Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Is your favorite hunting rifle your most accurate

I have expensive (for me) custom rifles that will out shoot my (nearly perfect) hunting rifle.

However, I absolutely love my old Ruger MK/II subdued stainless Ultralight 7mm-08!!!

The older I get the more it seems like this is nearly the perfect southern deer rifle! It is accurate, light, short and kills deer with the best of them.

In fact, I'm thinking of buying another rifle just like it! Am I crazy?

My favorite hunting rifle is by far my least accurate center fire rifle. It's a solid 1.25 MOA gun out to 400, but won't shoot any better than that period. I've never shot it any farther than 400, nor do I intend to.

I've got a lot of good shooters, and 2 that, according to a lot of Internet skeptics, don't exist. Those are the solid, day in day out, January-December, betcha a grand we can go to the range right now and it'll put 5 shots under 1/2" kind of guns.

However, my favorite is just and old 7/08 with an early model Burris 3-9 on top. Wouldn't trade it for Jennifer Lawrence.

Crazy: Yes you are. You are just like us.... Loony as hell... My only custom rifle is not my most accurate rifle, but it is light and easy to carry. It is one of my favorite rifles. However, honestly, I don't know which one is my favorite rifle right now. I've been fine tuning the collection so I have rifles I really like with great optics that work well for their intended purpose. I think when all of your rifles could be called your "favorite" rifle, you are getting somewhere....

Discounting the flyers of course.... . I have 1 rifle like that (can put 5 shots into less than 1/2"). It is my least favorite...

No, you're not crazy, having multiples of any rifles that you like is a good thing.

No. Favorite rifle is the best looking, best handling, rifle that I have the most confidence in. It's plenty accurate at 1 moa. So it has the right combination of attributes.

Confidence and long kill strings are more important than Internet groups,who built the rifle,environmental niche perfection,and other things we like to obsess over.

Despite it's "handicaps", I have made it a point to always have a pair of factory M70 FW's chambered for 270 Winchester around ( one a "spare") zeroed and ready to go.Both are in good synthetic stocks. It isn't any magic in the cartridge,and the rifles are not particularly handsome, but just a long record of consistent killing. They frequently go hunting while higher end custom rifles stay home (not always of course

So, "no" in one sense the OP is not crazy.

My most accurate is my deer rifle & yes I feel so much more confident taking a shot with it . Ruger 77 in .308

No, not nearly, but they are so close.

I've three dear rifles, all built by Bill Leeper of Canada. He haunts here and we have little few that built as well as as he and we mourn his retirement.

That said, the 6.5 and .350 Rem Mag pair have proven themselves to be sub .5 MOA rifles with their hunting loads to date. But the favorite is a .284 Win that RickF had built on a Model 70 SS SA and shoots just slightly wider than the other two. Somehow Leeper took a 22-250 and made a .284 feed empty brass in it.

For rifles I like, I usually have two or more in those calibers.. I have mostly had a couple .22-250's, .30-06's, 30-30's, 7 mag's and of course the .300's...

I have a matched pair of 700's I built for deer 25years ago. They are in 257 and 7x57Ackley Improved. The 257AI will out shoot the 7x57AI by about 1/4 of an inch. When I'm dead serious about hunting though, especially when large s. Texas bucks are on the menu, I reach for the 7x57AI. So I guess that makes it my favorite rifle. powdr

I would be looking for another most accurate rifle if it was not my favorite I reach for every time. We can have long shots for AZ coues and when filling our freezers w/ WY antelope every year . Hopefully not often but a bad wind read or other issues can cause less than an ideal hit and I want all the accuracy I can get if follow up(s) is required.

Usually not. My hunting rifles get picked because they are the best for a particular hunt. On top of that, if the loads I want to use aren't particularly accurate in whatever rifle, I don't let that stop me from using it.
Many years ago, I got suspicious about the craze for really accurate hunting ammo. That's because I knew lots of really successful hunters who had only a vague idea how accurate their rifles were. some of these guys didn't have their rifles precisely zeroed....
Then I noticed Jeff Cooper remark that even 2-2.5 MOA ammo is OK for most big game up to 400 yds...
Over the years, I've done lots of shooting from common field positions with ammo of various levels of accuracy. The bottom line is that unless I know I'll be shooting well over 300 yds. and shooting from prone w/ a rest, 2 MOA plus will do fine. E

As stupid as it may be, my favorite hunting rifle is the least accurate(1.5 moa or so) rifle I own my Savage 99e .308...I've taken the most game with the most accurate(and a close second for favorite) my CZ-550 .270(easy MOA with just about anything that goes down the tube).

I am sure you know what you are doing but 2.5 MOA @ 400 yds is not in my mind in any way OK for most big game. If my math is correct that is a 10.47" group at best, add wind and other factors and I would not hunt with someone who would take that shot. To me that is asking for a bad hit and a long long recovery, if at all.
My two favorite big game are coues and antelope and their heart/lung area is no bigger than ~ 9", maybe Cooper hunts moose or at that range they typically stand for a while when shot at so he just keeps firing.

Not trying to be argumentative...it would the group size that you note, but assuming one could more or less center the group, you're talking a 5 inch "miss" instead of 10. Wouldn't matter for elk or moose.

Now, just shooting at 400, assuming a mild crosswind and a reasonable bullet, still talking 10-12 inches bullet drift due to wind. That's a lot more to think about than the 5 inch miss that would still be in the target area.

And 2 MOA (less just make it easy and say inches), only 4 inches of miss at 400, same wind drift.

I also like my rifles to shoot better than that, and I would sink $600 into a rifle I liked for a new barrel right away, but I don't think it's "required" for hunting.

I have an M70 classic in 30-06 that goes hunting most often. Ive never shot the tightest groups with it, but the groups are consistently round overall rather than strung out. The reason it earns its keep is that it feeds amazingly smooth and reliably. It also fits me great for shooting off hand.

This statement should have told you all you needed to know about him...

I have a different favorite rifle every day.

I can't say as I swap rifles about every hunt and all seem to kill. Of course I am not anal about accuracy either.