Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Most sensible Rifle?

That's what makes it ÜBER.

Oh good grief.

It makes no sense to have a short action for your main rifle. It makes no sense to have difficulty feeding a short action with cartridges barely able to fit in the magazine. It makes no sense to not be able to chase the lands.

It's pretty easy to like the .270, .308, and .30-06 all at the same time. Y'all should try it.

First off rifle loony's aren't practical!

The 308 is no fun, load development consist of two maybe three loads.

Besides the 308 doesn't shoot flat enough! flame away


I have two rifles that threaten to make all my others obsolete, one is a first generation Remington Ti in 270, extremely accurate and a joy to carry in the mountains.

The second is a 1957 vintage M70 fwt in 270, it shoots better than most of my custom barreled rifles. Three shot, 1/2" groups with 130 gr Nosler partitions, same with 160gr N.P. and 150gr N.P.

By campfire standards those two may be considered gay, so I may have to dispose of them and get a real mans gun, 223A.I.

Or the 280, the 7-08, or the 7X57.

DITTO ! DITTO !! D ITTO !!!


anonymous ,

A Qualifier !!

I'm similar to Jeremiah Johnson who reportedly said, "I been to a town once".

I HAVE had a 308 W.


Jerry

If truly pushed into a long term survival mode. A scoped 22 LR.

For a great many purposes, anything from 260 to 338 works just fine. So it often boils down to personal preferences. Get what you think you'll enjoy.

I do have a Rem 600 with a fixed 4X scope, and it makes a very light, nimble rifle. It has great sentimental value, and it's a very practical rifle.

Two things that might get me some flames: The 7x57 and the 270 are very, very similar ballistically. Hard to love one and hate the other. Loaded to safe pressures in modern firearms, the 7x57 will pop out a 162 grain bullet at 2750 FPS. I'm pretty sure the end results it yields are hard to distinguish from what a 30-06 can deliver.

Get a Ruger GSR, with the 18 inch barrel. A very versatile little rig.

Nonsense.

Short rounds match and even exceed the original ballistics of the Swede, Spanish Mauser, and even the Springfield cartridges that were perfectly adequate hunting rounds for pretty much all of the last century. The standard rounds can be gassed up a bit more now, but it ain't necessary for practical purposes. What really makes sense is to scale the action length to the cartridge chosen, or conversely choose a cartridge that's scaled to your rifle of choice. I've got short-action Ruger Hawkeyes in .243 and .308, and Mausers in .270 and .30/06. No .223 Tikkas for me or fat stubby rounds with the bullets points barely peeking out of the necks either, (.350 Remington for instance).

Of course, truly discerning shooters eliminate all the fuss by using falling-block single-shots.😄

So far most posters have agreed with the OP about the .308.

The .308 is merely a slightly shorter 30-06. Advantage: Fits in shorter actions. Disadvantage: Slightly less powerful. Apparently most think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

If that's so, and since the .270 is an extremely popular cartridge, how come there has never been a shortened .270 on the otherwise same-sized case?

I'd think it would depend on where you lived, and what you needed that rife for. If you lived in bear country, you'd obviously want a rifle powerful enough for that. If you routinely hunted elk or moose, then you'd want something suitable for them. I live in a state that has a 2 week deer season, and a few days of bear hunting over in the eastern part of the state. There is some elk hunting, but I've never been drawn, and don't expect to be. Therefore, my choice of a "sensible" caliber, one that I would use year round is going to be different from someone in say, Alaska. Though I only deer hunt for a few weeks, I coyote hunt year round, and keep a rifle in my truck for varmint purposes. My rifle is usually a 223, or a 204. That makes far more sense to me. But, if I could only have one, it would be a 243. I use that caliber a lot too, for deer and coyotes.

Without even reading your entire first post, I too was thinking 308 with a 4x Leupold.

I have a M700 in 257R and M78 in 30-06 that both have 4x scopes on them. I suppose the '06 is the most sensible of the two.

That has me thinking. I have a 4x Leupold laying around . I might need a .308 for it.

The problem here , is there is not going to be a perfect answer.

My answer, that setup is well capable, and if it floats your boat grab it and run!

There are a ton of other options too, so if one of them makes your heart flutter better....

The one thing that would change my thinking a lot... out to say your 350, but not willing to let a once in a lifetime animal walk due to shot angle...

But beyond that 308 plus a lot of others, smaller and larger, would be just fine.

Remington m7 in 243,260,7-08,or 308. All are more than capable of delivering what you want and the rifle will be ligh and compact enough for truck and timber hunting. Yet should also be accurate to that 400 yard mark with ease.

I dropped a 243 into a McMillan m7 adl stock with a zeiss 3-9. It honestly needs a fixed 4 or 6 power but that can wait. Plenty accurate enough for hunting and it had killed it's fair share of deer and yote.