Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Sold the last magnum rifle in the safe..have gone.full circle

You'll be back ... they all come back to the magnum mystique eventually!

Yer funny! Wrong, but funny!

here on Kodiak we try to hunt deer in pairs as the bruins know that gunshots often mean a meal. That's where a good big bullet comes in handy. Not had a problem yet but...clocks still ticking.
Helped a buddy bag a 10'+ brownie a while back. Just lying there dead in the alders frightened me enough to move up a notch even with the dear rifle. Was using the 8mm WSM (220g). Good round and probably enough horse power to do anything in NA.
But learned (over the Inet!) that to be really prepared one must have the tools available to get the job done when the conditions (read angle/distance) aren't optimum. When hanging around bears with big claws and teeth and things go wrong, they can get there in a hurry and that's not where I want to be.
Picked up a 358 Norma for shooting 280g. A-Frames. Figure those would get the job done at reasonable ranges. Use this one for backup and primary bear rifle.
Also picked up 35 Whelen for cheep. Thought that would be a great deer getter with the option of running 250g partitions for personal encounters with the bigger varmints.
Have good references on the Norma and think the Whelen will do just fine if needed. Of course all have good extractors and run smooth.
If I wasn't so scared of running afoul with a big brownie I would probably use an '06 or 338-06. Think those would all be great for about anything.

I think that someone should start a "Magums Anonymus" movement. Like "Alcoholics Anonymus". Think of all the poorly magnum shot wounded animals that run off and die because of "too much rifle". When your weakening a want to buy that magnum rifle call a meeting and get support to deal with the urge.

Seriously, The only magnum cartridges I'd consider would be the dangerous game 375s, 416s, 458s, etc... When they are the right tool for the job.

Just my opinion...

What will a Whelen do that a 338-06 won't?

If a brownie wants my deer she can have it. There are more deer out there. I've never up to Alaska to hunt. When I can ever afford it, and if I'm after a coastal Grizzly/Brown Bear I want a Guide backing me up. The 30/06 is a powerful cartridge but there are limits to it's versatility.

Well, I went through the Magnum phase. Got a scare (third eyebrow) as a trophy off a 7RM. My fault, crawled up on the stock when prone did get my attention LOL. Only have one left, and it will stay. A '55 model 70 in 300H&H that was willed to me. It will stay in the family. Now mostly use mid bore non magnums, 9.3X62 and 338 Federal and for a lite rifle a 6.5X57. These will do anything that I can reasonably do or need to do from varmits to elephants. Don't need the magums, but will admit to a S&W 629 in 44Mag, pistols are different critter.

Sounds like my story. I sold my last magnum, a .358 STA, this winter to fund a Cooper Custom Classic in .270 that is expected to arrive this week. When I was growing up we all shot .270's and '06's and killed elk quite handily. We all generally avoided magnums, aside from the Remmy 7mm, because they kicked so damn hard we couldn't shoot them as well. Once I got accustomed to the recoil of various magnums, including a .458 Win mag I thought would be nice for Alaska, I found I could shoot just as accurately as I could with smaller calibers, but after many years and several dozen elk I see no need for a magnum on non-dangerous game. I still like 'em, but just don't need one anymore.

When I started hunting twenty odd years ago the "in Cartridge" for Mulies and Elk was the 7mm Rem Mag. Other young hunters would actually sneer at people carrying a 270 Win or 30/06! Now people are trading in those 7mm Remingtons for the new "in Cartridges" Which are the Winchester Short Magnums.

The 270, 30/06, 243, all remain just as popular as they were 20 years ago. Nothing wrong with the 7mm Remington Magnum. It just lost it's snob appeal to something newer.

Dont like to fight my women, food, or guns at my age. That being said I have a 257WBY and a 300WSM, the rest 222/223/243/9.3x62/405Win dont kick me out from under my hat. Can load the 300 down a bit if the recoil becomes tedious: of course the 257 makes lots of noise with recoil only at 25/06 or 270 levels. The Super Mags kick and bellow with hit at 400+ yards at what the 300 Savage does at the muzzle. I can hit at that distance, but why when I can hunt up to the shot. No benches in the field, and lots of animals moving at the shot with a wounded animal being the result. I m old and crotchety, 64, and seen much foolishness and poor shooting with the Super Mags. I like the handling qualities of the 300WSM and 300H&H ballistics, dont need more than that.

Estacado

I never noticed magnum recoil to be an issue until you get to the 30 caliber magnums;things like the 270 Weatherby,7 Weatherby and 7RM seem so much like the 30/06 in felt recoil I could never tell the difference.Smaller stuff like the 257 and 264 are trifling to shoot in a rifle of proper weight.

I think part of the reason for the popularity of the 300WSM is that,like the 300H&H,it recoils more manageably than the bigger 30's.

I guess I'm the oddball here as I hunted 35+ years without a magnum rifle, then in the past 10 years, I've had 4 of them.

I started big game hunting in college when I shot my first deer with a borrowed .32 Spl and my first elk the next year with a borrowed .30-40 Krag.

The next summer, I bought a barreled action and a semi-inletted stock from Herter's, and I put together my first centerfire rifle, a .30-06. That rifle got me a deer and an elk every year for about the next 10 years. Then a fellow moved next door who had several centerfire rifles. a .22 centerfire for varmints, a .234 for deer size animals, and a 7mm Rem mag for elk. He also had a .30 Gibbs case that he had picked up somewhere.

