Is it at all possible to go back to
carrying a regular weight rifle once
you've used a Montana or Nula
Type rifle? Seems impossible to
me.

I can tell you it's not all that easy.

I ordered a Ruger 77 UL, 308, 20" bll. Short, handy, light. It was the FIRST one in Hammond La in early 80's. Next was Win 70 XTR FTWT in 270 Win. A little longer but SVELTE.

It's not nearly as pleasant carrying/lugging a standard wt. or heavy rifle since then. It's NOT because I can't, It's just not as FUN,

Jerry

Yes and it was pretty comforting for me.

This year I had to use my back up rifle. It is a heavy weight at 8 lb 1 oz when loaded. That's more than a pound heavier than my regular rifle. No way do I go back to a regular weight.

Weight isn't the top reason for choosing a rig for some people.

This.

Age seems to have been a factor for me.

Very tough.... might even cause me to rebarrel some fatter ones of mine, proof research carbon tubes look to be the best of both worlds...

No

I don’t think I would ever carry a ‘normal’ rifle in the mountains again. Why would I?

I keep coming back to sporter weight rifles myself.

I don't get hung up on weight, but somewhere between 7-8 lbs is a lot better for me than close to 6...

I just gave my Kimber 308 to my son. To me it is an ultra light. It even has a shortened barrel to reduce the weight a little more.


I found that I was hunting more with my Husqvarna 30/06. It is what I would consider a standard weight sporter even though it is lighter than some. I still like it better and just bought a second one. Going back wasn't something I thought about doing, it just happened.

Rifle bliss is truly found in an accurate, well balanced, light weight rifle!! I have thoroughly enjoyed my Forbes 270. Once you have one, I'm not sure why you would want to go back.

I just sold my McWhorter 6.5 Weatherby, I'm 65 now and I started noticing it was getting "heavy". Once I was in the blind and set up it was fine.

This year, I bought the 21" Barrett in 6.5 Creed, gun shoots as good as I could get the McWhorter to shoot. I have a Swaro 3-10X40, thinking about going to more power 6-30 Swaro 6i. This will add a touch more weight but add more potential to the rifles range (for me) I love magnification.

Maybe the Leupold HD6, 5-42X, even lighter

I have no problem switching from heavy to light but I actualy shoot the heavy better

I was always the guy: "Instead of buying an expensive lightweight rifle, just lose 2lbs you fat arse" I was that guy until I got a lightweight rifle. It's all I want now.

This year my son had to carry the back-up rifle I have for him. It weighs about a 1/2 lb more than the rifle he's carried since he was 13. The first thing he said was "Dad, this rifle is definitely heavier than my regular rifle!"

I decided I don't shoot 6lb rifles all that well. 6 1/2 to something less than 7lbs for me.

I can't imagine carrying an 8lb rifle in the San Juans anymore............

That's because 1 lb in the hand is like 10 lbs around the waist............or worse........

I like carrying an ultralight better, but I shoot something in the 7.5-9 lb range better-especially standing. Now from prone or some other(supported) position? Not so much.

I won't

Lightweight is very subjective, a properly balanced rifle...no. A poorly balanced lightweight, in heartbeat after a few range sessions from field positions or a few misses in the field.

Post Tibial Pleteau Fracture surgery and post triple by pass surgery I carried my midweight Kimber Longmaster rebarreled to 6.5 Creedmoor. A flatlander at 7000' elevation and had no problems. At 63 years young I'm willing to carry whatever rifle i think will do the job. Just not that hard! More elevation changes and miles i might carry one of my lighter rifles or put my day pack on a diet.

I've gone from a Kimber 84M back to a little heavier 8400 and Sako Finnlight.

Shooting off-hand the 8400's wider forend and heavier front weight seem to feel much steadier and better balanced to me.

To be fair, I don't climb mountains like some of you guys, but I do put on a lot of miles on foot deer hunting. Probably 99% of the time while walking and glassing my rifle is shoulder slung so the extra couple of pounds doesn't affect or bother me.

