Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best bolt gun in a fight?

The best fighting bolt action made for military use in the last 100 years may just be the SMLE because it's super reliable (close to the Mauser) and holds 10 rounds and also loads with clips for faster re-loads.
But for today getting a lot of 303 brit ammo is a bit hard to do, and getting the clips to load from is even harder.

So if I were to buy a rifle made today as a fighting arm, I would get a Mossberg MVP in 308. The reason is that it's made to scope, feeds from 20 round AR10 or M14 mags and is very accurate. I still have a bit of dis-trust for it's small T-Head extractor, but so fart I have yet to see one break in the 308 modes. (I have replaced 2 in their 5.56 MVPS so far) It may be a good idea to buy 1-2 extras including springs and ball-bearings in case one did, but having one fail you in a fight may mean you never get a chance to make the repair.

I do own one myself and I have to give it high marks for accuracy and so far, it's been 100% reliable. I have killed deer antelope and elk with it. I dislike the fact the safety didn't lock the bolt down, but I made a modification to my rifle so it now does lock the bolt closed. I wish Mossberg would do that too, but they are afraid of lawyers and want to have guns that can be unloaded while still "on safe"

But if I wanted to fight with such a rifle I can get mag pouches that fit AR10 mags and carry as many as I can, at 20 or 25 rounds each and reloading 20 in the MVP is about 3 times faster then loading 10 in the SMLE.

Fighting arms need to be viewed in an over-view, not just feature by feature. It's likely that if we looked simply at firepower, in the "era of bolt action combat", the SMLE had no competition. For accuracy, the M31 Swiss, the American 1903 and the Swedish M96 Mausers are top contenders. For ease of operation the SMLE and the 1903 are both at the top of the heap. For gravity-like reliability the Mauser 98 is King. But compared to an MVP all are harder to MAKE HITS WITH simply because the new Mossberg has a much better feeling trigger and will have a scope. Scopes are the single most important step forward in combat accuracy in the history of firearms in the last 150 years of use. The Mosin Nagant, the SMLE sniper version, the Mauser 98 and the Springfield 1903-A4 all have been scoped some going back to WW1, but when scoped all of them gave up ease of reloading. So the ability to snipe was good but to use them in infantry combat was to take a step backwards.

I would include the Ruger Scout in the same category and have high praise for it's action and super good extractor, but they way they forced it's users to use a single stack 10 round mag that is as large in profile as a 20 round, AND then charging 4X more for one mag then you can buy an AR10 20 round mag for, makes me not recommend the Ruger as highly as the Mossberg. Sure you can carry as much ammo in 10s and you can in 20s, but at near $100 per mag compared to $23 per mag and also cut mag capacity in half seems to be a very ill-conceived idea on Ruger's part.

But I do believe the action, safety and trigger on the Ruger to be superior to the Mossberg.

For fighting I have to look at the ease of actually fielding and using the weapons and I like the Ruger a lot, but for their stupid 10 round mag and it's high cost.

For such a weapon you should think of the weapon system, not just the weapon itself, and if you can afford to buy the rifle, scope, ammo, sling, mounts and enough magazines to last you 40 years including factoring loss and damage of those mags in that 40 year time frame, and if you can buy the whole system all at one time the Ruger would beat the Mossberg, but at about 3X the cost . If cost were no object the Ruger will beat the Mossberg, but it's going to come in a LOT higher as a "lifetime investment package." So it depends on who is buying. A Mossberg is going to allow a lot more shooting at a given cost then the Ruger by saving $80 per mag, and if we think 20 mags is a reasonable number to mate to one rifle for a lifetime of use including use in war we see an addition of $75 per mag over the cost of the mags that go in the Mossberg. 20 Ruger mags carry the same amount of ammo as 10 Mossberg mags (AR10 mags) So the Mossberg will need about $125-4140 to set it up for life in mags. The Ruger will require 20X $100 which is $2,000 worth of mags to do the same job. So the mags can cost as much as the gun or close to it.
Best for combat means BEST and not BEST VALUE. So maybe the BEST would be the Ruger Scout.
But the Best one to get for value and actual use may be the Mossberg MVP. And if you don't mind a 223, the MVP in that caliber may be worth a look too, but for the rather frail "flapper" on the bottom of the bolt head and the very small T-head extractors it uses. For me I don't trust the 223s, but the 308s I own and have seen used around here have all be OK.