Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Building the ultimate whitetail rifle

I'm still working on my prefect whitetail rifle and know I will never find one rifle that is perfect for all of the different scenarios I find myself hunting deer in. Where I hunt at our family farm in the Palouse shots can be as long as you want them to be because it's so open, I find myself 30 miles away in Idaho, it's super thick and a 50 yard shot might be as long as I'm going to get. Not sure if I missed it in the thread but to me the decision is more based on what the terrain I'll be in and distance likely to be shot. The caliber is only one small consideration as whitetail deer frankly aren't difficult to kill. As a looney it's fun to overthink the hell out of stuff though.

Thought I'd found my perfect deer rifle but just last night out of nowhere I found myself putting a Leupold 6X on a new Kimber classic select so I don't have to carry my long range whitetail rig around in Idaho again...YMMV

Couple random pictures in case some people don't know that Washington isn't all trees...


https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/12895429#Post12895429

Featherweight .308 maybe?

Last year I purchased a couple of Browning BLR S.S. 308 & 300 WIN.MAG both are very accurate and are nice handling guns with a real nice clip magazine system.
so its a fine factory rifle and yes very good advise,my son killed a big 8 pt. whitetail buck and a real nice 5x5 mule deer buck both last fall 2017 with the BLR 308 win. both were in the 200-250 yard range one shot kills.

My “ultimate whitetail rifle” is different if i am hunting my South Carolina farm where 300+ yard shots, food plots and box blinds are the norm vs. when i am hunting the land in the North Georgia mountains i grew up hunting where the deer don’t have food plots, a 75 yard shot is a long poke and steep hollows, mountain laurel and white oaks are the norm. Just sayin’

Interesting. My ultimate rifle came to me from SC, used there and in the North Georgia mountains for years before I moved to the SW GA area. She’s worked perfectly regardless of whether she’s in SC swamps, NGA mountains or the huge fields of SWGA. Her name is Jarrett.

I have never really had a rifle that would shoot well on long shots, but not on short.....but I have had plenty that will shoot short, but not long.

Its not as hard as they make it out to be. Proper technique will enable you to connect with longer shots moreso than a "long range" rig. Best of luck this fall!

.35 rem in a Ruger #1 RSI or mannlicher bolt rig.

It would be really hard to go wrong with that. Just make sure it's slightly muzzle heavy for making fast offhand shots.


Okie John

Jarrett’s are great rifles. Have not owned one but have shot a friend’s.

If your Jarrett is anything like his, I have a hard time calling it the “ultimate” whitetail rifle for hunting my North Georgia mountains. Maybe your NGa mountains or SC swamps were different but when hunting mine i prefer something a little lighter with a shorter barrel and lower powered scope as the ultimate rifle for that application. It’s certainly about as good as it gets for SW GA fields though (which was kind of the point of my original post)

I would take a little bit different approach with what sounds like a pretty good concept- short action, sub-.30 caliber, short barrel, etc. For the areas I hunt- Western Maryland and Pennsylvania- I would forgo the permanent scope and install a good receiver sight and gold post front sight (and a simple wide-vee rear sight is not out of line)- snaking my way through briars, laurel, and thick pines calls for super quick handling and sighting when that buck pops up from a few feet away. Plus the scopeless rifle is a real joy to carry- being able to wrap your thumb over the balance point of the gun for extended carrying is a big benefit IMO (and further promotes keeping the rifle in my hands where it belongs and not slung over my shoulder).

After that, I would equip it with a QD scope mount of a sort that the base for which didn't interfere with the iron sights- the old tried and true Griffin&Howe QD system comes to mind. Said scope being kept handy for installation when I take a stand or sit a spell where long-ish shots are possible. A bit of an expense, granted, but we are talking "the ultimate deer rifle", no?

I hunt blacktails in thick brush. My average range on them over the last 20-odd years is about 30 yards. I find that a 4x scope lets me start hunting about 30-45 minutes earlier than irons and stay out that much later. I dearly love peeps, but I'm done with them on hunting rifles.

I made one of my best shots on blacktails ever with a 4x scope. A little doe was trying to sneak away from me, and was an expert at putting brush between me and her so I couldn’t shoot. I found a fork in a Madrona tree about 40 yards away where I thought she might pass and set the crosshairs there. I saw her head, then her neck, then her shoulder pass by the fork of the tree. When her ribs appeared, I shot her. Not sure I would have tried that with irons.

I've also found that switching between a scope and a peep on the same rifle is a problem since the different lines of sight require different stock welds. One time I hunted blacktails in thick cover with a scoped rifle for several days and got skunked. On the last morning, I pulled off the scope before I left camp for a quick run up the hill where I didn’t really expect to see anything. I jumped one of the biggest bucks I’ve ever seen, mounted the rifle, found the front sight, and shot over his back because I used the stock weld that I had practiced for the scope. I’m convinced that I’d have killed that buck had I had left the scope on there.

Of course I missed that deer in front of a guy who is one of the worst hunters I’ve ever met. He would have killed that deer deader than a wedge with his old 30-30 and we both knew it, so he immediately went back to camp and told everyone my tale of woe. Even now, he brings out that story whenever people talk about my shooting ability.

I‘m pretty sure that scopes are here to stay—fixed power ones anyway—so I’m done swapping them out for irons.


Okie John

It's all good.

Yep. That's the best part.


Okie John

You can take a bolt action rifle chambered in 30-06, (22" barrel preferably) mount a decent 3-9x40 scope and hunt whitetails in any terrain they live....Finding the ultimate rifle is a much more personal thing as there is an abudance of excellent choices, one mans favorite may not be the next's......Good luck with your search.....Hb

I’m surprised Creedmoor hasn’t been mentioned yet.

Wow! No Creedmoor recommendations? I didnt read the whole thread but with the Creedmoor being the cartrdge of the day I naturally assumed this whole thread was littered with them.....Hb

....hornet's nest stirred....


There are tons of great choices.

A model 7 in 308 or 7mm-08 would be fine.

This and call it good.