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

This one is my current favourite, a 1949 Brno 22F 7x57. Customized by Ralf Martini with a Dakota safety, Recknagel trigger, and topped off with a Leupold 6x compact / Leupold rings in original Brno skeleton QD mounts.

85 Browning .45/70 gets the most use as I hunt a lot of close range. Everything else is just which long rifle I pick up. .270,.243,30/06,ect. My .300 win mag got sold. Gonna exercise a .250/3000 next year..

Dang castnblast, nice smoke pole. Aman could just about hunt the world w/that rifle. powdr

Dang castnblast, nice smoke pole. A man could just about hunt the world w/that rifle. powdr

Savage 114 in 30-06. But I must add, I tried handgun with a Contender in 7-30 Waters this past fall ... think I have a new favorite.




The accuracy of the 7-30 Waters amazed me

That is one sweet rifle/chamber combo. Scope looks a little funny slid back, but very nice!

It is probably not my favorite deer rifle but I have taken more deer with a Marlin 44 magnum than any other. The areas I hunt are almost always thick with restricted visibility and very wet. The 44 mag works great for my type of hunting.

Thanks! The scope is set back compared to some rifles because of the european style stock with more drop than most modern rifles. It is not well suited to a
"cheek weld" and bench rest style of shooting. If used with a head-up stance with both eyes open, it is very fast, and fits and balances like a fine shotgun. I have used this rifle to shoot deer ( and coyote and moose) on the run without effort or thought. If hunting the open plains I use the 6x, in the thick stuff I put on a Leupold 2.5x in a matching QD mount set. I haven't found a better rifle yet, not sure why I keep looking!

Browning BLR in .308. Great medium range gun and does well in brush with Hornady 150 gr round nose backed by 44.5 grains of Varget.

My .222

Dick Mann wrote a nice article on the subject called "Creating A Professional Whitetail Rifle" in the September 2004 edition of GUN WORKS. Mann's was, at that time, a Sisk-built Mark X Mauser, Krieger, McM, and Timney in 358 Win.

Model 7 LSS in .260 with 120 grain TTSX and a Leupold VX3 2.5-8x36 with B&C reticle.

Any links to a copy of that article? I'd like to get a read at it.

Yep, it'd be a good one.

Of course, Dick Mann ten years later is quoted here:

http://www.americanhunter.org/blogs/is-223-rem-a-deer-cartridge

Rem Model 7 stainless syn. In 7-08 topped with Leupold 2.5-8 and stoked with 140 ballistic silvertips.

Whatever happens to be in my hands at the time...

Custom Mauser in 7x57 pushing either a 140 gr. Partition or Nosler 150 gr. BT. The 19 inch barrel gives me around 2750 with these bullets and it so far seems the perfect rifle and round for Texas Whitetails. Good for feral hogs too.

I am a slut when it comes to deer rifles. No favorites, no loyalty. I have killed them with about everything other than a 7mm of any flavor. I could make do with about any one of them for the rest of my life without sacrificing anything.

I do have a very accurate 760 in 30-06 with a Zeiss 1.5-6x42 on it that will do anything anywhere that I might need to do.

It's a whole different world when you can bump a 30-30 up to being an efficient 250 yard rifle with some LeverEvolution powder and Barnes 130 grain TSX and TTSXs. It really s difficult to get your head around what can be done today.