Now that being said, I ain't going to go all crazy and start lugging a Remington Sendero along .

Monday is our season opener for buck deer with a rifle.

I have several lightweight rifles in 6.5 and 7mm, but I will hunt from a tree stand with my LAW in 6.5 Creedmoor.

I might not carry it on a mountain hunt, but it sure is nice for local stuff from a tree stand.

donsm70

The funniest thing are the guys who put bodaciously large and heavy scopes on 5-6 lb rifles..........talk about unbalanced..............

Yes; once someone else starts carrying your "other " stuff! 😉

As skeen aludes above, the crux of this, like many of these questions, is how and where one hunts. For backpack mountain hunting, where an extra pound means a day of food, I couldn't imagine voluntarily going back to carrying a heavier rifle. Same applies to another idea that came up in a recent thread; a "spare" scope on a sheep hunt. Both notions are inconceivable to me on this type of hunt. However, if I was required to have a guide who might share the load, as any non resident hunting sheep in AK is, I might consider carrying a heavier rifle or an extra scope ... Likewise, on a day hunt for deer or caribou, I will often carry a slightly heavier rifle. So - it all depends!

Post Tibial Pleteau Fracture surgery and post triple by pass surgery I carried my midweight Kimber Longmaster rebarreled to 6.5 Creedmoor. A flatlander at 7000' elevation and had no problems. At 63 years young I'm willing to carry whatever rifle i think will do the job. Just not that hard! More elevation changes and miles i might carry one of my lighter rifles or put my day pack on a diet.

In April and May, I was carrying a 8 3/4#, 26" barreled Winchester in Africa, shooting off sticks. Today I carried a Remington 700 Titanium with a 22" barrel climbing a tall ladder stand. I use whatever best suits the situation.

RS

Balance matters a lot. Some of my lightest rifles didn't balance all that well and were therefore harder to shoot well especially offhand.

It is hard to go back, though, however, it turns out some of the factory sporters are not as heavy as they're listed at so it's not as much "go back" as we might think. I had a Remington 700 XCR (first gen) .375 that was 6 lb 12 oz bare. I just bought an XCR II in .338. I didn't weigh it bare, but it is 7 lb 12 ounces with a Leupold 3.5-10X in steel dual dovetail rings. They listed at 7 lb 10 ounces bare.

The challenge for me, when it comes to rifle weight, is muzzleloaders. I shoot sidelocks .. period. I've been packing a TC Seneca .45 which weighs 5 lb 12 ounces empty. Problem is, .45 caliber is not legal for elk in my state, .50 is minimum. Sure kills the [bleep] out of deer though.

I have gone a little heavier the last few years. Hunted NULAs exclusively for a few years and eventually sold all of them and switched to Kimbers. Still have and like Kimbers, but have mostly switched to more standard weight rifles in light’ish stocks. Also have trended to heavier contour barrels and / or longer barrels in conjunction with light stocks and heavier but more reliable scopes.

I tend to hunt mountains and canyons or slightly less steep, but still rugged, desert mountains and rolling hills. A long hunting day for me would be 12-15miles on foot. I haven’t back packed into the backcountry in many years.

For muzzleliaders I want a tank, but I use a flintlock and that extra weight helps tame the couple oz chunck of flint flying downward from disturbing your aim.

You went from a Nula, to a Kimber..... and then heavier? Seriously???

I've had both, and Finnlites,and Featherweights, and T3Ultralites, and Jackson Hunters, and Accumarks, and a bunch of other rifles. I can't imagine going from a Nula to a Kimber or anything heavier for that matter.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

I love my 7lbs Kimbers (6x SS MQ w/ Leupold DD's), but this year I mostly carried an 8+ lbs 700 in an Edge fill McM with AICS dbm.

Totally doable.

I went from a 77 25/06 to a 77 tang safety ultra light 270 because of weight. But I liked the '06 better for WT's. So, went Marlin came out with their little 25/06 which was obviously much lighter than the Ruger in the same caliber, I bought one. This year, I wanted to find a reason to carry my 77 in the 257 Rbts. It feels like it weighs a ton! I am going back to the little Marlin but not because of weight.

