Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors What was the elk/moose/bear rifle of 1927 or so

What did the American hunter field in 1927 or so to go after bigger game like elk, moose or bear?

A surplus Springfield in .30-06?

Well heeled: Custom Springfield .30-06.
Kinda well off: Winchester 54 .30-06
Knowledgeable but maybe a little daring: Savage 99 .300
Loco en la cabeza: Savage 99 .22HP


Note:
The G&H Sporter shooter pulls up in a Packard.
The Winchester guy shows up driving a Buick.
The Savage .300 man has his stuff in the back of a Chevy.
The Imp whacko rolls up in a Model T Roadster with Ruxtell 2-speed rear end and thinks he can outrun all of them.

M1917 30-06...

Is the Model 1917 bought today as a quality .30-06

How are they scoped

I've had many excellent m1917's. They are one of my favorite CRF bolt actions. Generally when I buy them, they are sporterized and set up for modern scope use. Most of mine wore weaver bases and rings. You can use what ever scope your heart desires... . However, since we were talking 1927 I think it's possible many people used old war horses to dispatch deer elk, moose and bear back then. Here's one that had irons and scope:



Good ol poor man's pre 64...

Reminton model 30 express. Probably 1895 winchesters as well

30-30, 30-40, or 30-06 were probably the most common.

There were lots of 30-40 Krags in use before WW2.

I'm pretty sure that the only surplus rifles being shot in 1927 were Krags and Trap Doors. The 03 was only 14-years old and still very much our front line weapon and subject only to limited civilian sales - as was the 1917 Enfield. Remington made the Model 30 based on the 1917. A few "tech heads" probably shot Newtons. I'm also sure there were many out there banging away at large game with Winchester 94s in .30-30 and .32, with the better healed shooting the 86 and 95 in their various chamberings. As well as with Savage's 1920 and 20/26.

'03's were available to the public, via the NRA and DCM, from a point roughly ten years after its intro in 1903. Service rifles were sold new, not as used surplus, and were priced competitively with top end sporting rifles. Starting in the 20's, an NRA member could buy just a barreled action for use in building a custom sporter, as well as service rifles, National Match rifles, and NRA sporters which were the Arsenal's answer to the need for quality sporting rifles. They weren't cheap, and as such were not fair game to the Bubba's of the world, although a lot of nice ones were turned out by amateurs. The really high end conversions, by guys like Robert Owen, Seymour Griffin, A.O.Niedner, et al, were frightfully expensive (for the times) but highly sought after by discerning sportsmen- both fat cats and working stiffs who had to save for two years to buy one. Those guns were the darling of the gunwriters of the day and put them in front of the readers eyes every chance they got.

Savages marketing of the 99 and 1920, along with Winchester's introduction of the M54, and Remington's M30 spelled the death knell of the Arsenal's NRA Sporter. They were only selling them (as well as the M1922, M1, M2 .22's) as a service to the sporting public until commercial ventures offered viable alternatives. They weren't specifically in the sporting arms market.

As far as the M1917 Enfield was concerned, the gov't always viewed them as secondary standards (albeit building and issuing more of them to Doughboys in WWI than they did the standard '03 Springfield). After The Great War the 1917's went into storage and maintained as such as our War Reserve, until they started trickling them out to civilians in the late 20's. The sales of 1917's never reached the volume (or desirability/popularity) as the '03's until after WWII when they finally opened the floodgates to dump them. The new "magnum craze" goaded the sales of 1917's. A lot more work needs to go into a 1917 to make a somewhat svelte sporter out of it, compared to a Springfield. But guys bought them like crazy because they were cheap. No matter what you do to a 1917, it usually ends up heavier and clunkier than a carefully done '03. But they were cheap, and strong like ox.

Krags and Trapdoors were always dime-a-dozen cheap because they were viewed as woefully obsolete for military use. They became the darlings of the working stiffs who couldn't (or wouldn't) spring for a Winchester/Savage/Remington/NRA Sporter. Sporting conversions of them in the 20's and 30's ranged from laughably crude to amazingly well done- but they did indeed serve to arm the less privileged classes of sportsmen- and that's all that really mattered.

About 12-years ago I passed in a 1917 that was nicely converted to a sporter and chambered in .375 H&H magnum. The work was very top notch (with a Lyman 48) and when I asked the shop (Huntington's in Oroville, the origin of RCBS) they had no idea who did the work. The sporter was reasonably priced but gone when I went back. Oh well, what in the heck are you going to shoot with a .375 Holland and Holland in the wilds of Northern California anyway?!

Shoot condors?

Yeah, that and shell the neighboring town! Still, it did have a "cool factor" that I shouldn't have resisted.

I'm going with the 1886 Winchester in 45-70.

When I was a kid, sporterized Krags and Krag carbines were pretty common in used gun racks in ME/NH/VT.

In Canada probably a 303 Brit . I would guess something in a Win 1886 or 1895. Teddy R. would be using the 405.

they have elk/moose hunting in the afterlife? TR died in 1916. way to young

savage 99 in 300 or even 250 for alot of folks i knew.
wifes granddad fed his family all through the depression in western Colorado with a 250 savage. bet never more than one shot too!

A couple years ago I sold my 1895 winny in 35 Winchester. I used to like to walk into a gun shop and ask if they had any 35 Winchester? They would ALWAYS come up with a box of 35 Rem, and say it was the same thing. Then I'd pull one 35 Winchester out of my pocket, and say, " nope, don't look the same to me. Joe.

It was either a model 95 in 40-72 or a model 94 in 25-35...

But the high-class guys would shoot a .25-35 with an octagon barrel.