Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are classic rifles doomed?

Might also point out that traditional walnut/blued rifles do not have to weigh more than synthetic-stocked rifles--and also can help on guided hunts This is my Merkel K1 .308, which weighs under 7 pounds with any scope weighing 16 ounces or less. It took this caribou after my guide and I followed a pair of bulls over two miles across a series of ridges in the Northwest Territories. We finally gave up trying to catch them--but then when we headed back to the boat toward evening, I turned around and found one of the bulls (for whatever reason caribou have for anything) had turned around and was headed right back toward us.

I killed it on the steep ridge above the boat, then because my partner (who was 20 years older than my 53) also killed a bull, I volunteered to pack the boned meat from my bull down to the boat, while he and the guide boned out the other bull--then hike back up to help pack it out. I could have done it with a 10-pound rifle, but why? The little Merkel worked fine, and made it all easier and quicker--partly because we were trying to beat sundown.