I got my first rifle, a Rem Model 514 single shot bolt action .22 when I was 10. Over the years I "upgraded" with a Rem 512 tube feed .22 and a Rem 541T that I lengthened the stock to the same as my centerfire rifles. These rifles have put many a rabbit on my dinner table, and after I moved to Montana, even a few deer into my freezer.
I didn't start hunting until the mid '60s when I was in college and worked and lived summers in NW Colorado. The locals that I worked with there recommended that I get a bolt action .270 Win or .30-06 for deer and elk. So I bought a .30-06. I actually killed my first deer back then with a borrowed Model 94 Winchester and a few years ago I shot my Mountain lion with another Model 94. I killed my best Mule deer buck and an American buffalo with a couple of my black powder rifles. I also shot a couple of Black bears with my pistols. Before Ieft Steamboat Springs, I killed a 5x5 elk with my recurve bow. I think everything else that I've hunted, I shot with my bolt action rifles.
My last few years in Colorado and first few years in Montana, I used my 30-06 for my deer, elk, and antelope. About 1978 I had my .30-06 re-chambered to .30 Gibbs and that became my primary elk rifle, and later shot a couple of moose and an Alaskan caribou with it. At that same time, I had a .257 Ackley built for my deer and antelope rifle and later I shot an elk, several bighorn sheep, a Dall sheep and a Mountain caribou with it. And I built a .22-250 mainly for varmints but also shot several deer and antelope with it.
After the turn of the century, I bought a Rem 700 in 7 mm RM for deer, elk, and antelope here in Montana, several hunts in South Africa, and several hunts In Canada for a Musk ox and several caribou. In 2004 I built a .375 RUM in a Rem 700 for an African cape buffalo hunt and a couple of plains game hunts. It then was a safe queen until this last September when I took it to Alaska for a brown bear hunt.
In 2009 I finally fulfilled a 40+ year dream and built a .300 Weatherby. I broke that rifle in on an exotics hunt in Texas. a couple of elk in Montana, and a great hunt in New Zealand. That quickly became my favorite rifle and I have also used it on 3 more African hunts and a hunt in Azerbaijan for a Dagestan Tur.
I couple of years ago I bought two more Weatherby Vanguards, mainly for plinking steel at the range. I did use the .308 Win for a Sitka blacktail deer hunt on Kodiak Island, and the .223 would also be a fun varmint rifle.
I think that I now have a pretty good battery of rifles for anything that I would want to hunt. Now I just need the time and $$ to do it.
