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

You're right on both points. I stand corrected.

For many years I hunted a wooded area on the edge of a swamp with the worst briars you can imagine. Max shots were 40 yards and you wouldn't want to track a deer in there. I used an H&R 45/70 single shot and a Ruger 99/44 semi auto, both hand loaded full throttle. Both wear low power scopes, are great walking around guns and deer hammers.

They don't have to be "stubbs" to work...Two closest were 4 or so big steps and another around 20 yards. Had it cut down to 21 inches. Balances better and goes 7.3 empty.

I thought they were designed primarily for alpine hunting, easy to carry while climbing and the long forend makes using the rifle as a climbing aid easier. That doesn't reduce their virtues as brush guns.

I’ve drooled over Sell’s little carbine since the 60s, and remember the piece (one anyway) about the custom Marlin he built late in life. Reduced recoil, IIRC, was at least part of the reason he built it. George Mattis, who wrote Whitetail, Fundamentals and Fine Points for the Hunter, used a Model 94 carbine with the old forward-mounted Redfield 2x, and was, “aware of and willing to accept its limitations”. That’s a fine book BTW, well worth seeking out and acquiring and deserves a spot on the shelf along with Sell’s and Koller’s signature volumes.

Brother, I’m right there with you on walking cautiously in the woods. I’m nursing a bum knee right now, likely the product of a long, difficult deer hauling last season. Takes a looooonng time to heal these days. I just picked up a set of trekking poles to help me hobble after turkeys next month. They work great in the yard, we’ll soon see how the handle terrain.

Francis Sell probably had a Cascade Snap Shooter receiver sight on his rifle.
Sell had a hand in the development of the Snap Shooter and wrote of the sight in several articles including the Handloader September 1982 article on the .25-35 Tomcat.

Sell also had the sight on his Husqvarna chambered for the .30 Short Ackley Magnum. Sell wrote about the rifle and cartridge in the 1961 Gun Digest article: The 10% Rifle.
Francis Sell was an interesting and well rounded man. He was a genuine Gun Crank and knowledgeable about firearms and cartridges.

I formed a lot of my opinions about small game hunting cartridges and rifles from Sell and Vernon Megee. In the 1960’s I had my nose buried in the Arms and The Man and the early American Rifleman magazines. Sell had articles in all of the magazines and you had to hunt for them. This was the days of iron sights and low powered scopes. Pre Red Mist.
Here is a picture of Sell in the July 1958 issue of Guns with his Husqvarna. I was disappointed it was not a Model 64 or 71.

Cascade Snap Shooter on Marlin

Cascade Snap Shooter on

Franscis Sell My Favorite Gun

my blood trail rifle for close shots or farther away is a plain Jane 30-06 Browning S.S. BLR /1-6 Burris scope

KInd of funny you have a "blood rifle"'... I have a gun I always called my meat gun. Seems every time I take out that boring old .270Win Rem. 700 ADL I get something, but keep wanting to take out my newest gun instead.

It don't get any better than a .30-30 lever action carbine.

Perfect for me, is my 9.3x57 Husqvarna. 20" barrel, express sights & 232gr bullet at 2250 fps. For close up stalking, it's perfect.

I use a Remington 660 carbine in .243 Winchester with a Timney trigger and a 2x7 Leupold.

blood trails are from friends and the youth hunters my 257 Weatherby mag. has always killed bucks very quickly but my Ruger #1 is a good deer stand rifle but clumsy in the brush so that`s when the BLR is used on blood trails.

The Rem 600 in 308 that I used for black tail in the woods of western Wash. worked fine for me.
It would still work fine for deer and hogs here in the south.

That's a nice rifle, right there!

I like these a lot. Beautiful rifles.
My close in rifle is much more pedestrian then these but it seems to work.

Here's a "close-in" deer rifle I used to own till it was traded to a friend. He won't trade it back so now I have another in 30-06 on the way.

Bbl will be cut to 20" and Williams FP added.

Toss up 35Rem...350 Rem Mag

Forgot this. Might be my favorite.

Ruger American Predator in 358. Grice special.

Some real nice walking rifles you folks have. A close in rifle to me is all about fit and balance. No grabby recoil pads no slings hanging or large scopes. I do like longer barrels for the sight radius and forward weight to steady me up shooting off hand.

All my close in rifles are the same as my far rifles. they all work well

Nice Schoenauer SS.