Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters A Close-in Deer Rifle

Sell used a number of rifles in his career. He killed 125 deer with two 25-35 carbines. Later his rifle was a model 71 .348. He also used a HVA stocked similar to the 6,5. It was in .358. He built the 6.5 later in his career and finally came back to the .25-35 TC mentioned earlier in the thread. Pretty interesting guy.

I like the concept and use something similar. Most of my hunting in in thick brush and close, but I still want a flat shooting precision rifle to thread bullets through small openings. And I want optics to see those openings in poor light.

An 18-20" barrel with a scope with no more than 3X on the bottom end is about right. Cartridge doesn't matter much but I like 6.5CM, 7-08 or 308. Any of those zeroed at 100 yards won't have the bullet more than 1" high or low out to 130ish yards. That combined with 1 MOA or better will thread bullets through openings. I know 30-30 iron sighted rifles can work but a 2-4MOA rifle with trajectory 2-3" above and below line of sight is going to hit more brush. Especially when you can't see it.

Flat trajectory is probably more important at close range in brush than in the open. Standing out it the open you can always lob bullets in that are several feet high at some point.

A Winchester 94 3030 Win. would be near perfect

Yes, there is a reason for a "Mannlicher" stock on a short-barreled bolt-action: It puts more weight forward, so helps the rifle hold steadier offhand--which is often the shooting position when hunting slowly through thicker cover. I know this from owning and hunting with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer in 6.5x54 MS for several years.

Have written about this aspect of balance in short-barreled rifles ("carbines") before, and its also the reason the Winchester 1894 .30-30 "carbine" became to so popular: When filled with cartridges it also provided more weight-forward. And yes, I know this from owning and hunting with several Winchester (and Marlin) lever-action "carbines."

A Remington Model 7 does NOT balance as well for offhand shots.

Savage 99 in 300 savage

20” Remington Model 7 in .358 for me.

Turdy-turdy

Or a short-barreled .357 mag in a ‘92 repro.




P

760/7600 carbine for the win.

Savage 219 in .30-30:


It handles much like a shotgun, which it could be with a quick change of barrels.

This.

Or a Marlin 336 in 35 Rem

I worked my way logging up the Coast Range from the Humboldt in CA to Neah Bay WA back in my youth. I was never a very prolific or diehard hunter, but worked with local guys who were. The way I remember it, this is in the '60's, the Columbia Blacktail were to be found in the many clearcuts or on the edge of same, the more it rained the more likely they were to be found in relatively open areas. Deer or man don't hang out under big trees that gather drops the size of dimes. Now if hunting pressure was heavy, yeah, they'd keg up in the thick stuff...great place for carbines and Mannlicher styles. So most of the serious hunters I knew or went with, carried regular scoped rifles capable making shots across the canyons and or the big clearcuts. There were local preferences of course, Sav 99's in .300 owned Astoria and SW Washington, the Chehalis/Willapa area had lots of sporter .303 Brits, mostly due to Blackbirds Store in Chehalis selling them for 49 bucks, ready to hunt.
That is just what I observed. I'm not taking anything away from Mr Sell, I'm sure he's killed more bucks than I have mosquitoes.

I can shoot my 760 & 7600 offhand better than any other rifle I own or have ever shot.

To me the M1903 Mannlicher-Schoenauer is the ultimate. In fact I found a dandy one a couple days ago and like a fool walked away. I shall correct that on Monday. Thanks for the impetus.

I've owned a couple and regret letting them go. Time to correct that. Been doing a lot of that of late.

One of Melvin's Model 20's would work equally well close and far...

My Savage Axis left hand 350 Legend loaded with my my handloads of a 165 grain FTX and 25 grains of H110. Deadly out to 150 yards.

Ron

You've forgotten more about the 1903 MS than I will ever know...but I did discover something regarding the bore dimension discrepancies. A lot of guys, including myownself, tried .266 ish Carcano dimensioned bullets (usually without much improvement or joy). I gave up and used some Nosler Partitions, got better results but not quite what I had hoped. A friend gave me a bag of Privi Partizan 156 semi round noses, the most unlikely charge of 39gr of the much unloved H380 in Norma cases. Bingo, a 3 moa rifle shrinks to about 1.3, at a very respectable 2,340 fps. It's worth a try if you are disappointed in the results of more traditional load recipes.

I hunt much the same way. I hunt tall grass and cat tail marshes . I hide in trees and ambush them. A light gun is very important. Last deer I got I had the gun raised for several minutes . Dont laugh,, unless ya want to, but I was so tired I could hardly keep the gun still. I use my new Ruger American comapct with 18" barrel in .243 Win. The compact is important, the caliber does not seem to matter.

I've got one that sort of fits, M7 MS with 20" barrel in .350RM with a Swarovski 1.25-4X on it:



It recently shed some weight and the Manlicher stock in favor of a Manner CF stock:



Does well in the thick stuff, but also has enough oomph and flat enough trajectory to work in clear cuts.

I probably don't anymore. I would feel comfortable with any of these. None over a 20" bbl.

gnoahhh and flintlocke are on track! The Mannlicher-Schoenauer's were developed for exactly the usage the OP is taking about. There are many other suitable designs that work as well, but none better in my opinion!

flintlocke, I've had good luck accuracy wise with several bullets in my 1903 but now stick with the 160 gr Hornady RNs and 156 Prvi RNs because they both feed properly and others don't. I have also settled on JB's load of 40 gr of H4831 for both bullets. I wish I could still slip through the woods like I used to do, but at age 74 with very poor balance and bad knees I tend to spend 95% of my time looking at where I step instead of where the deer are. But every now and then the M-S still gets it done!