Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles If you can only have one bolt action rifle...

Probably a .243 with something between a 9 and 9.25 twist, so it'll easily handle 80 to 100 grain bullets. So that means a Ruger, Remington, or Savage, and possibly a couple others. This will easily get you out to 300 yards without having too much drop, is easy to shoot, ammo everywhere, and perfectly adequate for yotes and meat deer at that range.
Although a 10 twist will get you there for deer with the 80 to 85 grain GMX/TSX, and some have successful stabilization with up to 95 grain plastic tipped premium conventional bullets, although both at a higher cost. So that would open up your rifle options.
This is probably over thinking it more than a bit.

If you want even less kick and noise, here's some better options.

A .223 is the obvious answer if you just want something to shoot a lot at the range, but carry in the field a little or a lot. I'd get a not too heavy rifle with a standard weight 22" barrel, or a lightweight 20" barrel if you prefer to carry a lot and shoot a little, and 8 or 9 twist so it could better handle the 60 to 70 grain hunting bullets that are better for deer if you happen to use it for that. Practice ammo is cheap and widely available. One of my top choices in a carry rifle with a 1:9 twist would be the 20" barreled relatively compact and lightweight Remington Model 7 Stainless. The other Model 7's have a 12 twist. Or for a shooting rifle that's carried less, the discontinued Ruger Hawkeye All Weather, or any one of the 5R Remingtons.

Maybe a 7.62x39 if you never plan to shoot more than a couple hundred yards and you don't need extreme accuracy. This would make a great plinker, occasional hunter. CZ 527 Carbine with the mini-mauser action might be my choice for something to just carry around in the woods, shoot some rocks or steel, paper targets with easily seen holes, pop an occasional coyote, hog, deer, or other varmint at reasonably short range.
Plinking ammo is as cheap as it gets in a center fire. And steel cased soft point hunting ammo is also inexpensive.
I think this might be about as much fun as you could have without thinking about it too much.
A lever action 30-30 would also fit most of this description, except the bolt action part.

More kick and noise. And more power than you need for what you described.

On a moderate scale there's the 6.5 Creedmoor, or the 6.5x55. But for readiliy available and reasonably priced nice used rifles, something like a Remington 700 BDL in .270, .308, or 30-06.

Another choice, if you don't mind ordering your ammo, or if you want to load your own, and something that fits well with a nice classic blued and walnut rifle like a Sako or a Featherweight Model 70, or a CZ550 Full Stock, any of which would make for a nice heirloom type rifle in a 6.5x55 Swede. A pretty mild yet powerful and historically accurate round.
I'd surely put one of these near the top of a one bolt action battery with no specific purpose other than having a cool rifle that would never go out of style and could be used for just about anything.