Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles your back up rifle on a trip

I bring a back up. My lease is 10 hrs from home and the other place I hunt is 19 hrs. I bring a rifle that is about the same set up as my primary or one that I may have used for years before buying my primary. I want basically the same characteristics in both my primary and back up if conditions will be the same.

If the need arises....I’ll step-down to my wife’s .338 WM. We have the same rifle actions, use the same zero’s , have virtually identical bullet trajectories.....though I’lll have to deal with her shorter “length of pull”! And she can use my rifle, only she will have to contend with a longer “LOP”! We each have “back-up” scopes back at camp, in Leupold QR base/rings .....zero’d and ready to go! memtb

At deer camp I always bring at least one spare. If my son was with I had one for him and one for me.

My backup is always a 30-30 Marlin that I use for chasing down wounded deer which happens when someone from an adjacent piece asks to recover it or one of the other hunters in camp wounds one. Strangely, I have never had one I shot with a rifle manage more than 100 yards run after I shot it. The 336 is just a nice, quick, handy rifle for that job and it's accurate enough to shoot deer as far as I really need to, even if not decide to.

The one and only time I’ve hunted out of state I brought a back up. Was after deer main rifle was a T3 270 backup was a vanguard 243. I ended up hunting with both over the three days and finally connected the last day with the 270.

If I’m hunting local sometimes I’ll bring two guns but not really as a back up. Normally a bolt action for wide open areas and a lever for stall hunting the thick stuff.

I'll start by saying that I've hunted every year for the last 50 years. Mostly in my home states of Colorado and Montana for deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, moose, bighorn sheep, black bears, mountain goats, mountain lions. and buffalo. I've also hunted in Texas, Wyoming, and Alaska, and a dozen international hunts including 4 hunts in Canada and 6 in Africa.

In all of those hunts I never took a back-up rifle or scope, nor did I ever need one. On one African hunt I did take two rifles, a .375 RUM for buffalo and a 7 mm RM for plains game, but I ended up using the .375 RUM for most animals. And sometimes I will take a .22-250 with me for prairie dogs when I go to eastern Montana pronghorn hunting.

For my first 15 or so years of hunting I only had one rifle, a .30-06, and I used it for everything from elk to prairie dogs. Then in the late '70s I started buying some more rifles, in different calibers, for specific sizes of animals. I stocked those rifles in Fancy walnut. It wasn't until about 20 years ago that I bought a stainless steel rifle in a plastic stock and chambered in 7 mmm Rem magnum. That rifle is now my back-up rifle for foul weather. I still don't take two rifles on a hunt, but if I think I might be hunting in foul weather, I'll take that rifle. I've taken it on 3 of my Canadian caribou hunts.

I have however forgot to take a camera on some hunts or when I got to the hunt my camera's battery was dead.

I've only made three trips to hunt. Everything else has been 10 minutes to an hour from home. Took back-up rifles west, but not the same chambering. Actually used them all, because if I took an animal with one, the other got the nod for the next one.

I always have a backup. It depends on where I'm hunting as to my primary and backup.

I always take a backup rifle on trips where I'm camped far from home. I slipped and dropped my 338-06 No. 1 on a boulder field once and wasn't sure if the scope was still aligned. This was about 150 miles from home on the White River Plateau in CO on a week long elk and deer hunt. Fortunately, I had my 6.5x55 Swede No.1 in the truck back at camp and kept going. I didn't score on that trip, but had peace of mind knowing that the rifle I was carrying was sighted in. Wouldn't go out that far without a backup.

A family friend brought his brand new M70 .270 win on an elk hunt with us, a gift from his wife. Horse jacked him up at the trailhead and trashed the scope.
He had with him his old 742 30-06, ended up shooting a 7x7 bull with it.

I can understand all you poor saps running rem 700's with leupold scopes, needing a back up. I would too, if i were that fuggin stupid.

When I traveled to hunt, yes.
Around here no.

Never in the same chamberings. That wasn't on purpose, it was
just rifle choice. Every gun has it's own ammo, so same chamber
wouldn't matter.

Acquired a dirt cheap, abused 30-06 760 a few years ago.
Thought it was the ideal backup. Not worth much, ugly enough
to lend to someone. Haven't taken a trip worth a backup since.


10-12 of us used to go to Colorado every year. Being Loonies, before
our esteemed MD coined the term, we about all had backups. I can't
remember anyone having 2 rifles with the same chamberings. Mostly
7mm Mags or 300's of differing surnames. Occasionally a 270, or 30-06.
But no one guy ever had 2 of the same.

