Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles "Target" rifles vs. "Hunting" rifles...

Is this even a thing anymore? In my younger years I had a R700 BDL "Varmint Special" in 223 that I shot the living dog crap out of. Any hunting rifle was more or less a November thing and sat tucked away most of the time. Fast forward today and it seems the "way" is that things are rather grey between them. I get the idea of confidence in your rigging, but to what extent for you fellas?

I reckon my post-purge thinking is back to my old roots of trying to burn out the barrel on my Tikka 223 for fun now and worry about the other stuff later. Don't really see the need for hours behind a "hunting" rifle anymore.

Love to shoot still, but all I consider anymore is 22LR and 223.

Schit, I guess I'm old.......

Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

I shoot my .22 mag and .223 more than anything. Hunting rigs come out in October for tune ups and that's pretty much it

I see some at the range that weigh between 15-20 lbs., benchrest stocks, single-shot actions, definitely target rifles.

I still have hunting rifles and target/varmint rifles.. Once I get my loads worked out and tested in my hunting rifles, I tend to put the away til near hunting season.. Sight in, shoot a few for longer shots and let it go.. On big game I usually don't take the long shots I used to make quite often..

Now for target/ varmint rifles, I have a bunch that fall into that class.. .22lrs, 17hmr, .22mags, .222,223, Hornet through the Swift.. I don't shoot a lot of target, some but not much.. Mostly testing loads, sighting etc.. I shoot a bunch of water filled jugs in the winter time, because the varmints are absent except for coyotes, and a few jacks.. But from March though August the varmints get my attention.. Here is where I burn up rimfire and small center fire rounds by the hundreds, sometimes by the thousands.. Any more my big .22 centerfires are mostly coyote, woodchuck rifles.. Sometimes I use them on deer or antelope, but not much anymore.. I usually have a big .22 centerfire in the pickup anytime I go out..

I do have a few rifles that do double duty.. My 25-06 and .270 spend much time in the pickup for windy day coyotes, chucks what have you.. They are also some of my favorite big game rifles..Sometimes I still use the 7 mags in this way but not much anymore.

When I was younger I usually shot my .22's at gophers, my .222 and .22-250 at p. dogs through coyotes.. My .300 and .30-06 were hunting rifles and mostly only used in season..

Yeah, I enjoy shooting My .22lr the most, its good cheap fun even with the target ammo I shoot.....I still get the big boys out 3 or 4 times a year just for chits a giggles but I dont run a ton of rounds through their barrels.....Hb

I would consider a target rifle to be a rifle that was designed and built for competitive paper-punching. Remington 37s and 40Xs and Winchester 52s come quickly to mind. I would expect the great majority of them to be built on bolt actions or AR platforms.

I would consider a varmint rifle to be a rifle that was designed and built for shooting colony varmints in the west, 'chucks in the east, and predators wherever they are found. With that in mind, I would expect most varmint rifles to have heavier contour barrels than typical hunting rifles and I would expect most of them not to have open sights installed. I would also expect the great majority of them to be built on bolt actions or AR platforms.

I would consider a hunting rifle to be a rifle that was designed and built for shooting small, medium, and/or large game. With that in mind, I would expect most hunting rifle to have lighter contour barrels than typical varmint rifles and to be offered in the full spectrum of action types, depending on the intended use and applicable cartridges.

The lines are being blurred. There are some guns labeled as "light varmint" rifles in calibers suitable for big game that can easily come in around 8 lbs or so. The Tikka CTR is just one example.

Forty years ago almost all gun owners were hunters 1st, shooters 2nd. They may have shot some varmint rifles, but the emphasis was on hunting rifles and those were fired at the range.

Today the number of hunters has drastically declined. Most gun owners are shooters 1st who occasionally hunt. If at all. Manufacturers are building what sells.

Hunting rifles get shot mainly for load work up for new bullets, and practice before season.
The Anschutz gets shot the most, 225yds at steel since that what I have at the cabin.
I tend to shoot suppressed mostly now, when shooting just to shoot. I love shooting my 300BO with subsonics. Taking the noise out if the equation makes shooting alot more fun for some reason. Got my 308 being chopped to 17" and threaded right now.

I'd like to find a Tikka master sporter in 308 for dedicated target use.

I still like to get practice time in with big-game rifles. I want the rifle usage to be muscle-memory automatic when it's go time on a big one.

One way to accomplish that with plinking rifles is to have a matching "understudy" rifle that mimics my hunting rig. That's the excuse I've used to justify a number of smaller rigs.

I have an RAR-P in 223, 1-10" ROT, set up the same as an RAR-P in 6.5 Creedmoor and load the 60 grain AMax to the same approximate velocity as I load the 123 grain SST.

As a general understudy, I prefer to practice with my Anschutz and Marlin rifles in 17HM2 and 17HMR, as they have virtually the same flat trajectory out to +/-125 yards. With the faster A17 ammo, the trajectory of the 17HMR is flat out past 150 yards. I find that the Marlin 917VS, heavy stainless barrel and laminated stock, is similar in physical size, weight, balance is my 22" barrel CF hunting rifles. If McMillan would inlet the Hunter style stock for the Anne 1517 I'd be tempted to spend $500 on a stock upgrade.

