Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles General purpose, all in one rifle

Since you reload, how about a 30-06 Ackley. Properly set up you can use factory loads with just a little loss of velocity and still have enough powder capacity to drive those 180 and 200 gr bullets for the big stuff or really zing those 125 gr bullets out there.

Well just going but the title - I would have to say the 300wm. I really agree with the article on this round avail from this forums home page- can be loaded to 06 type of recoil and then stout enough for all but the largest bears. Cliche but that doesn't mean its not true.

But if a SA is set on I would still have to say 308- get ammo everywhere.

I'd have to go with the .30-06, it can do anything reasonably asked of it AND you can find ammo at any podunk gas station if needed in an emergency.

Mark

Frankly, my friend... there is NO true SINGLE "all-around" cartridge... one cartridge just can't "do-it-all" perfectly well. It definitely takes two different cartridges to handle ALL the big game in North America.



I hunted for 40 years with the .338 Win. Mag. and, honestly, while it will kill deer quite well, it is too much cartridge for mule or whitetail deer and antelope, but it's just fine for any of the larger big game in North America including the big bears.



Now that I only hunt whitetails out of my hunting buddy's deer camp in the mountains of north-central Pennsylvania (Moshannon State Forest), I use my quick-handling Savage Model 99 lever-action rifle in .300 Savage caliber... it's all the cartridge I need.



By the same token, the .30/06 is a great cartridge... and close to an "all-around" cartridge, but all you have to do is look at what the professional Alaskan guides use (.338 Win. Mags & .375 H&H Mags.) and that will tell you that the .30/06 is a bit light for the big bears.



You don't need another rifle unless you include the big bears on your hunting menu. Your .270 Winchester will take down any game in N. America, but if you just "want" another rifle, then you'd be smart to get a .338 Win. Magnum

cause it will easily handle anything your .270 won't... including the big bears. It would also be a great choice to use on elk, caribou and moose as well, but your .270 with 150 grain Nosler Partitions or similar premium bullets is "enough gun" for non-dangerous game like elk, caribou and moose if that's the only caliber you have.



If you don't go for the big bears, then use the .270... it's a great cartridge and does everything from antelope to moose pretty well plus it's a bit flatter shooting than the .30/06 for longer range shooting. Just make sure you choose the right bullet weight and construction for the game you're after... and you'll never have to look back. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />





Strength & Honor...



Ron T.

A .338 Win Mag has very similar trajectory to .270 Win in factory loads. You already have an excellent rifle for the use you describe, but if you want another rifle the .338 would be my pick. If you can't kill it with a .270, you probably can't kill it with a .30-06 either.

If you don't like recoil (and I don't) you might consider a BAR in .338. Never had one myself, but my .308 was a tack driver, and quite reliable as long as I didn't create a problem for it with cruddy ammo etc.

nothing can touch the AR-15 for versatility. It can be 300 Whisper, .30 AK, .50 bmg, 223, 458 SOCOMM, .22lr, whatever you want. :-) all it takes is pull out 2 pins, attach the desired-caliber upper, push back the 2 pins, insert mag, and cycle the bolt. Presto, all different potential, takes a whole 20 seconds to execute a caliber swap. Sights go with the caliber, handling, trigger pull, stay the same, with the exception of the .50 bmg upper. That definitely feels a bit different. If shooting that one much, best sleeve the pin holes with steel inserts. :-) Best also have a hellva muzzlebrake.

Here here. Your basicly talking variations on a theme.

Your .270 will do just fine.

When I first saw your thread I was thinking another answer,

General purpose, all in one rifle

Answer being not a rifle at all, but a 12ga. pump!

But reading on, you don't appear to be looking for a one gun for all scenario

Well here is my opinion and one in which I can't wait to build as soon as funds are available to me. It will fit your bill except one criteria and thats recoil. While I have never shot it I have heard its up there like the 338 mag or more. Well its the great 8mm rem mag. Will do anything in NA and africa. Talk about versital round. People will tell you there are no good bullets available as there are plenty of good ones. You just have to reload to get the good stuff as you reload its a moot point. Its also not a common caliber so it kind of cool in that regards. Well good luck but if truth be told your 270 is great you just need to load up some 140 TSX and never look back.

Brian

.30-06. Period. One gun? For everything conceivable? '06. It's already been there, done that - hundreds of times over.

Want more reasons? Easily reloadable. Easy to shoot. Plenty of range and power. Myriad of factory loads for anything that walks, crawls, and most of what flies. Cartridges available anywhere the sun comes up.

True, settling on a .30-06 for a "one gun battery" is like settling on drinking only water for the rest of your life. It might lack the flavor of some others, and certainly some of the flair, but in the end, it does exactly what it needs to, every time. For a one gun battery, that's exactly what you want.

Probably pick one of these three rifles to do it in too: Winchester Model 70; Remington Model 700; Ruger Model 77. Damned near unbreakable. Easily fixable. Parts available almost anywhere. Accurate. Reliable. Field manageable.

VAnimrod,
well-said.

Federal High Energy ammunition with a good bullet will transform your 270 into something more powerful. The possible downside is the Federal HE and the Hornady Light Magnum ammo can't be used in semiauto rifles. So, if your 270 is a bolt gun, you can apply your rifle savings to a hunting trip.

Well I decided to buy my friends .338 winmag, I know it wasn't one of the choices that I was considering, but he let me have it for $500 which is $100 off what he paid last year(I was there when he bought it), and it only has 35 factory loads through it. I figure what the heck he needs the money and I need something new to play around with, and if I find I really don't like it I can always sell it later for close to what I paid for it. The other good point is that it is a M70 classic stainless, just like my .270, so it is somewhat familiar in feel.



______________________

"Mister, we deal in lead" Steve McQueen, in The Magnificent Seven

Well...Congratulations on your new rifle. Make it easy to shoot at the range by using a Past recoil pad (wear it over your shirt). Then use some of the factory ammo to kill an elk, and I bet you will be impressed as long as you hit the right spot on the elk. The .338WM was introduced as "The Alaskan," even though there were not too many bullets available for it back then. Nowadays all manufacturers have bullets for it, starting at 160 grains all the way to 300. The Alaskan is perhaps the most popular cartridge in Alaska, up there with the .30-06 and the .300WM.

Practice with it often, and it won't let you down. But remember to tame it's recoil by wearing a Past or similar recoil pad over your shoulder, pull it tight against your shoulder when you press the trigger, and always keep a couple of inches between the eyebrow and the scope. Leupold scopes are great, because they have lots of eye relief. No need to go to the range and shoot it all day. The best way is to shoot it about six or seven times, go home and clean it, then come back in a day or two and do the same. Continue learning how to shoot it as you skip a couple or three days between, and just for fun place a couple of milk jugs full of water, one at 100 yards and the other at 200. See how many shots will take for you to hit each, and continue practicing that way every few days. The idea is to learn as much as you can about your rifle without being afraid of it, so later all you have to do is aim properly, gently squeeze the trigger, and let the bullet do its work. Once you drop a moose or another large animal with it, then another, your rifle will become your friend. I have found that's the case with mine.

The .338 WinMag is a nice round. I had one, but sold it. I liked the round, just never bonded with the rifle (an A-Bolt).

I found full house handloads pushing 250s to near 2800 fps to be unpleasant after about 10 rounds. A fun and easy shooting load I used for practice was 50gr RL15 under a 250gr Hornady. Gave around 2270 fps/2800 ft-lbs energy, was accurate, and easy to shoot 100 plus at a time.

MM