Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting rifle weight and body weight

Do you have any kind of a link to one of those studies? I’d be interested in reading one as I have noticed a somewhat different conclusion. The lighter a person is, the better off they generally have been hiking around, IME. The exception is having some muscle on your core, as it does help with carrying pack weight.

More muscle requires more oxygen and more muscle also is more weight that a person has to carry around with them. It it better positioned for center of gravity than a heavy pack, however.

I have seen some incredibly in shape college football players with serious muscle straight up get whooped by what I consider easy morning hikes.

For clarification I said "a bit more muscle". I'm not a body builder. Also muscle strength does not always equal huge muscle mass. But let's be clear, the study showed the worst performing group in the study was the one that only trained aerobically.

Video discussing NATO rucking study

Football in general is an anaerobic sport. I am not surprised that football players would not excel at rucking.

👍
I’ll check it out.

Thanks!

intresting points on this thread.

Well said Brad. Why can a smaller kid further out from the fulcrum of a teeter-totter balance with a bigger kid closer in on the other side? A rifle is on a lever away from the fulcrum — the body’s center of gravity — and thus that 10 lb rifle is going to feel a lot heavier than the 7.5 lb rifle at the end of the day. Much heavier than the 2.5 lb difference would suggest. The length of the lever will accentuate the felt weight.

Making an either-or issue of it with extra body weight is a red herring. Lose the extra body weight too if you are embarking on a true mountain hunt. That has nothing to do with rifle weight issue.

It’s an old thread. But, I see the trend for many new rifles tending heavier, at least the one I heft. And making an argument that army issue weapons were heavier..well, yeah, 18 to 20 y/o kids carry them. Still, would you rather hump a BAR all day or an M1 carbine if weight alone is the issue?

And most have no idea what their optimal body weight is.

Including me.

Turned out to be a good 20 lbs. below what I considered "fightin' weight."

And that's with a 5-day/wk. run/lift/handball schedule.




GR

I'm sure an 8 lb rifle feels heavier to a 140 lb. little scrawny fugger than to a 240 lb. heavily muscled brute.

The funny thing is that infantry guys aren't happy carrying more weight either. They're still shaving pounds and ounces off their gear where possible (i.e. field stripping MREs). Also the military isn't overly concerned if it blows out the knees of 18 to 20 year olds. The VA can deal with that problem down the road. Not quite the same situation as recreational backpacking/hunting.

Some very good points by all, with a lot of repetition from what might appear to be a single point of view. Yet some are of a somewhat contrarian stance, which is also needed to bring balance.

I rarely visit this forum for backpack hunters as I rarely carry a backpack on my back while tregging bogs or steep ridges in search of moose or other fauna. I do use them - and own several - but leave them at a spot that's handy. But I know what it is to spend days on end going through tough bogs and over rough and steep ridges. I've owned rifles of all sorts (levers, bolts, semis and single-shots) in multiple calibers and cartridges - all with handloads. Today, as in the past, I much prefer heavier rifles for offhand shooting - and most of it is from offhand - over light-'n- handy. I shoot them more accurately if that's called for without a rest. On the other hand, like others, I prefer the light-'n-handy rifles for toting long distances or in rough terrain.

However, of my four big game rifles, two are relatively light -'n - handy and two are 10 pounders: a .35 Whelen single-shot with a 3-9 x 40 scope at 7.5 lbs with a round in the chamber, and a 9.3 x 62 Tikka T3 Lite at 7.65 lbs with a 3 - 9 x 40 scope, plus 3 in a magazine clip. Both are capable of ~ 40 ft-lbs + recoil. The two brutes are a .375 H&H and a .458 Win Mag. My favorite rifle is the .458 Win Mag in a Ruger No.1 at 10.65 lbs with a Nikon 2-7 x 32 and one in the chamber plus 4 in a buttstock cartridge holder. For offhand shooting, I shoot the .458 as well as a .223.... maybe better. It has a Mag-na-Port brake that actually works. I sometimes wonder why I have the others for it's good for anything when loaded right for varmints to elephant. I do have some very lightweight .22LRs that also can kill most things when pointed right, including plenty of African game within range using solids to the brain - just ask my oldest son who spent years in Africa as a missionary and shot scores of game for protein with brain shots. He was a licensed big game hunter.

Oh, by the way, I'm 87 with a bear ticket in my pocket. Round 2 begins in a couple of weeks. My main rifle will be the .375 H&H.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

I have (no shït) seen grunts cut the legend off a paper map to save weight. This was circa 2005, so GPS was a thing and dead reckoning wasn't a necessity, but it still blew my mind.

There usually isn't any complaints about carrying plenty of smokes of cope though....

In short:

If you lose muscle and/or water and become weaker and are not focused on conditioning, then no. If you lose some excess fat (BMI is a bit out dated) while working on conditioning, then yes.

Being in shape trumps all. That means cardio, core, legs, shoulders, and core. And core.

Fretting about ounces on a rifle is fun but generally not where the most bang for buck/time will be found.

Good post, bump for a reread.

And again... the elephant in the room continues to be ignored.

E=MC2

A rifle dangling at arm's length being tossed around to acquire/maintain balance punches way above its weight class. Those "minor" bursts of speed require intense energy far beyond expectations.

Everyone carrying a rifle in hand while climbing a nasty incline instinctively knows it makes a difference. That rifle is live weight.

The formula points out energy equals mass times velocity squared, period.

But C in that formula is the speed of light???

Yeah, that formula is describing mass/energy duality. Nothing to do with classical mechanics in terms of inertia or kinetic energy. A more relevant equation would be E_k = 0.5mv^2.

Always one darned smarty pants in the crew

And I'm sure that the guy who absolutely smoked my ass on a 12 day backpack hunt in the Chugach Mountains was a scrawny little 145-lb. fugger who packed out 2/3 of his body weight.

And he would've smoked your ass too.

That's been my experience as well - especially when the hunt drags out for a whole week. There is zero advantage in the mountains with extra weight, even muscle if it isn't contributing to helping you carry out 60-100 lbs of dead weight.

Used to work with a pretty compact ex airborne ranger guy. Once commented something along the lines of "after 24 hours without food, the Delta guys were just like the rest of us." ...

I don't get the "either this, or that" false dichotomy. Go ahead and lose alll the weight you want, get in the best shape of your life; it is -still- easier to carry a significantly lighter rifle in the mountains, or anywhere else for that matter. Obviously there are a lot of other variables that go into what you decide to carry or how much you care either way, but lighter things are are easier to carry than heavier things.