Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles The "I just want 1 big game rifle for N.Am." dilemma

can you say .50 bmg barrett !

OK, let me add a little to my previous post, When I go bush I have at least 4 rifles & 2 shotguns with me but the truth is I just don't get time to use them all. My hunting trips just aren't long enough, My business is as a retailer and I work stupid hours. The last 2 trips away were washed out and I didn't get to fire a single shot in anger, in fact in just testing I managed to shoot the farmers fence (wire) twice! - not best pleased as you can imagine. While I enjoy whiling away the hours planning something new / different especially on long drives I just can't see getting to use them any time soon. So for the time being I think I'll go into a holding pattern for the moment and spend some dollars on a guided hunt in Northern Australia where the pigs are plentiful, the company is great and the beer is cold. As an aside I find it frustrating to create something new and then struggle to get the time to use it. There is a matter of our gun ownership laws here is Australia... They are quite strict and owning a lot of guns is difficult, so there is a degree of introspection about just filling up your gun safe

A friend DOWN UNDER

Posted in a mechanics forum:

I'm 25, and started fixing N.Am big trucks about 5 years ago. Found a used older Crescent 12 inch adjustable wrench. Oiled it with a drop of 10W-30 and hit the garage. Brought home a lot of money with that wrench. Since then it sits in a fancy stainless steel 25 drawer tool chest, but its still the same ol wrench.

Maybe its taken me these 5 years to realize it, but had I never dropped another dime on wrench and sockets, and still only had that 12 inch Crescent, I still would have tightened as many bolts, and maybe more. Wouldn't have spent so much time thinking about sockets and end wrenches. Instead - more time under the hood tightening, loosening, and knuckle busting.

Am I the only one who has come to this conclusion? Is this a passing fad? Part of me wants to sell all my wrenches except that one Crescent, use the money to buy some good hand cleaner, go forth, and fix trucks.

My opinion is that if you don't hunt in Alaska for the big stuff, the .270 is about as good as you can do for one rifle for North America. If you are hunting AK, then the .300WBY will take anything from fox/bobcats to AK brown bear/moose. Good luck.

I'm in a mode where I'm not adding guns, but rather thinning and refining what I have towards some sort of mythical perfection. My battery of hunting rifles is essentially four rifles. One, a .358 M7, was built for very specific conditions and it delivers big time so it's sacred. My '06 killed my first deer and is on it's 2nd tube, and is about the perfect all-arounder and so it's also essentially sacred.

Then I have two dedicated elk hammers, which is one too many for a poor man <grin> so in the spirit of refinement towards an ideal without adding guns, I'm rebarreling one of them to a flat-shooting fast 7mm.

With those four rifles I can hunt anything i want to hunt, and take an excellent backup too.

Then of course an AR15 or the like. That should be a given for any patriotic American.

Then I have a few more rifles that are much harder to justify.... hobby guns I guess.

For me part of paring down and refining is simple, my discretionary income has been hammered these last few years. But I think even if I had a fat checking account right now I'd still be inclined to refine what I have. I don't want guns around that don't work right, so buying a new one is like getting a dog... not to be done casually. It opens vast expanses of expense and obsession getting it set up just right, shooting well, scoped properly, etc.

Then again I'm probably full of [bleep], and would be buying new guns like a nut if I had the scratch.......... Lol

Even at 56, every so often I get to thinking I really need me one of those wonderful lightweight and slick Sako A7s or Tikka T3s, ideally in .270 WSM.

Then hunting season comes along, first elk, then on to muleys, and finish with whitetails...

And I head out the door for all of 'em with my (somewhat moderately customized) Vanguard .300 WM, whereupon it does everything I ask of it...and does it very well! Shoots half inch groups at the range, never misses picking up the next cartridge from the magazine, and hasn't cost me a penny in repairs due to quality/failure issues over the dozen or so years/seasons I've had it.

Yeah, I replaced the wood stock with a synthetic...because I just like 'em better. I had the trigger tuned, that's just standard procedure with most rifles. And I had it reblued 'cause the original finish was starting to look a tad faded from use...but mostly 'cause I prefer a good lookin' gun when I go out in public.

And when season's finally over...as it was yesterday...and I'm doing an end of season clean up on it, I'm forced to conclude that there's no REAL reason on earth to buy another rifle, as this puppy is doin' it all just about as good as it ever needs to get.

I think the problem is mostly that it tends to be far tooooooo long between huntin' seasons, you know! Way too much down time to start dreamin' up stuff, eh?

Splatter: You ain't alone.....

atta boy !

I have rid myself of all but my 7x57 Brno.....works for me.

Ayup!

My gun buying and trading is as much fun as hunting itself. I like to try different bullet and calibers. That said until this year I mostly big game hunted with one rifle the last ten years.

