Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are classic rifles doomed?

The problem isn't that the "old" guns cost more (although they do), it's that the young shooters actually think they aren't as good. They actually prefer plastic and Cerakote.

How can this AHR CZ 9.3x62 not lite yo fire...

When it shoots like this..

DF

One can buy a minty Browning Safari Grade for 1200-1500 bucks. Accurate, well made beautiful rifles on either FN or Sako actions instead of one of those hideous plastic guns and they are as accurate as you can shoot...

Point well taken.

Those are solid, great guns and a bargain for what they bring.

DF

I know where there’s an older Sako .30/06 with lovely wood for $850. Have all the nine-pounders I need just now.

Yeah, weight can be an issue.

With the craze for light weight rifles, it's harder for those older walnut stocked ones to compete. And, generally fancier the wood, heavier the stock.

I personally don't want a rifle that's so light it's harder to shoot accurately. I like some forward heft on a light rifle, seems to make for a steadier hold.

DF

I believe some gun writer published an article on that subject recently--which is now a chapter in his latest book.... :-)

I just so happen to have a copy of that guy's book... .

DF

If I lived in country where I hunted out of a treestand I'd never bother with plastic rifles. I'd always rather have a nice bit of blued steel wrapped in walnut on my lap.

I have a brother in law who took it upon himself to award most of my father's guns to himself. He sold off a majority of them to take my sister to Jamaica. I silently purchased a bunch of them back. However, I feel that if he ever wants to come up and borrow a loaner that I would lend him this. It has a Stryka scope that has very little eye relief and is set very far back. It would likely give him a permanent beauty mark. But the bottom line is that it is a very nice FN Hipower in 30/06 that I purchased for $250.00. You have got to smile about that.

I'm sure as I get older and weaker a rifle's weight might be an issue. Then again, that'd why Gun bearers were invented . Seriously, I didn't have an issue going up and down some pretty steep hills in Africa with "heavy" rifles. I've only hunted out west twice (Wyoming where it was pretty flat but at altitude) and in Idaho where it was high and steep and didn't do too badly. Then again, some synthetic stocked rifles can be even heavier, but the point of lighter rifles is most definitively a valid one.

Saw a couple of nice Classic rifles today as matter of fact 1 a Kimber classic that must have been a nra banquet gun in 338 federal nice wood and 95+% condition at $729 the other a m721 Remington in 300 h&h for $550. The 300 came home with me. MB

I almost forget what a gun show feels like but recall seeing plenty wood stocks of a range of qualities..

And unless you think you are secret agent man, should you reach the point in your life where you can build your own gun room (if it were me) I would like lots of gorgeous wood on those walls...

Actually I'd love to sit in a treestand with my AR-15 across my lap

I prefer rifles made a while back

Yes theres a lot of older used classic arms out there and even some compatible for lefties like myself. Ive been foetunate to have some folks on this forum sell me a really nice Savage 99 308 win and an old antique Winchester 1895 30-40. Ive found an screaming deal on new old stock lefty Ruger 338RCM compact rifle (probably the best hunting rifle ever), Ruger scout 308, and a recent Ruger lefty 77 in 30-06 i found at a junk shop locally. Also ive got several ol Winchester 71 rifles i love and 1886 and those work well for lefties. So they are out there and you jump at the opportumiy, but in todays new production its difficult to find just a pedestrian 308, 30-06, or 270 in a proper rifle.

Currently im divesting myself of the excessive rifles that are right handed, the ones that get no use and moving towards the ones that i enjoy, the ones that het used and actually fit me. Less is more type of thing. But still being in my late 40's i can remember when Savage 99's were cheap and plentiful, old Mausers were widely available as were all manner of used leverguns and things werent so expensive. Some of this memory may also be due to there being better labor and craftsmanship from years ago and there was much more abundant natural resources all around. But still it shocks me that the younger people in their teens and up to their 20's dont have the opportunity to walk into somewhere brick and mortar and pick up a classic firearm or even old surplus junk thats now impossible to even get or its priced far over its value.

Just a side note. As a kid in the 70's we had a small town an hour away we used to shop at here in Idaho. There was an supermarket there and beside just groceries i remember they sold rifles there and even handguns and reload supplies. They also had rifle powder in kegs they sold by the pound in paper bags cheaply. Today we're far from that world but that wasnt all that long ago and its not asnif it was in Roman times.

An abortion that POS is! I like lever guns a lot; just not ANYTHING that looks like that. Fugk!

Did you pack out any of the game you killed in Wyoming and Idaho? Or were you on guided hunts where getting the game out was primarily the responsibility of the outfitter?

I started using lighter rifles around 40, not because I wasn't in shape (have worked out in various ways constantly long before then) but because a lighter rifle/pack/body not only allowed me to hunt longer and harder, but when I killed something on a hunt where I was responsible for getting it out, any reduction in the overall load helped. Just did it the other day, after killing a mule deer in steep breaks-type country. The pack wasn't all that far, but it was very much up-and-down.

JB , you put that 32-40 to work yet? What kinda action you got left? Mb

Might also point out that traditional walnut/blued rifles do not have to weigh more than synthetic-stocked rifles--and also can help on guided hunts This is my Merkel K1 .308, which weighs under 7 pounds with any scope weighing 16 ounces or less. It took this caribou after my guide and I followed a pair of bulls over two miles across a series of ridges in the Northwest Territories. We finally gave up trying to catch them--but then when we headed back to the boat toward evening, I turned around and found one of the bulls (for whatever reason caribou have for anything) had turned around and was headed right back toward us.

I killed it on the steep ridge above the boat, then because my partner (who was 20 years older than my 53) also killed a bull, I volunteered to pack the boned meat from my bull down to the boat, while he and the guide boned out the other bull--then hike back up to help pack it out. I could have done it with a 10-pound rifle, but why? The little Merkel worked fine, and made it all easier and quicker--partly because we were trying to beat sundown.