Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Your go to deer rifle?

A 45 caliber Sharps with barrel buck horn and blade front sights.I shoot a 510 grain cast paper patched bullet. You never recover a bullet, and you never lose a deer--or any other animal, for that matter.

M70 30-06

Win classic FW chambered in 25-06. Beauty and sweet to carry.

Weatherby Mark V Classicmark 270 weatherby. 140 gr NAB and VX 3

Savage 99f circa 1957. 300 Savage using factory Winchester 180 grain silvertip. Leupold m8 6x. Magic for me.

I take one of a collection of family guns when feeling sentimental but this Ruger 77 MKII RLS in .308 is always ready to go.

I've had a 30-06 for a lot of years. I'm down to 4 of them right now, but a Ruger M77 MkII stainless with a Zytel stock and a Leupold VX 3 2.5-8 on it. What more can a guy need?
I also use Federal Premium 180 grain NPT's in it, regardless of not needing them. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

That's a beauty..

Husqvarna Model 46 - $125 Bubbaswede from SARCO.
Rebarreled to 257 Roberts with a $78, 21" Green Mountain closeout barrel. Nikon 2-7 on it. Hogue recoil pad let me cut off the chips at the stock toe. Stripped the polyurethane stuff on the stock and oiled it.
The original barrel had a badly pitted chamber and the Weaver mounts were on it. I think I improved Bubbaswedes's work and didn't destroy anything.

100 grain Nosler Partition, H4895, CCI Primer, Nosler Brass.
Handy and light.

Well, here's the thing. There are a whole lot of reasons the Savage 99 is my favorite:

1) In my opinion, it comes close to the optimal rifle for whitetail deer hunting.
2) I've bagged most of my big bucks with it.
3) I cannot think of a better system for taking deer out of a treestand.

On the other hand, the Hawkeye is a better all-around rifle.

1) I've loaded the Savage 99 to .300 Savage levels, so it does not have quite the whallop at 200 yards as I would prefer. However, it is perfect for the deep woods.

2) I prefer to keep the Savage 99 home when it rains. The Hawkeye is stainless.
3) The optics on the Hawkeye, a Bushnell Elite 3-9X40, are phenomenal. I have successfully taken deer at 150 yards in the last minute of legal hunting.

As a result, when the deer are still in the oaks in the early part of season, I'm up a tree with the Savage. Once they move out into the pastures, I put the Savage down and pick up the Hawkeye. Somewhere during the two weeks of season, I try rotate through the rest of the arsenal.

shaman,

hehe, hehe, hehe, you still gotta, decide!!. Just one....

It's obvious to me. Your heart says 99, your brain says Hawkeye!
Captdavid

Although I have several options on the rack, I nearly always grab a Remington Model Seven, re-barreled and reamed out to 7mm08 Improved. It has a Rem. Tupperware stock with a plate of melted wheel weights in the stock to balance it out from the heavier barrel. I tend to use 120 gr. ballistic tips pushed by Varget powder. Muzzle velocity at around 3180. I have killed lots of deer with this gun, and some other stuff like pigs and Javeleno's , but nothing big. miles

When in doubt, "Little Ugly" gets the call, 8x57, 200 gr Hot Core at 2650 seems to work pretty well.

I'm quite jealous. I would like to build one of those soon.

Open field hunting on the farm means taking the 300WM.
Woods hunting means taking the 16" 6.8SPC AR.
Swamps and thick stuff means taking the 12.5" 6.8SPC AR.

Girlfriend took over the 300WM so i just used the 16" 6.8SPC as i was just backup at that point.

My go to "deer rifle".
Sako AII Hunter, 308 WCF w/150gr. NAB with Swarovski 4x32.

StarchedCover

my 6mm-06

How in the world did the deer get into the treestand??