The lines are definitely blurring for me anyhow. This season I’ve hunted with a Tikka in 223 and shot it a lot more at the range than I would a regular hunting rifle. Cheap to feed, accurate light and reliable not much to not like about it.

That's about what I did years ago. Sometimes the 223 pulled double duty.

I had the understudy routine going for a while; favorite hunting rifle was a M77 .308, and I had a heavy barrel 77/17M2 which I shot a LOT. Then, along came the ammo shortage and 17M2 ammunition became harder to find than a steak at a vegan convention, and more expensive than prime bluefin in Tokyo. I got tired of that game in a hurry, sold the 77/17.

I still have the .308 and it's still one of my favorite hunting rifles. But, I picked up a heavy barrel Marlin .22, and it filled that range target role nicely while still heavy enough in the hand for off hand practice, as well, even if the Ruger was a fair bit nicer for both. I've also come to regard a couple of my "hunting" rifles, a .30'06 and a .270, as "target" rifles, because while I have no interest in selling them, I rarely use them on a hunt. They're both sporters, not bull or varmint contour in barrel or stock, but still heavier and the barrels don't heat up too fast. I just like to shoot them and they both print little tiny groups with the loads I've developed for them, so it's satisfying and enjoyable.

I don't shoot my preferred hunting rifles as much, in part, because two of them, the .308 and a .280AI, have light contoured barrels that heat up really fast and the wait time gets annoying. That said, I've also developed reduced loads for the three rifles I hunt with most often, so I burn less powder with inexpensive bullets when I want some extended familiarization time with them pre-season. I guess that blurs the lines a bit, but for most of the year, I shoot the .22 and the "target" hunting rifles.

Shooting is a perishable skill. Every rifle has it's little quirks in how it feels, the trigger, how it recoils, etc. I have two virtually identical M700 Mtn rifles with identical stocks and scopes--well, one is Vari-X III and the other is a VX3i--but they are still a little different. They are my primary hunting rifles. With loads that I have been using for years, I still put 75-100 rnds a year through them, and do it at different times of the year, not all shooting sessions are just prior to hunting season. This past year I switched to RL-26 and plan on tweaking that load even more just for the fun of it, and getting in more trigger time to boot.

More so, since Al Gore invented Shooters Pro Shop, I can afford to practice with my fullhouse elk loads and Partitions, becoming familiar with, and staying familiar with the load I'll be using in the fall.

Like you, I've purged a LOT of the rifles in recent years I wasn't shooting often. But one of the things I get a kick out of is buying an older, albeit pedestrian, hunting rifle in something along the lines of a M700, M77 or M70, usually in a pedestrian chambering, and working up a load and making it shoot well. I've already gained two rifles since my purge.....

Good things come to those who wait. 17HM2 ammo is getting easier to find again, but the best 17HM2 ammo, from Eley, isn't being produced anymore, just CCI with 17 grain black tipped bullets and Hornady with 17 grain red tipped bullets. I just bought a thousand rounds of CCI from MidwayUSA and another thousand of Hornady from Scheel's.

The hand loading purge put me back to the basics, and has made things a bit more enjoyable. For me, anyway.

Well, I waited for almost three years and got tired of the frustration. Then again, I don't have the safe space to be too patient and I wanted a target rifle I could actually shoot, again.

It's ok, I'm doing alright with the present arrangement. I did like that 77/17, though. I liked the Eley and the Remington (which I believe was Eley in a different wrapper and tip color, IIRC). They shot similar enough for that to have been true.

I will add, in reference to 16bore's question, again, I expect before too much longer, I'll have some variety of .22 centerfire, dedicated target rifle.

I was lucky and bought several thousand rounds of Remington, which was made by Eley, 17HM2 ammo from Centerfire Systems before the Newtown, CT, school shooting on 12/14/12 had such a seismic impact of shooting sports.

My hunting rifles get shot only a few times per year. My .22s, both RF and CF, five each, get a lot more use.

Jack

I have two rifles that I think of as being target rifles, even though they're probably not. One is a heavy barrel Model 700 in 308, the other a Ruger Hawkeye Predator in 22-250. Both of these rifles shoot extremely well, and I've hunted with both......but I don't like to, because they're just a little heavier than I prefer. Although there probably isn't much over a pound or so difference between them and the rifles that I normally hunt with, I can tell that difference when I'm out in the field. So, these rifles get shot at targets, rather than at critters.

There once was a time when a good shooting rifle was usually a little on the heavy side, but that's not really the case anymore. There are many lightweight rifles that will shoot plenty good enough to hit whatever the shooter is capable of, and that pretty much makes it unnecessary to pack a heavy one. I rarely shoot at game over 300 yards, and I don't need a "target" rifle for that, as I have plenty of "hunting" rifles that are very accurate at that range, and even beyond. So, why pack a 9 or 10 pound rifle, when a 6 or 7 pound one will work just as well.