Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mountain Rifles

It's been a long, hot summer here in the South, and I've spent the last five or so months reading about sheep and sheep hunting - sort of a vicarious escape. That reading has caused me to reflect a bit on how ideas of a proper mountain rifle have changed over the past fifty or so years. Over on the .270 thread, one of the posts goes like this:



JOC thought an 8 pound rifle with a 22 inch barrel was about ideal. Elgin Gates and Herb Klein, contemporaries of JOC, hunted the mountains of Asia with .300 Weatherby's, most likely in the 9.5 or 10 pound range when factoring in walnut stocks, 26 inch barrels, and steel scopes/mounts. A couple of decades later, Richard Sands hunted the same area with a .300-378 Weatherby, again probably in the same weight range, if not a shade lighter due to the synthetic stock. Robert Anderson's "Wind, Dust, and Snow II" is filled with great pictures and stories of many of Sands', as well as others', hunts - all with rifles that a lot of folks wouldn't even consider hauling up a 15,000 foot mountain range today. And some of these hunters continued to carry them even when ligt weight and synthetic were becoming more prevalent.

Today, however, we have rifle companies turning out "mountain rifles" with pencil thin or carbon wrapped barrels, all mounted in carbon fiber stocks that result rifles coming in at sub 5.5 - or even sub 5 - pounds. Even with a somewhat heavier scope it still puts the rifle in the sub 7 pound category. I wonder if guys like Gates and Klein would have actually used any of these truly featherwight rigs or just gone ahead and used what they always did. Whichever way they went, the certainly would have had their reasons.

Now obviously they aren't here to ask, so any answer is pure speclation; but y'all are. For those of you who, like Comerade, are sheep/goat hunters through and through, what is your preference - total weight all up, barrel length, etc. - and why? I'm just curious.

Thanks.

RM

I'll admit that I have never understood the meaning of "mountain rifle". Different strokes for different folks. To me it meant a rifle that nicely fit the horses scabbard, then later it meant a lightweight rifle of good ranging ability such as a .270 Winchester...…...today it means a rifle that shoots very well, is dependable, and one you have confidence it......no different than any rifle I own for the purpose of big game hunting. When I hunt the mountains, I carry the rifle on a horse so weight isn't the greatest consideration. Accuracy, dependability and supreme confidence are the items that top the list. I usually find this in an older M-70 or today's Howa and Weatherby Vanguard. And since there is always a remote chance that one might have to chase awaley a bear, I like calibers of .270 Winchester to .300 Magnum but the 7mm-08 has recently struck favor for my likes.

When you fork over a lot of cash for a horseback trip into the mountains, you get to decide what a mountain rifle is.....so pick it based on your ideals, not mine or anyone else's.