Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting whats your ideal whitetail rifle

Understanding their range covers all kinds of varied country, what rifle is right for your whitetail hunt?
From the factory the perfect fit for me is a .270 fwt.

Or a put together 7x57 on a pre 64 M70 action and basner stock and topped it with a swaro 3-9x36 with a 4A.

FN HVA 7x57 w6x36 duplex Lupy. ans Nosler PT's-Muddy

I'm not sure what my ideal whitetail rifle is. I have several. I only get to hunt a couple days with rifle each year, hunt much more with muzzleloader and bow.

I am currently grab my 300 win mag...it's a sako bavarian with a varipoint 2.5-10x42 scope. It's a great setup. I never have to track a deer. But it is probably too much gun for a whitetail. I have used reduced recoil loads to reduce meat damage. A regular round does a lot of damage....even on a heart lung shot there will be massive clotting in the shoulder on exit side.

If get a custom build it will be in 30-06. Maybe smaller.

My 7x57 Featherweight.

.348 Winchester Model 71. No dragging required.

Mine is a Ruger 77 Ultralight tang safety model in 308. 20 inch factory barrel is pretty thin, makes for nice handy rifle, but 308 gives me all the range I need.

While I love to handle, look at, and shoot my M70 FWT .270, every time I head into the woods I grab my Tikka T3 Lite Stainless .308.

Savage bolt action in .358 Win. Where I hunt, it's rare to have more than a 150 yd shot. Most are less than 100 yds. Perfect for the .358.

270 FW.

For me, my model 70, 300 WSM, 180gr Accubonds. Love sitting on a big field with that rifle.

The 2.5x8x36 is gone, it currently wears a 3.5x10x40 with an M1 turret...and I'm now shooting 150gr LR Accubonds at 2900fps...




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Sako AII, 308 Winchester, Leupold VariX-II 2x7x33 (soon to be swapped out for a fixed 4x).

Yep

90+% of my kills are accomplished with carbine length 30 calibers and 3 or 4 x.

Me too. Therefore a 7600 carbine 06. However if I was to need a longer range rig for areas west I think it would be a 300 weatherby.

Winchester pre'64 M/70 .35 Whelen.

For where I'm hunting mid.TN. ,I've been using my Marlin 336 in 35Rem

Generally no rifles allowed for deer in Iowa and I have never gotten excited about slug guns (although I have used them). So my 'rifle' is a TC Contender handgun 14" in 44 Mag with 245 cast bullets. Scopes have varied but I think I have decided there is little point to anything bigger than a 2x. I keep threatening to switch to a 375 Win or 45-70 (we are allowed straight-wall handgun cartridges only) but the 44 works well and the recoil of those others is a bit stout.
I generally hunt a small section of fairly thick timber by myself so it isn't as big a handicap as I make it out to be. This year's shot was about 20 yards.

Remington 700 Classic, 270 Win. (purchased new in 1981) with Leupold M8 4x and 130 gr. Nosler Partitions or Core Lokts....my go to rifle for PA and NY whitetails.

The more I use it the more my other rifles collect dust.

Rem 700 ADL in .243 Win, Talley LW's, Leupold Mark AR, POS Ti stock, shoots unreal