Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters It;'s 1958: what's the all-around Western Rifle?

Well, reading 31 pages of the 257 Weatherby thread was good fun, so I thought I might ask this question:

It's 1958. If you handload, there's not much out there except the Nosler Partition, the Western Tool and Copper Works, Barnes, and a few others I'm forgetting. Suffice it say, super bullets are limited in supply.

More than that, powders aren't what they are today in terms of temperature stability, burning rate and availability. Some of the classics exist, and more than enough to get the job done, but the Golden Age of powders lies in the future.

You want an all around rifle for hunting "the West," whatever that means What do you pick? If you were alive then, what did you pick?

Gotta be a model 70 in 30-06

My personal pick, which I forgot to add in the original post, would be a Model 70 Alaskan in 338 Winchester Magnum.

No doubt. There is not even a close second.

BMT

The 270 Win

More than a few shot 7mm X 61mm Sharpe and Hart. So much so that it lead to the 7mm Remington Mag, My guess the 7mm Mashburn was around a bit too. But my guess, is that the .30-06 and the 270 ruled the roost. Pretty much like they do today.

Good choices all, but why? Those choices today are often justified by the availability of super bullets, particularly the 270 Winchester. I chose the 338 mainly because in 1958 one could get both Partitions and the heavier WTC works and Speer bullets.

Given bullet technology in 1958, was the 270 a viable all around rifle? Even for the occasional grizzly inevitably encountered when Elk hunting

By 1958 Hornady, Sierra, and Speer were all in business. Winchester and Remington both sold component bullets although they were sometimes hard to find. IMR4320,4350,4064,H4895 and H4831 plus others covered most rifle powder needs and still do. M-70's, Rem721's, FN's, Husqvarnas, Sporterized military rifles in 30-06 or .270Win took care of any reasonable hunting need. Redfield, Weaver, Lyman and Leupold built good hunting scopes.I was only eleven years old in 1958 but I remember a distinct case of lust for a sporterized 1903 Springfield I saw in a Jack O'Connor article. I don't see that riflewise things have improved all that much.

Statistically it would be a Model 94 .30-30.

However, I was indeed alive in 1958, already a seasoned hunter of 6 years, and this is what I was using - a Springfield '03.

Well this is easy the .300 Wby since it came out in 1945 it would have been around for 13 years, just go down to any sporting good store grab some 300 H&H go hunting and you have some fired formed brass.

Of course you could have that Wby in a .257, 270, or 7mm the man was just ahead of his time.;)

Exactly what my late dad started with here in NV in 1948 and what I gravitated to late in my youth.

One of these... a 1949 model 70 in .270 or a 1950 30-06


Or one of these...


Or one of these



Anything else just doesn't fit

Shrapnel: I appreciate your taste, but it is 1958! Fins are on cars! The atom has been split! Surely a more modern selection is in order; postwar production for the consumer market has resumed in force, and the dollar is king of the world. Think "Space Age"

The cavalry model pictured was VERY rare!

Sycamore

The atom bomb may have been split,but the folks in the west that I live in, probably didn't care,I still get cowboys coming into the lumberyard here to buy corral fencing/lumber for a new bunkhouse on the ranch,and they're not toting some modern semi-auto pistol on their belts, its usually a single action,44mag or 45lc,I expect it's much the same with their choice in rifles,no I imagine if anyone had a weatherby magnum around here,it was probably some dude from back east brought it out for a once in a lifetime hunt,I'm sure some were given to the old timers/guides as tips as is sometimes common,but doubt too many were bought by the locals themselves.I know one old timer,who grew up poor,the whole family had to share their .32 win. special,and they depended on the deer meat to supplement what they couldn't or didn't grow,I'm sure his family was like most others of that time frame in this area.
Hank

Winchester went to all the trouble of creating the "Westerner", lets give their effort the respect it deserves. Of course I refer to the great .264 Win Mag.

Good point Hank. One reason why war surplus rifles and ammunition were probably very common in the real "west" in the 1950s.

In 1958, unless you went to a gun store for the "obscure calibers" you may have been out of luck, most places stocked the standards, 30-06 would have been one of them. Look even today, 30-06 ammo is unsold on the shelf, while all the more modern cartridges are long gone sold-out. Ammo availability was/is a major concern IF you don't hand load.

You had better check your picures of the hunts in those days, there is no sign of a B-52 or space guns.

The post did say Western, and I stand by my pick of Model 70's and lever guns, I forgot this important piece...



Remington 721