This past December was the first time I have hunted off my own property nearly 20 years. It was a hog hunt in Georgia. Yes, I brought a backup. My primary was the Ruger Hawkeye in '06. My backup was a Ruger Model 44. I hunted with both equally throughout the trip.

That's kind of been my strategy for as long as I've owned more than one gun. In the beginning it was just a Rem 1100 slug gun for Ohio and a Rem 742 in 30-06 for Kentucky.
I brought the REM 1100 over the bridge when I hunted Kentucky's deer season as a backup, just in case.

Then I got a Win 670 in 30-06 as a backup to the Rem 742. I set up the bolt gun for hunting the longer venues and the Rem 742 for deep woods and treestands. I still went out a few days a year with the Rem 1100.

Then I bought the farm in 2001, and things exploded. Over the years, I've acquired a slew of deer rifles. I pretty much have a rifle for every occasion. I take a minimum of 3 rifles to camp. I try to cycle through them throughout the season. That gets me through the first two weekends of season and the week in between. I try to have a mix of choices available, and always keep an eye on having a rifle that's set up for every eventuality. The main concerns I have:

1) I want at least one rifle set up for the close-in work, mostly treestands in the cedar thickets.
2) I have to have at least one rifle for the longer venues-- pastures requiring up to 250 yard shots. Whatever I pick for this spot also backs up #1.
3) I try to have at least one "rain gun." That is a rifle that I don't mind taking out in wet conditions. Some rifles in my stable I don't want to get wet.

I go home on the second Sunday and swap out rifles. Anything that's taken a deer gets put aside. Any new projects that haven't been blooded get put into the rotation.

I've only had a few times that I've had to resort to the backup. In Nov 2001, I had a nice shot at buck on the Rifle Opener and the Win 670 just went "click." This is the one and only time in 20 years of reloading that I had a bad primer. However, I'd just started reloading a year before. I didn't know at the time if it was the rifle or the round. I went back and got the Rem 742 and got a doe the next day. I got a shot at the same buck the next weekend, so it was a no-harm/no-foul thing. In those days, I was worried about having the same ammo for both rifles, but shortly after that, I started segregating my ammo to the rifle.

This past season, I had an incident where my Ruger Hawkeye got mud in the barrel and it froze. It was just a wee plug, but I had to go back to camp and change out for the Ruger Model 44. I switched from hunting a tower blind to a ground blind in the woods when I went back out. After the Hawkeye thawed out, it was an easy fix, but having a backup handy kept me from losing a half-day's hunting. I ended up taking a doe with the Hawkeye on the last weekend.

I usually have a minimum of two centerfire firearms with me when big game hunting. This is because I normally have either the .44 Redhawk or .357 GP 100 on me as well as toting a rifle. So my "backup" is regularly a revolver. However, you'll often find a second rifle in the truck, but in a different configuration than what I'm toting. I'll take a scoped long range caliber rifle and an open sighted "brush" gun, hence, grabbing whichever is most applicable for the spot I'm walking at that time.

A Ruger 77 RL tanger in 308 wearing VX3 1.5-5 glass. Dead reliable and cold bore shot always goes where I'm looking.

I pretty much always have a back up with me. I have been fortunate and never "needed" it myself but they have been loaned out numerous times. We try to make it a practice to have at least one backup in camp. My back up is usually a Stevens 200 in either 7-08 or 270. I don't mind loaning them out and if it is nasty wet weather I usually hunt the backup instead of my primary wood stocked rifle. Everyone needs a backup/loaner/truck/atv rifle.

My back up is almost always a 30-06. Either a sako or pre 64 70 somtimes they are a primary...

I bring a backup, but my Mauser hasn't failed since the 1900's

To the OP's question, yeah! Different horses for different courses, for sure, but for the plain jane whitetail hunt the issue may not be caliber choice: I the backup is often a synthetic weather-resistant rifle if I am carrying a walnut and blue - to cover weather contingencies.

Heck, I've been antelope hunting without even taking a primary rifle. Had a couple nephews with me, both shooting one of my rifles. After they tagged out I simply borrowed one of them, walked over the hill and got mine.

For the first 20+ years I didn't have a backup bolt rifle but did take a Browning B92 in .44 Mag that Dad had given me.

Since then I've almost always taken a backup. Never in the same chambering.

My hunting buddy and I have often taken similar Ruger rifles (lefty MKII for him, righty M77 for me) chambered for the same cartridge, 7mm RM. Actually used his rifle to take my last elk.

Seriously thinking about taking my 7mm RM and .280 Rem for elk this year, pending further load development. Same caliber and bullet, .284" 155g Federal Terminal Ascent.