If your gun buying is getting in the way of buying good glass or tags then you need to find out whats important to you. I have good glass and money for my tags so I have nothing else to do in the off season but to try new guns/calibers.

I have said this before but you show me a guy with only one rifle and most of the times I will show you a very bad shot. The guys I know that only own one rifle shoot it about three times a year at a paper plate at 100 yards.

I too thin the herd on occassion to make more room for other guns. I now have a rule that if I buy a new gun I have to sell a gun. It helps keep the number of guns down to a reasonable number.

Dink

Supprot the US economy.
We don't make many things here anymore, but we do make guns,ammo, scopes and such.
Think of the jobs you'll help save.

To each his own wants. I enjoy thinking about guns, particularly rifles, quite a bit. While I go hunting a few times a week and could do most of it with one rifle I know thats not enough for me.

I go around to gun shops every week and look at the guns.

What interests me are the nicer guns. I had the less expensive guns. Some day I may not be able to hunt or want to. My freezer is full now. In about an hour I am going hunting though. I will bring the new 7mm WSM and another rifle. It's sunny out so it will be a fine rifle.

This is an example of what I think about.

Bought a 7mm RM in 1982. It was my only big game bolt gun for 20+ years. Lots of other choices now, but what can I do now that I couldn't do as well with the 7mm RM?

Nothing.


But that isn't the point of having the others...

Could have bought a number of quality used rifles and even some new ones for what I spent on my last (and also my first) custom, an Interarms Mark X 6.5-06AI. Swore I wouldn't do that again.

This time it's a stainless Ruger MKII long action, magnum bolt face, chambered for a cartridge that uses the .375 Ruger case as a starting point - caliber to be decided, but something I really "need" to fill a �gap�. What will I be able to do once I get it completed that I couldn't do now?

Nothing...

There are only a couple I could sell without trepidatio simply because of the associated memories. I have only hunted them a couple times.

Some have been promised to my kids because their memories have prompted them to ask for them, some are family heirlooms. Perhaps when I cannot shoot any longer, the remaining will be sold so that Grandma and Grandpa can do something nice with the family.

In the meantime my loonyism brings much joy and hours of reflective thinking.

A couple of weeks ago I took the whole lot out to clean up and check for any possibility of corrosion. Always a problem in the mid atlantic this close to the bay. Mostly, just to relive memories, work actions, and look at the wood and finishes. Thought for a moment about thinning them out to make the "ultimate", but just as quickly seemed to come up for a reason that each one had to stay. About that time my son came down to the room and he began to look at each of them and asked who made them, what I had shot with them, and wanted to work the actions, look at the wood and finishes. See, it IS in our DNA. We cannot help it. Maybe it is about time to build him his first rifle? Now what caliber....stock....scope.....

Below is all I need to hunt anything in North America..

The .375 H&H isn't really necessary, even for the big stuff that bites, but I've owned .375's for so long I couldn't imagine being without one..

The folks citing "Dad & Grandpa" are right, of course. In my case, 'twas Dad, Grandpa, & Great Grandpa, all with the same 7x57.

FC

I've been pondering this same dilemma for a couple of years now and I might try to get it down to 3 rifles that will do anything I need to do now and in the future.

I'd take three actions I like and start from scratch. Get the actions worked, new tube, McMillans, high end trigger, Tally's or similar. I already have good glass so I'm good there.

Sell everything else to accomplish this goal and go from there.

I can still reload and shoot plenty and toss in 20ga slug gun and good .22lr and live happily ever after.

NOW, as long as I can keep my azz out of the classified section, all will be golden! Someone right now has a killer Rem Classic in .300 savage listed and it's messing with my brain!

CLB

I am in the same boat with others here and am slowly thinning the herd. I came to the conclusion a few weeks ago that I will never leave WI to hunt. Although I would like to head south and go pig hunting and I would like to go to AntiCosti Island just once. Based on what I do, I could be just fine with a 243 and plain old 100g Remmy Core-Lokts. I love my Roberts, but I don't hand-load, so 243 ammo would be much easier to find in the middle of nowhere. I just don't have a need for alot of rifles. I used to have a bunch, but most of that was because I believed what the writers said about needing a rifle for this, that, and everything else. It was to the point that I didn't shoot alot and I had a bunch of rifles that would need to be sighted in when season came around. Once the season was here, I'd be switching guns all the time. It turned into one big hassle carrying so many around. Now when I hunt I grab for either my 257 Roberts or my 35 Remington, both chambered in Remington 7600's. The 35 is a carbine though. I know a ton of people that shoot 243's for deer, for most it is their only rifle, and none complain about loosing deer, so that is what my decision is based on.

Dale