Probably fifteen years ago I was sitting in Dave Gentry's shop, talking guns like I often did with him. He was one of a handful of early progenitors of the "sheep rifle" concept. He turned out quite a few light rifles in the 80's and 90's.
However, after using one of his own sub 7lb rifles on a sheep hunt he told me he'd decided, for him, an all-up weight of 7.75lbs felt the best.
Of course a lot of this stuff is subjective, and a light rifle like a NULA with a no.2 contour is going to feel "heavier" and more steady than an equal weighted Kimber Montana with its no.1 barrel contour. Weight out front is the best thing a "light" rifle can carry IME/O.
I agree with Gentry. I've been though sub 7lbs up to post 9 lbs hunting elk. I shoot the rifles best that weigh between 7.5 and 8 lbs. My current 'active' stable all weigh between 7.5 and 8 lbs. I keep my 375 at 9lbs because I'll never take it elk hunting plus I shot an 8 lb 375 loaded to max with 300 gr boolits and found it sucked more than a bit. I also tried a few 7lb Montanas in 300 WSM and found them a bit light for my tastes with full 180-200 gr loads.
Looking at your M70 thread and considering my own aged body (52 in May), I'm becoming more of a 7.5 lb M70 30-06 kind of guy. I hated the 30-06 for years, mainly because it didn't do anything really well. I always defaulted to various fast 7's. The older I get, the more I see that the 30-06 does a bunch of things good. I'm not much of a long range shooter on animals so the ultra flat shooting, turret twisting phenom is kind of lost on me even though I have a few turreted rifles and have experimented with the concept. I've never had an issue with getting close to animals, a result of years of archery hunting and knowing how to hunt. For 99% of my mountain hunting a 7.5 lb scoped 30-06 works well.