I use both. Different tools for different jobs. One does not typically take an ultralight fly rod catfishing or a putter to the driving range.. I do tend to prefer lighter rifles but am generally more accurate with standard weight rifles than with my flyweights.

How many touring the virtues of an ultra light/ lightest possible rifle are walking 3-4 miles max or hunting out of a stand? Have four sub 7lb scoped, rifles myself ( Montana's, colt/nula) but carried a just under 9 lb 376 Steyr the last 4 days. Most of it was hunting out of my stand 3 hours from first light and 3 hours til dark mixed with maybe 4 miles of hiking/stalking during the day. Really never thought about it or noticed. If I was putting 10 miles a day on my feet, I'd carry lighter for sure. Betting alot of ultra lights are being carried to the stand on a quad.

I have had Ruger Ultralights for years. Though not true ultralights, I did find them more pleasant to carry in the mountains of Kodiak than sporter weights. I now have a few true ultralights in my Savage LWH. I haven't carried them any further than 1/4 mile, but I find their trim dimensions handy in the 2 man ladder stand.

Never considered weight and packed a 10 1/2 lb. Shiloh Sharps all over the Salt River range in Wyoming and the Caribou's in Idaho. My ammo weighed more than some lightweight rifles. I'm not so foolish to say it isn't heavy, it is but, that's what I wanted to hunt with. Other side of that is I also love my two pre-war Mannlicher/Schoenauers.

Can and do flip between my "field/stand" rig and the light weights. Mountain guide,Kimber classic and T3s. The 280AI is beefy by today's standards at 8.5 lbs. It does lay still nice from the blog pod. I won't carry it for weeks on end on a daily basis. No reason to. Light rigs definitely have a place. But I can go back should the urge strike. If I had to choose between heavy or light for the rest of my days,light wins hands down. No regrets.

You just stop right there, I am trying to justify my Barrett purchase and this kind of rational thinking is going to stop me from making an irrational decision

Yup .... I like'em to be between 7 and 7.5lbs scoped. Might try one a bit lighter in the future, but not much.

My lightest was 6lb 12oz done, heaviest 8lb 1oz. Doesn't matter for schit.

Key words "in the mountains." Not all hunting is after a long walk up a steep hill.

I agree with the comments, but...., at eighty it makes little difference. I no longer still hunt, nor chase the Mulies or quail in the hills. Old guys get sneaky and ambush over food plots, water, game trails, or feeders. My walks are short. Once the shooting starts, the heavier rifles are better for recoil management and the old bones appreciate that. I carry it one step farther. My soft recoiling BAR makes a .30-06 more like a .250 or a .243.

Best wishes,

Jack

Me too Pard, I just shoot them better.

I chased lightweight rifles for years before ending up with a Kimber 308. With a Leupold scope in Talley lightweight mounts it is still an ounce shy of 6 lbs. I do really like the rifle and it ain't for sale, but I've drifted toward slightly heavier rigs for most of my hunts. I still consider them lightweight. Honestly, the weights listed above are near ideal and I now consider somewhere between 7-7 1/2 lbs scoped to be perfect. Get much under 7 lbs and I don't shoot them as well, and as long as it is under 7 1/2 lbs I don't feel that it is a burden to carry even in tough country. But at the same time 8 lbs is about my limit. Not that I can't carry any more weight, I just don't want to. If I needed to carry a 10+ lb rifle to do the job I certainly could. But why would I want to if lighter options are available.

I like 7.5-8lbs for a scoped sporter, but we don't do that much walking around here during deer season. I hunted a 9lb old-school Ruger M77 tang-safe .338WM yesterday and probably wouldn't want it much lighter. It makes my 338/06-level loads pretty pleasant to shoot and balances really well with the magnum-contour 22" pipe.

In 2004 I told my new 7lb blaser K95 out in the rut.. I was presented with a very hard shot off sticks on a monster buck that pronked e bounds, stored for a couple of heart beats and repeat for 200yds. I could only make the shot by lining up on where he would stop.

