Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What to cull to?

Or just buy one rifle in 6.5 (chambering of your choice), or 270, or 308 - any of those calibers will cover everything you need for both Eastern and Western hunting.

drover

Gun Safes have an abnormal vacuum effect, if you create space, the vacuum sucks in others until there is no longer any room.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

F

Tikka 6.5 Creedmoor

LOL....yeah, I thought it was a given that you only roll over gun $ and guns. I’m just looking at some simplification and selective improvement to the stable.

I keep trying that, but rifles keep sneaking in my gun safe. Must be at night when I’m asleep. Here’s a Creedmoor that snuck in there yesterday.

Tikka T3X CTR comes in 6.5 Creed, 260 Rem or 308 Win.
Blued or Stainless barrels and actions
70 degree bolt lift
Teflon Bolt is very smooth
20" barrel (or 24" in the 6.5 Creed)
Threaded Barrel 5/8 x 24 for muzzle brake
0 MOA Steel Picatinny Rail makes a great platform for Burris XTR Signature Rings (AKA 'Horn rings) if you want to add some cant....
7.5 lbs
Stupid Accurate
Metal not Mattel Plastic Bottom Metal like found on the regular T3X
10 Round DBM ( And Eurooptic.com has spare one's on sale for $72.00)
Functional Black Plastic Stock

Here at the 'Fire we speak only of growing, never decreasing one's collection of long-guns. Sniff. 😛

Culling is always a bad idea. I decided to cull my rifle collection a few months ago and so far there has been a net gain of 2. But they are rifles I have wanted for a long time and in great condition....I don't think I have room in my safe to cull any more.

6.5cm sounds good to me. I don't know there's much difference than a 7-08 though. Except factory ammo prices and availability favor the Creed. But the 7-08 is likely more efficient in a 20" barrel.

Then a 30-30 and a 223 would be good company.

Keeping it compact with a short action cartridge rules out the use of a long action rifle in my book. I mean I don't want a short action hunting rifle with a 22" barrel to be 44 inches long. But that's just me I guess.
I'd probably pick a Seven or an X-Bolt because I'm cheap like that. Although I'm sure that Adirondack or similar would be nice.

For a build, I saw someone here had a 600 or 660 with a custom stock and barrel in 6AI that would also make a shory, light, and sweet 6.5 CM. I guess I'd even settle for a little longer rifle with a similar stainless ADL.

I haven’t owned a Barrett so won’t comment on that one. Regarding the other options, I would go Tikka, Kimber, NULA, custom and in that order. Others will disagree.

Story time. Over the last several months I sold several things and set out to build the perfect lightweight, compact whitetail rifle. I sent a 700 sa to a well regarded smith that had done some work for me previously. He built me a 7-08 just as I specified with top shelf components. McM stock, light custom barrel, fluted bolt and barrel, skeletonized handle, Zeiss, etc. It's light, handles decently, balances decently, shoots well but is a picky snob on what it's fed.

You know what groups better, handles better, balances better, and eats everything I've ever put into it including low grade, cheaper hunting ammo? A bone stock t3 superlite in 308. All I ever did was put a dnz mount and Bushnell elite 4200 on top of it along with a claw sling and a little dark green electrical tape on the barrel mostly just for decoration haha. It does everything better and consequently gets the nod over the custom when going afield. I probably have 4 times the Money into the custom. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with the top shelf custom, the bone stock t3 just does it all better.

Maybe I just got lucky but from evening I've read about the t3, that's not the case. Thought about painting the SL, sticking it in a manners, and upgrading the glass but worried I'd mess up perfection in the process. Will probably just leave it alone and trip the custom at a loss or retube or rebore or to a 358 winnie just cause I've been wanting a 35 something. Long story short, just buy a tikka and go forth and kill things. Good luck.

Russell
Hpb_rst

i,like the others here,never advocate "culling" any rifle in my gunsafe. unless you have been unhappy with it for some reason. if its in my safe its earned a right to be there probably by shooting sub 1" groups @ 100yds multiple times. but, if "culling" as you say, is your intended trajectory then by all means save the coin,unless you have been jonesing for yrs for a nula and your saying to yourself that this is the last hurah for you, and just buy a Tikka T3 in whatever caliber you want. my personal favs are the 6.5x55 swede,.260 rem and the 7mm-08 rem. wonder why remington can develop and bring to market some of the absolute best calibers then fall flat on their face marketing them??? remington needs to take a page outta hornady's play book there imho. sorry to get off topic. i was just wondering..................
good luck,
Big Ed

I hear ya. Tempted to grab a super lite 6.5 and maybe a ctx to sit at the bench with. I’d love another 358 or Whelen bolt gun again, just for my ‘heavy’, if/when needed. I figure the 6.5 will do everything all my 243-308 short action stuff will do, for less fuss....then I have my other 35s. ....which are all lever or single shot 356s/358s and such. My other thought is to just build a 6.5 AR, for shooting fun, and keep everything else, swapping a caliber/model here and there, and add another safe and finish the hidden gun storage closet. LOL