Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A Close-in Deer Rifle

I've been re-reading Francis Sell's Book, ]The Deer Hunter's Guide. It got me to thinking about his ideas on picking a good deer stalking gun. I thought I'd ask y'all what you think.

Here is Sell and his stalking gun.



He describes it as "A light handy combination for brush shooting-- short 20 inch barreled, Mannlicher-stocked , 6.5X55 Rifle with a 2X scope."

I've got two rifles that vaguely fit this.

The first is a bobbed MAS 36 shooting 7.5X54 (it's nearly identical to a 308 WIN). It has the full stock, but no scope.



I have not had this one out all that much. However, I have to say the Frogs had a winner of an idea. If the Germans had just attacked the Maginot Line and we'd seen a second world war in the trenches, this was the tool to use. I use 150 Grain Hornady Interlock SPs.

The second is my TC Compass in 7mm-08 with 139 grain Hornady IL SPs. It sports a 3-9X40 Bushnell.



I have not taken all that much with it, but it's has DRT'd everything I've shot.

It was unclear to me why Sell picked what he did, except to say I dig the idea of a fast-mounting, fast-swinging rifle. However, I don't know how a Mannlicher stock figures into that. I also wonder the choice of 6.5X55 over something a bit beefier like 308 WIN. When building up a short-range deer getter is y'all's preference for small and fast or big and slow.

Truthfully, my days of schlepping through the forest in pursuit of Cervids are probably on the wane. I haven't had a decent schlep in over a decade. I much prefer static setups. In our part of the world deer hunter density exceeds deer density and wandering around during season is not such a good idea. I've got 200 acres to hunt, but I can pussyfoot from the house to the back in less than a half-hour. It's much better to set up somewhere and wait for the neighbors to scare something onto the property.