There and then I never took it on a serious hunt again.

Lightweights are for mountain and backpack hunts. They’re specialty rifles, not remotely perfect for all hunting. If I lived back east and hunted Whitetail primarily from a tree stand, it would be with a beautifully stocked walnunt and chromoly rifle, weight be damned. And for open country hunting, where shots are often long, I’d always rather have more rifle weight. Etc., etc.

I'm right there with you guys. Due to terrain and vegetation, I nearly always get short fast, shots that must be taken offhand, so balance is far more important than overall weight. When I hunt, I'm on my feet with a rifle in my hands 8-10 hours a day so I'd take a light rifle over a heavy one any day of the week IF the light rifle balanced well. But the first thing most manufacturers do when they want to create a lightweight offering is lop the barrel, which throws the balance to the rear, and that ain't good.


Okie John

I too shoot the 7-9# hunting rifles better than the UL's. I carry a 9# all up most of the time and just got used to the weight. I'ts gone over some mountains too.

I once carried a Remington Mod 700 Mountain Rifle with a Leupold Compact 3x9 in .280 AI on a muley/antelope combo hunt, WY. I was sorta South West of Laramie on a big private ranch. That wind on the short grass prairie eat me alive! I was wrapped up in the sling and in the sitting position (way too much cactus for prone for me!) and the wind blew me all over the place. I missed several good prongers, but ended up killing a nice one in the late afternoon. I was all wrapped up in a snow fence to get still and I popped him at 250yds. Early and late, after mulies, it wasn't too bad, but my Compact scope wasn't bright enough to pull a nice buck out of the shadows...passed on the muley that year.

I can and do go back and forth with rifles. I go from over 10 lb rifles to under 7 sometimes in the same day more than once. I like bigger guns with longer barrels for more precise work. I like bigger heavier guns to absorb recoil although anymore I am usually shooting light enough monos that recoil is not a question. Shotguns, grouse guns, are a whole 'nother story.. There is no such thing as too light or quick.

I guess I am doing it wrong since I use my Forbes, which happens to be my most accurate rifle, as my primary rifle in my eastern whitetail stands. I have the pretty walnut, flashy barreled rifles that shoot really well, but why do I want to drag them through brush and swamp? I even take my light rifle on the few occasions each year where I only walk a few hundred yards to hunt over a corn field. To each his own.

I keep reading on here that light rifles don't shoot as well as heavier ones. That tells me folks have never shot a light rifle that is properly balanced. I shoot my Forbes offhand and in shooting positions (without shooting sticks or bipod) much better than any other 7.5lb + rifle I own.

I have a real tough time carrying my heavier guns now that I have Kimbers and Forbes in the safe. 8lb isn’t bad, but past that is tough to justify.

I feel exactly the same way about my Forbes 270. I have a very early one with 3 function safety. It shoots way more .5 MOA and under groups than not. I mounted a Swaro Z5 on it and it is fast becoming my favorite rifle. Is yours an early model?

I was a little ahead of the curve building up a 7 pound scoped 7 mm RM with the Kevlar stock and turned barrel and it has served me well out west where I carried my own rifle up lots more elevation than we have here in the Midwest. Then I watched the light rifle craze go to extremes with the 4 and 5 pound rifles. I'm a stand deer hunter and once the rifle is at the stand hanging on a limb or against the blind wall, it wouldn't matter what it weighed. I did build up another <7# scoped 7mm-08 as my primary deer rifle and in retrospect I would give it a #2 taper 20" barrel instead of a #1, but it works and I don't want for another +/- 7# rifle. There is such a thing as going too light for me.

7ish lbs
Recoils a little
Kills a lot
Shoots lights out


These are the requirements I look for


Trystan

As I get older lighter rifles appeal to me more than they used to. I have a Mauser actioned 308 on a 24/47 action and an Israeli barrel. The stock is the original that has been lightened considerably and made into a straight grip. Scoped with an old Redfield 4X scope it weights 7 pounds 2 ounces. It is my bad weather rifle. Wish it would finally cool off this year.

