yards or so. I like the scope(Bushnell Elite 4200 42003x9x40) but if I absolutely had to sell one of my hunting rifles the .223 would be the one. So the question for you is which is your least favorite hunting rifle and why. Would you consider selling it if you got the right price and the process was painless?

Felt that way about all my Vanguards.....dunno why

Sounds like a real POS, take your scope off it and I'll be a good guy and take it off your hands for $50....




But I know what you mean...I have one and its a real shooter, but I just 'built' another with a 22 inch Bbl. Doesn't seem like much difference, but it is!

The heavy one.

Don't really have anything that falls in this category because if I don't like them they go down the road immediately.

I'm pretty ruthless with rifles I dislike.

Easy. A Remington 700 22-250 stainless/laminate. Shoots lights out, but it's very heavy and we only use to whack ground hogs off our veranda in our place in PA. Besides, I would never take a rifle hunting with a safety that won't lock the bolt...

I am not really talking about rifles you dislike. Which rifle do you like the least? I "like" my .223 and probably will keep it but it would be the one to go if I had to sell one.

I don't own any least favorite hunting rifles.

I think you're all retarded.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Dave

It is heresy to many but it would likely be any of my pre-64 Winchester M-70s. One 308, two 30/06, and one 300 H&H. One of the 30/06s would be the first to go as the stock had been shortened a bit to add a recoil pad and, more importantly, it does not like to put bullets close to each other. I keep it as I want to figure out what its problem is and as it was meant as a project gun these issues are not a big deal.

The H&H would be the last to go, there is a little sentimental feelings towards it. I would probably send off the other two 300 mags I have before this one but that is not a sure thing.

Failing that, the Howa 1500 Lightning in 7mm/08 I recently picked up is the next potential victim. It has a 20" barrel and was meant to replace a Savage 16 in the same caliber but plans may be changing. The short barrel has quite a bit of muzzle flash with my current handloads and even factory Remington loads throw enough flash to be seen through the scope. Accuracy is also not what I would like, it will toss two of three bullets close together but the third may end up a couple inches over. And it is not predictable which bullet will move nor in which direction though each individual load tends to go in a particular direction- just not the same.

Guess mine would be a 700 in 243 I bought last year at Walmart on Black Friday. After the rebate and selling the POS scope that came with it, I'm about $250 into the rifle. I bought it as a loaner/possible donor action. I don't think I've ever shot it. I have a hard time warming up to synthetics, especially Rem 700s.

If I didn't need it for our primitive season, my T/C Encore 35 Whelen would probably be the first to go.

I'm definitely in this camp...^^^^^^

Your 300 H&H sounds like a real POS. Post up some pics in the Winchester collectors forum and I'd probably gladly take it off your hands for the right price... Sounds like it's probably only worth $500.00 at best...

I tried hard to like a M70 Super Grade in 300 Win mag. Beautiful, and long, and heavy and pretty snappy for a heavy club. Not the gun to hunt where I live. It has a new home.

Don't have any rifles that I don't like.....those go away pretty fast. However there are a few that aren't as well liked as others.

Probably my least "favorite" rifle is a Ruger 77/22. It looks good, handles well and shoots pretty well keeping 5 shots inside 3/4" at 25 yards. However it is NOT as accurate as my 10/22 that has been my main squirrel rifle for more than 40 years. The 10/22 will keep 5 shots in under a half-inch at 25 yards, handles and looks just as good as the 77/22 and the semi-auto action is a definite advantage at times when multiple squirrels are scampering around a tree-top. I still like the 77/22 but if I ever decided to get rid of one of my rimfire rifles, this would be the one to go.

As far as centerfire rifles one of my least favorites is a Savage 99EG in .300 Savage chambering. I LOVE the Savage 99....any Savage 99....and the .300 is the "classic" 99. The EG is the most common 99 so it is not a valuable collector rifle. The problem is the .300 Savage chambering. It is a fine deer round, but I also own a 99F in .308, an EG in .358, and an EG in .250-3000. Those rifles are the ones that get all the use and the .300 just sits in the gun room.

The .300 will likely stay as it is the "classic" 99, but another 99 will almost certainly go. It is a post-million 99F chambered in .243. I dislike the .243 chambering and I dislike the post-mil, tang safety 99's even more. Since I obtained a pre-mil 99F in .243 this gun is definitely at the bottom of my list of "favorite" rifles. This gun would probably be gone already except for the fact that I have a herd of grandchildren who are coming of deer hunting age. The .243's are for their use. If I find another reasonably priced 99 in .250-3000......the .243 will be gone with the wind.

The only other rifle I own that I don't like that well is a custom .270 in a Smith & Wesson 1500 action (same action as the Weatherby Vangaurd and Howa). This rifle looks great and shoot well (3/4" groups at 100 yards). It handles well and fits me like a glove but I am not a real fan of the 1500 action nor the .270 chambering. Both work just fine, but I much prefer something like the '98 Mauser action and there are multiple rounds I'd prefer over the .270 (although it is a fine round).

However, this rifle will likely never leave as it has personal value to me. When my father was alive he and I built a number of "custom" rifles. Usually he would do the metal work and action work and I would do the wood work. When he died at age 52 of a sudden heart attack this rifle was in the process of being built. He had completed the metal work and I had carved and fit the stock. After his death I completed the stock finishing and checkering and used this rifle to take a half-dozen deer. This was the last rifle we built together and I believe it will still be in my gun room when I die.

Have to agree, I won't keep a hunting rifle around I dislike.
I always come back full circle to my favorites I've had for 20 years or more.

the one that gets used the least is my 308 hoghunter suppressed. only because I used my .280AI first this year to take a nice bull elk, and my favorite 243 for a nice WT buck opening weekend. next year though I may take it antelope hunting in wyoming just because it's due to be bloodied.
the .223 ruger compact I used on goats this fall will go down the road as soon as I get it back from a LEO friend who wanted to try it out for his daughter this year. it works and is nice, but doesn't do any better than my other rifles.

Yep.

Right now I would send a Tikka T3 in 260 or a Ruger Hawkeye in 223 down the road before anything else. I like the two Tikkas I own and I like my Ruger 77s/Hawkeyes, but I just cannot love 'em. The Tikkas feel disposable and the Rugers are overbuilt, heavy, and unlike the Tikkas, very finicky.

hrkm, I for one thought your inquiry was very clear, especially in light of the fact you used the term "least favorite" in your title. Least favorite does not equal, "don't like".

My least favorite is my AR-15.

Remington 742 in 30.06. Clubby, heavy and ugly impressed checkering. Last time I hunted with it was about 1985, temperature dipped into the teens and the action froze shut on a chambered round. Passed on from my dad so I keep it.

A 30/06 custom job VZ24 action 26" duglas.Its in a beautifull Richards microfit stock and its accurate. However it weighs a ton and I never take it hunting.

What Bob said.. I have rifles I don't use much, but I like the for special jobs, or great memories.. Have a 70 .30-06 I have had for 20 years.. Never fired it..But it was my father in laws.. May sight it in and hunt hogs with it this spring.
Didn't make an out of state hunt this year, used to hunt 3-4 states each year.. Got to use a lot of rifles on a lot of game.. This year just hunted Wy.. Age must be catching up with me.