Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles How do you pick a rifle?

I choose two rifles to hunt with.

Get em both ready and shoot em enough to be comfortable in my hands. ONe is what i choose to hunt with and the other is the back up. Most of my deer hunting is from a stand in brush country.
This last year my rifle out the door was a sporterized Mauser in 7 x 57.
The back up was a pre-64 Model 70 in 270, which i enjoy too much to let it be a Closet Queen.

A few times i switched to the back up in the middle of the deer season. Guys in the crew gave me chit for it. So i told em..."hey, in baseball sometimes you change pitchers during the game.' And sometimes i took a deer with the back up.

Some years ago we had a good snow fall and the guys volunteered me to open some trails with my snowshoes. For that i brought out the Savage 99 featherweight in 300 Savage.

If I have em I use em.

I tailor the rifle to the hunt, or the hunt to the rifle if I want to carry something specific. But they usually look like these.

Need a reason Not to bring a scoped .270 WCF/150 gr., be it M700 BDL or M70 EW/SS, depending on the weather.

Which ain't often.




GR

It really depends on where I am hunting and whether I am stand hunting or still hunting. Whether I need a scoped rifle or iron sights. Given the right circumstances I prefer to still hunt. In dry conditions that make for noisy stalking g I will stand hunt.

7600 pump 270 90% of the time and SS 280 when the weather is bad.

In no particular order.
Sometimes by the mood I’m in.

Sometimes I pick one I haven’t hunted recently or very much.

Sometimes I pick a sentimental fav.

When I expect to be in a long range area, always 270 Win or 7mmRM.

Jerry

Dang, I thought this thread was about how to pick a used rifle when rummaging around through the used rifle racks.. Sigh.. That's my idea of fun.. Picking one to hunt with is easy enough and usually depends on how many days I'm hunting. I'll take a different one every day of the hunt, if I want...

Maybe it’s just me but a post like this drives me bonkers. What is the cartridge you speak of haha?

All my rifles, except one, come from rummaging through the used racks at gun shops or gun shows. That is the fun part.
An older rifle that has not been used much in an a cartridge that interests me, that’s cheap. I will refinish the stock if necessary, clean it up, work up a load and then decide if I keep it or sell it and buy another project.

.375 AI.....my only “hunting” rifle since February of 1990. At 9 pounds 2 ounces (scoped/loaded/slung), it light enough for most any hunting situation....though sheep and Mountain Goats would be a little more challenging at my age. A few prairie dogs, fox, and coyotes, and a fare selection of big game have been taken with it. If I hadn’t bought a big pile of 250 TTSX’s (running 3160 mv) quite a while back.....I’d probably even suggest that I could use one bullet type/weight for everything. If Barnes will ever bring out a LRX in something around 290 to 300 grains....then I’d say one bullet for everything! memtb

I try to pick a rifle that is the right tool for the intended task. Still-hunting in tight cover calls for a short, well balanced, fast handling rifle for jump shots. Longer ranges, a different format. etc., etc.

This is how I picked my caliber. I started reloading in 1978 for the Ruger M77 270 Win. Did the best I could for the best accuracy. Then I traded for a different caliber and did the same thing and so on with other calibers. I did plenty of shooting and reloading. Then I started reloading for the 358 Win and the rest is history. This is the only caliber I settled on. I have a Rem 600 Gloss Blue, Rem 700 Gloss Blue and a Rem Model 7 stainless all in 358 Win. I don't need any other caliber for deer, moose or black bear. I do have other calibers such as a 700 222 Rem Mag for coyote and several 223's both bolt and AR's. I also have a Ruger Mini 30 which I used in up-state NY for deer in an apple orchard. I've shot plenty of deer with other calibers. Some calibers that I reloaded for are : 30/06, 35Whelen, 35Rem, 30/30, 243, 7mm08, 444, 45/70 and there are a few more. Just to let you know that some of these calibers were tack drivers. But for some reason I just fell in love with the 358 Win and I like the bolt action.

Ken

What would you not hunt with a 250 TTSX? Surely nothing in N.A. you wouldn’t hunt with that?
There are times I’ve thought about having a 375 H&H for everything. It’s my favorite cartridge although I don’t own one.

How it feels in the hand and which ever one feels like it has the luck. My 6 Creed Kimber gets toted the most.