Yes. Jeweled bolt and 3 function trigger. Sent it to Melvin to shorten the LOP on my stock. I don't see how it can get any better now.

Yes pretty easily.... I hunt in TN and let's be honest, I do not walk very far at all... from the truck to the stand and vice versa... I often find myself hunting with a varmint gun just because it is so accurate and in 308... However, I do really like my Weatherby ultra lightweight 280 as well...... so yes... I can go back and often do... but the situation makes a big difference

My featherweight deer rifle is a Mossberg 464 with 16 inch barrel. Typical shot group at 150 yards is 3.5 inches using a Simmons 2-7X Pro Hunter scope. This outfit has toppled many whitetails for me. 30-30 is a keeper!

Sherwood

I guess so am I, my 2 primary rifles are a Weatherby Carbine in 7mm-08 and Weatherby ULW in 280. Both go an ounce or two under 7 lbs all up. In CT when hunting private land the walk is short and usually a tree stand or ground blind. In Northern New England its a different story when still hunting/tracking all day. Will admit, the carbine is carried a lot more. I would even go a half pound lighter if the gun balanced well with a bit of weight forward.. They're really not hard to shoot with some practice. Biggest thing, especially when still hunting/tracking is how quick they come up to your shoulder, you can aim and shoot. The lighter weight seems to help them come up a little quicker, especially late in the day

I am currently gravitating back toward a light weight (7 pounds ready to hunt) rather than an ultralight (6+ pounds ready to hunt).

I find that I like a 20" or shorter barrel, but much prefer it in a sporter or heavier contour. Short and light with a chunky barrel makes them easy to carry and easy to shoot, for me.

The sweet spot for me is 7.5-8 lbs scoped, still seems pretty light yet quite shootable.

6.5-7 lbs scoped for me. Not really ultralight, but light. Sporter barrel with a light stock, slightly forward balance helps me when shooting offhand.

After my first edge fill McMillian I couldn't see myself ordering a standard fill again for a non-magnum/non-chunk. After using edge/HTS/manners stocked customs, NULA's, Montana's, Forbes, and Fieldcrafts with everything from pencil barrels to #3's, the 6.5-7lbs scoped and ready with slightly forward balance is where I want it....and there are a lot of ways to get there.

I can and I'm probably going to. Currently have both a Kimber Montana 270 and Fieldcraft 6.5 that I'll probably sell and keep my two pre-64 featherweights in McMillan as I prefer the weight.

Ditto......

i like the short and chunky look and feel too. in my rifles and my women.

I hunt in Georgia so I'm not hunting in the same conditions as some of you and only have one rifle I'd call ultralight. Don't have any problems putting it down and grabbing an 8+ pound rifle though.

After carrying 5.5-6.5 pound rifles almost exclusively hunting the past 8 years or so I carried a 13 pound rifle this year around for everything this year. Honestly it wasn't as hard to adjust to as I though.

Heck even carried it all sheep hunting:



Really just depends on the hunt which rifle I carry. They all have their place, lightweights, heavy weights, mid weights.

Great Picture!

Very cool Alaska Lanche!

alaska_lanche,

Great photo!

I'd have everything tied down. I drop stuff....and I'd have no desire to climb back down if it went tumbling. Great pic! Tell your sherpa he did a great job with the camera.

Pretty much my thought but 7-7.5lbs for me all up. This season it’s a T3 super light with a 2.5-8 loopy.

Haha....that was my buddy. He was sizing up which ram he wanted as I have already shot a couple Dall sheep. So I was the Sherpa that snapped that pic.

For a while now it has been LW's. This season it is the 8lb BobinNH rifle. There is an obvious difference, but the rifle balances nice and it wasn't unbearable.

Now for something that happens real quick and in the woods? Then it becomes similar to Grouse hunting and given my druthers, it would be the LW.

Great pic! I need to come hunt with you!