Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Which Rifles This Season ???

My main rifle is going to sit this season out for a bit, headed up to a friend's farm to hunt elk with my Sharps in 40/65, and probably take my .577 Snider as well for some white tails.
Cat

Weatherby (Howa) Vanguard-2 sub-MOA .30-06 stainless synthetic with a 4X12 VX-R 30MM tube. Mostly 180 SST or RN 180 Speer. For a light rifle on varmints the identical rifle in .223 with 62 BTHP by Hornady and a Zeiss 3 1/5 -10. Every now and then when mobs of hogs are anticipated out comes the AR-15 and 30 round magazine.

A few new one's I'll try to get in the mix:

280AI, 22.5" Hawk Hill KS contour in a Bansner stock
6.5 CM Sig cross

NULA ML will be used for ML seasons.

Lot's of others will be used. With a rifle season that runs from mid-October (in GA) to early February (in AL) I get a lot of opportunities.

Yep, bulk will be with Shiloh Sharps 44-77.
1892 year '86 in 45-70
58 cal Hawken
Will take old pre-64 264 to Wyo for doe antelope and mule deer.

My life gets complicated this time of year. I start trying to decide what rifles I'm taking to deer camp. I've got way too many to choose from.

The Savage 99 in 308 WIN is my #1 for Opening Morning. I only use it while I have a bug tag.
The 30-06 Ruger Hawkeye is my #1 producer over the past decade.

The easy part is over. Now comes the agony. I pick 3 rifles for the Opening Week of deer camp. Anything that gets blooded goes in the case, and then I bring down one more for the last weekend.

Thompson Center Compass II in 7mm-08. I nailed a doe with it last fall. I re-stocked it over the Winter. This could be my new favorite.
The Mauser From Hell-- a Kar 98 (8X57) that was an absolute basket case when I got it. Now, it's my most accurate deer rifle. It's nailed several of my bucks since it went into the lineup.
Remington 7600 in 35 Whelen. The Whelenizer took 10 deer in 10 years before I retired it. I'm bringing it back with a reduced 180 grain load.
25-06 Mauser. I just haven't found the right load for it. I'm overdue to start having good luck with this rifle.
M1 Garand -- I keep threatening to bring this one back out.


. . .and about 20 more that I could take. The last couple of years, I built a decision matrix in Excel to decide.

Ruger 77 RL tang in 308 gets all the snow tracking days. Stand sitting days get other guns but my newest addition of the T3x in 6.5CM is going to get a few more hunts than others.

As usual - Rem 700 CDL 25.06 with a Speer 120gr Hot-cor in front of a full house of RL25 .

Pretty slick.

There’s a 2-day Geezer and Yute season for does next month, followed by a 4-day for everyone. Oughta be possible to get something down, but might have to go in deep if the “civilian” traffic is like it was last season. Crossbow begins next
Saturday.

Bears are also in on the G&Y days. Wouldn’t that be interesting? They are around, but I’ve never seen one there.

Usually one of several 30-06's... But picked up an early 50's marlin 30-30 that may just be appealing

I've come a ways from the "I've only got one" young guy who took that "one" everywhere and did everything with it.

Still... 2 safes full of rifles... Have trouble recalling where they all came from or why they were chosen.
Why is it that only one Model 70 Classic FWT in 25-06 gets picked up consistently?

My hunting is a lot more laid back and casual than it used to be. Don't travel as far or cross as many state lines.

Some nice stuff in those safes. They don't eat much, and it's cheaper for me if they just stay there...
Still...

As usual, I'm punting heading out to elk camp.

Taking a .26 CM/143 gr. Eld-X, a .30-06/180 gr. NPT, and a .366 Bock/232 gr. Oryx.

My son will likely grab the CM, but ya never know...

Its always fun to take the new ones out into the field to see if they are lucky or not. Even though it is so tempting to just grab for the old tried and true, that you know is always ready to go.

I'll mention 2 rifles from the safes. Both ends of the spectrum, but both still treasures.

Late 80s to early 90s a buddy had an FFL and was gunrunning out of one end of his barn. He was playing with a lot of mil-surp stuff and I ordered an old beater SMLE 4/1 and a case of ammo. Paid $69 for the rifle, and ammo. The rifle looked like it had been excavated from a pile of war rubble. Every round of the surplus ammo hang fired. Click....Boom
Picked up a couple of boxes of Winchester 180 power points for it and was pleasantly surprised with how it shot. Jump forward 15 years or so and I've got an oops kid (born when I was 39) learning to hunt, and he loves everything mil-surp. I've bought him some beautiful rifles, but he loves that old SMLE.
Deer season last year, a guy in the parking lot of Cabelas in Prairie shucked out 5 hundred dollar bills trying to buy that old beater from him. It still lives in the safes...

And when the youngest kid was learning to shoot, I was working all over the country. On a job at Council Bluffs Iowa, I discovered an LGS called Guns Unlimited in Omaha. Had a Winchester 9422 on layaway there, and the day I picked it up they were unboxing some Model 70s to put in the rack. Guy pulled a rifle from the box and the whistles started. Prettiest wood I've ever seen on a standard production rifle. And it is a standard production Model 70 Classic featherweight.
I didn't ask the price or even what it was chambered for. I told the counter guy helping me to put it on my ticket. A couple of other guys quibbled that they might want it, but the clerk told them all that I'd spoken first.
It's a .308, by the way. Still NIB Unfired...
Told myself that it was for the youngest. He's gravitated towards different rifles than me, but it'll still have his name on it when I check out.

Guys been busy this AM

I’ll be back. Thnx

Jerry

It's been a while since a deer's been shot on our property with a 303, so a pair will be coming with me on opening weekend. If the weather is nice I'll hunt with the M1895. The old no4 mk II gets the nod should WI decide to play its usual fall games.

Most likely my 338Fed but will always have me 7mm-08 as a back up.

Once the first one is down, and if the weather is good, I will use my inheirited Sav 1899 in 303SAV.

Got a 99 being rebarreled to 338 Federal, hoping it gets here in time to use.

New to me 99’s in 358 and 284 to try out.

A new to me 30-06 to try also.

I’ll check zero on a couple Sako’s and a couple of Kleinguenthers also.

I’ll have more time next year to play with rifles, 105 days until I’m done.

Me too, got a notebook I keep to help track of which rifles need checked, ammo I need to load, etc. I need to cut back, need rifle buying rehab bad.

I’ll be using two rifles everyday on the hunt. Prior to sunrise and shooting time, I will be bedded down in a nice shooting spot on the banks of creek beds in heavy timber. I have had more morning success killing whitetails coming back from night feeds to bed in tall grasses and timber along the creek and river bottoms. I’ll be shooting Barnes 225 gr XPB out of a Win 94 444 Marlin. Have killed deer inside of 15 yards with this setup.

Later in the afternoon around 3:00 I’ll be glassing Ag fields of corn and beans setting up for 300 yards and closer. Looking for whitetails coming out to feed until shooting time is over. I’ll be shooting 308 Win with 165 SST. The SST is a much underrated bullet design, with 308 Win velocity it behaves wonderfully and opens up with a lot of shock and trauma on whitetails.