I thought that .30 Gibbs case was the coolest case I'd ever seen so I had my .30-06 re chambered to .30 Gibbs. I also liked the idea of different calibers for different game, so I bought a couple of Mauser Mark X barreled actions and a couple of semi-inletted Fancy walnut shocks from Fajen and I built a .22-250 for varmints, a .257 Ackley for deer and used my .30 Gibbs for elk.

This battery worked great for me for the next 20 years. Many ground squirrels, coyotes and a few antelope and whitetail deer fell to my .22-250. My .257 Ackley was perfect for a mule or whitetail deer and an antelope every year along with several bighorn rams and a Dall ram. The .30 Gibbs with 180 gr Partitions also proved to be about perfect for an elk almost every year and a couple of Shiras moose.

Then in 2000 a couple of my friends and I decided to do a hunt in South Africa. A month before we were to leave to South Africa, an apparent overload fire forming a Gibbs case swelled the chamber and broke the extractor. I wanted more gun in Africa than my .257 AI, One of the friends I was going to Africa with owned several pawn shops in town and he made me a deal on a Remington 700 in 7 mm Rem mag.

So after 35 years of big game hunting, I bought my first magnum rifle. After my first African trip, my 7mm RM took the place of my .30 Gibbs. But the African bug had bit me and I booked a Zimbabwe buffalo/South African plains game hunt for 2005.

For the cape buffalo hunt I needed at least a .375 caliber rifle so I bought my second magnum rifle, a .375 Rem Ultra Mag. To tame the recoil of this cannon, I had a KDF muzzle brake installed on it, I custom stocked it with a laminated stock for Richards Microfit, and added a Limbsaver recoil pad and a mechanical recoil reducer in the butt of the stock. It shoots 270 and 300 gr TSX bullets MOA, and the recoil isn't much more that a .30-06.

For the plains game on this 2005 hunt I planned to shoot them with my 7mm RM. However, I wasn't 100% satisfied with the ADL model that I had, so I talked to my pawn shop friend and he had an almost new stainless BDL in 7mm RM in one of his stores. He made me another good deal and I swapped my ADL for the stainless BDL. I glass bedded the action and barrel channel, floated the barrel, lengthened the stock 3/4", and added a Limbsaver recoil pad. It shoots 160 gr Accubonds MOA and is a great rifle for everything from duiker to elk, and with it's stainless barrel and action and synthetic stock, it's my first choice for hunting in foul weather.

I went back to South Africa again in 2007 on another plains game hunt for various antelope up to a Cape eland. I decided just to take my .375 Ultra Mag on this trip. With the custom fit stock and the other recoil reducing additions, this rifle was not unpleasant to shoot, even for the several animals that I shot from a prone position.

I retired a couple of years ago, and last winter I decided for a winter project that I'd build a replacement rifle for my .30 Gibbs. I've always admired Weatherby's so I bought a Weatherby Vanguard in .300 Wby magnum and a AA Fancy Claro walnut semi-inletted stock from Richards and I built my newest favorite rifle. It's also fitted with a KDF muzzle brake, a mercury recoil reducer in the butt stock, and a Limbsaver pad. It shoots 168 and 180 gr TSX bullets MOA, and the felt recoil isn't much more than that of a .308 Win.

Two weeks ago, I hunted with my .300 Wby for the first time on a 3 exotic animal hunt in south Texas. It was very comfortable to shoot, and shot like a laser. It's my new most favorite rifle.

My "evolution" with hunting rifles has been all over the map, but not so much with Magnums..
Uncle gave me a .300 Win when I graduated college, and it got used for elk, other than that, no magnums that I can remember till I hit my stride in my 40s and was doing a LOT of hunting, and the battery got narrowed down to 7x57, .300H&H, and .375H&H..
Now that I got that out of my system, and all the money it took out of the bank,Ive dropped back to smaller rifles...the 7x57 is now the "big" one...cause I'm not chasing things that are huge, or bite, anymore....

Ingwe

buffybr: That is an interesting and very different "rifle evolution"

I still have a 22 magnum.

I used to have to spend a lot of time on long plane flights for work. I would use the time mulling over the ideal combination of rifles and thinking about ways to restructure what I had.

I ultimately concluded that up through .284 diameter, you could do everything you needed with short action guns, and then once you got to .30 caliber, you were well served to switch to standard length magnums. Apparently by this logic the only justification for a standard boltface long action is the B29, but that is another matter.

But being a lefty, choices in short actions are really thin. So it turns out that my projects in recent years have predominantly been on Winchester magnum boltface actions because that is the configuration of M70 I find most often. Plus I ended up with a used ULA Model 28 with a magnum boltface, and it got rebarreled into .257 Roy.

So virtually everything I have added to my safe or built in the last few years has been a magnum.

buffybr,
I have ordered and am still waiting on my first Richard's micro fit stock, it is a black/gray laminate going on a stainless Vanguard 30-06 (most of my rifles are magnums).

I havn't heard much about this company but if you have ordered more than one, that speaks well.

StrayDog,
I've ordered several stocks from Richards, with varying results. The first one was "fancy" Claro walnut that had about as much grain as a 2x6 from the local lumber yard. The second one was a grey/grey/rose for a .375 Ultra Mag. It was good.

For my .300 Wby that I mentioned above, I ordered a AA Fancy with feather crotch stock in Claro walnut. After about 4 months, it hadn't arrived, so I called them. Another month later it arrived, but did not have near the figure as they advertised for that grade. I called them complaining, and they had a UPS truck pick it up the next day. Another month later I got the stock that I wanted.

I checkered both stocks with a multi section pattern that I modified from a design sold by Brownell's. I've used this pattern on 4 of my rifles.

Here's the laminate on my .375 RUM and the AA Fancy on my .300 Wby.