Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Unexpected Pleasure -Hunting Rifles You Like More Than You Thought You Would

An old Remington Model 30s in 257 Roberts. It's pretty heavy, has an old school look but is really comfortable to shoot. Moderate recoil makes it a little more enjoyable.

The mod 88 win....bought the first one mainly because the price was right. After shooting it and seeing little 1/4 in groups I started hunting with it and now own 5 of them...

I had about the same thing about four years ago or so when I went to a big gun show in Tulsa to try to find something to "tide me over" for hunting until I could retrieve my gun collection still in storage in California, where I had moved from. I found several possible buys, but wound up getting a new-in-box, c.1951 Remington 721 in .270 Win. for $400.00 OTD against the seller's original asking price of $830.00. The rifle still had the factory rust preservative in / on it and this had gummed up the bolt stop so it didn't function correctly. I used that as a "bargaining chip".... I slapped a 3 X 9 Leupold on it the next day, using old school Weaver hardware. I stopped off at Walmart on my way to the range, picked up five boxes of "blue box" Federal in 130 and 150 grain flavors.... First group was .50" c-t-c exactly for 5 shots at one hundred yards.... I really, really, really, really should have hung on to that rifle, but I only have so much room for long gun storage and when I finally got the guns I'd made memories with with out of storage and home with me.... Well, there didn't seem like much of a point in keeping it, when I already had a Ruger M77 Ultralight in .250 Savage that groups down to .660" or so and a No.1-B in .30-'06 that's been sub M.O.A. since I bought it new in 1987. I reckon that if the 721 had done what it did while being chambered in .30-'06, I might have found a way to make room for it like I did with the A-Bolt II I mentioned in the beginning of this thread. I need more gun storage space because even though I don't need them, I would like to have a Model 70 Featherweight in .270, an A-2 style AR-15, and some kind of dedicated clay crushin' sporting clays gun....

The biggest suprise I had was german M98 that someone had done a bubba sporter conversion. It had been cut down to around 20" a ramp front sight installed ( remington take off by the look of it. The old military stock had been sanded down and refinished. They has sanded it so much that it was smaller than factory in every area. It has a peep sight installed ( slightly crookedly).

I bought it for $80, using the fact that no rifling was visible in much of the barrel to get $20 off the asking price.

The thing was the short barrel and the small diameter stock made it very handy to carry, the action was buttery smooth. a week of brushing and patcthing the barrel with copper solvent and the rifling reappeared.

8mm factory ammo is loaded pretty light and it hardly kicked. It was a cool gun and I carried it for a rain gun and used it as a loaner. In the end I loaned it out and never recovered it even if it has no real value I wish I had it back.

All my lever guns fit this category.

They may be short on reach but they are long on fun.

Ithaca Model 49 .22LR


Marlin 1895 .45-70
Marlin 375 .375 Win
Marlin 336CS .30-30
Browning B92 .44 Mag

A Remington 788 in 308 I picked up for a deal shoots 1/2 MOA regularly and really isn't bad to carry.

Also, when the Tikka T3s were fairly inexpensive, I picked up one in 260 (8 twist). It's light and one-hole accurate. The 'plastic' is tough and doesn't bother me. Liked it well enough that I picked up another Lite in .270. Excellent rifle to knock around in the hills with.

My old man was a died in the wool Savage lever gun nut. I never cared for them but tolerated his passion because, well, he was my dad. When he died I farmed most of them out to family members, played with a couple myself and found that I still really didn't care for them so away they went too. I was a confirmed bolt gun and single shot man. Fast forward 15 years and I bought a 1928-vintage 99A on the cheap and decided that it was a pretty neat rifle after all. I stumbled onto the Savage Forum here and as a result had a passion awakened in me I didn't know existed. Now I own a few of them, and a couple of 1899H carbines (.303 and .22HP) are my favorite companions for a day mooching around in the deer woods. I'm still passionate about bolt guns and single shots but there's something about those Savage carbines...

Can't agree more with this statement. I got my first years ago on closeout; figured for the price I'd give it a try. The ones I've had shoot, were cheap, and are finished much better than the current Forbes production. The CLR's are easy to find, many in like new condition at bargain prices.

In 2010, I bought a FN actioned Husqvarna 270 from a fellow who said it had been his fathers. It looked to have been "rode hard and put away wet". The blueing was worn, the birch stock scarred and battered, the grip cap torn off, the old scope dented and battered etc. When I looked down the barrel and at the crown; I thought it would have to be rebarreled. I offered him what I felt the action was worth and he accepted.

I cleaned it up a little, put a different scope on it and shot it before I did anything else. To my surprise it shot very well in spite of the old trigger. I replaced the trigger, changed the safety (the one that came was beat up and was not the original FN type) to an FN one. Then mounted it in a couple of different stocks and hunted with it.

Later on a whim I attacked the old, thick, heavy bulky birch stock thinking I had nothing to loose. Reduced the stock weight by about 10 oz. Stained the wood a little, put on a flip-flop recoil pad, sprayed the birch stock with spar varnish. Put on aluminum bottom metal to reduce the overall weight. It still looks rougher than any of my other rifles but shoots accurately and functions well. It remains pretty ugly looking - I call it "mongrel" but it is now a very functional hunting rifle that I have become very fond of.

Years ago found a deal I could not pass up at local pawn shop on an older Marlin 336RC 30-30 with the 1950s fat fore-end and stock. Never liked the looks of the thick wood. After scoping and shooting it, I have come to love the handling qualities and it groups several brands of ammo right around MOA or even less. It actually feels better in hand than the later models with the thinner wood.

A Savage model 16 in .260 Rem.
Wears a 3-9 Conquest with an elevation turret.
Sweet shooter.

That sounds like a Winlite. It should say so on the barrel and have a blind magazine They were introduced in 1986 or '87 in both the featherweight and sporter stocks. McMillan still offers both patterns. I really like the featherweight stock and have an '06 and a 9.3 so equipped.

Kimber Montana in 338 Fed. Far exceeded my expectations!

My Stevens 200 in 308. I originally bought because I had a $100 off certificate and got it priced matched to $239 net to me $139 . I thought it would be a good knock around loaner backup gun. Fitted with a 4x monarch from eBay it is a nice hunting rig.

788 in 223. Bought when my Dad brought home 10,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo. Figured it would be 'cheap' practice for using a 'real' deer rifle.
I put more than 7000 rounds of the ball ammo through it and found it was amazingly accurate with the inexpensive 4x Weaver I put on it. I know of at least 2 dozen coyotes that learned, however briefly, to hate that rifle not to mention a few whitetail that succumbed to it with some factory soft points it shot well.
Alas, in my youthful ignorance, I sold it. It's one of only TWO guns I wished I'd never parted company with.

wasn't mine and owner wouldn't sell a rem 722 in 222 shot great

I've often had it go the other way; bought something I thought would be the end-all, be-all and then just been disappointed. My CZ 453 was one of those. It shot great and looked great, but in the woods, that awkward safety was a constant annoyance. It was much easier to let go of than I expected.

T/C Venture. A friend bought one in 7/08. I was with him when he bought it. I couldnt stand the thing when he bought it. The thing shot lights out tho. Handled it and a few others. Bought one in 25/06. It shoots very good. Cant see getting rid of it now, kind of grown on me.

Browning M71.

Took a little work to get there, but my most pleasant rifle surprise in a long time came in the form of a hard-used old Winchester 670 in 30-06. It was the perfect base gun for the project and turned out way better than I hoped.



3 shots at 200 yards


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