Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Dedicated elk rifle - Stainless/synthetic or Blued/wood

Tom �

Experiences like your are why I float the barrels on my rifles. You might lose a bit in group size but the stock won�t push the barrel around with temperature and moisture changes.

That is a true thing. My daughter grew up in western Oregon (Salem), then went off to Colorado Springs for college. She says she's not coming back 'cept to visit. The wet west side cold hurts her to the bone yet in Colorado she's perfectly comfortable off skiing and stuff.

I don't think, 'til a person lives west of the Cascade range ... especially in the coast range ... in Oregon or Washington for a winter they can truly understand what wet means.

Tom

For myself the last two "go to" rifles in my arsenal would be a SS Tikka Lite in .308 and a SS Weatherby Fibermark in .340. All weather/all conditions and between the two cover anything I ever plan on shooting. (big game hunting anyway)

As has already been mentioned it's silly to think that blue and wood can't handle the job after demonstrably doing so for years.Good examples are also very pleasing to the eye. Having said that I opt for the above two for most everything anymore.

ss

Stainless and synthetic have served me well, especially when the rain falls. I'm a blue and wood guy myself, and if you clean your gun and take care of it, have proper place to put it you shouldn't have to worry about rust or warp even in the nastiest conditions. The upper side to stainless and synthetic is that you don't have to worry about storage or any maintenance, which is why ive bought a few stainless synthetic "abuse takers" for some of the more unpleasant hunts. But for where I hunt 90% of the time here in wisconsin especially, you won't notice any difference. Just ask yourself: "is it going to be foggy, rainy"? If so "do I want to spend some time with the gun keeping it in tip top shape?" That's about all i could tell yah on the subject, I love blue and wood. Have some very old blued synthetic rifles that have been more than abused over the years, they still perform excellent.

Plus one

Go in between. Laminate Stainless !!

My goto elk rifle a few years ago was my Sako m75ss 300WM but now I have to breakin my Sako m75 Greywolf 338-06 AI. Been really impressed with my Tikka T3 LS 270WSM on elk.

I tried that a few times. I've had 2 Ruger 77 Mk II's, stainless/laminate, in .338 and 1 Remington 700 LSS in .300 win mag. Couldn't QUITE get the accuracy I wanted out of those individual rifles but the idea was right. I probably should have kept after those rifles a little longer, even rebarreled them, but I wound up trading each off to buy the next, then giving up on that plan for a while.

I definitely like the "warmer" feel of wood, including laminates, over some of the very cold feeling synthetics. Worst of all that way are the cheap injection molded stocks.

Laminate is quiet, and doesn't have that resin smell that some plastic stocks have, either.

The Achilles heel of laminates is that heavy butt. Now that I've hollowed a few out, I don't understand why they don't do it at the factory. It really cures what ails 'em. With factory tooling, it'd be a simple thing...

You can get a Boyd pre-hollowed. I got one for my 6.5-06AI.

Do you like it, CH?

It was damn near miraculous on my M700 Mountain Rifle with that pencil barrel; it basically saved that stock for me.

On my sporter '06 and .358 M7 it was just appreciated, a definite improvement but not the transformation it was on the Mountain Rifle.

It's a spooky thing to do. With a milling machine and tapered cutter it'd be simple. With a Milwaukie and big drill bits, it can be a little bit of an adventure.

One of my favorite rifles is a SS M700 Mountain Rifle that I had re-barreled to .280AI. I used a little heavier and longer tube. It loves the 160gr Nosler Partitions and pushes it right at 2960fps., which has proven to be more than adequate for elk. If there is a better shaped stock than the M700 Mt.Rifle, I haven't seen it.

I did something very similar- rebarreled a 30-06 MR to a sporter-profile barrel, and opened up the fore-end accordingly.

I LOVE that stock; it's just slim and lively-feeling. The heavier barrel helped with the balance but I did hollow that one too, but less aggressively than the MR I have with the thin barrel...

Very much.

Stainless and synthetic,blued and wood is to fragile for me.. Wood is for firewood! Grin