Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Thinning the gun herd strategies?

I go through this every few years when the safes are full and I realize I'm spending a lot of time working up loads for rifles that I'll probably never hunt with. I also have more reloading components in my basement then most of the local shops.

One strategy I've came up with is to reduce the number of calibers I shoot and load for. The first two rifle calibers to go were 25 and 27. I no longer own anything in a 25 or 270 so I don't have to stock bullets for either. I also broke down and got rid of my 17 rem.

That leaves me with 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 338, 35, 375,44, and 480 rifles. I'm actually considering getting out of 28's and 338's too. I love 7mm's but I have a bunch of 30's and only 5 or so 7mm's now that I sold my SAUM and 7x57. I'm down to one 338 rcm so that would be a one gun to sale move. My 22's 24's, 26's, and 30's will definitely be staying along with my 375 ruger. And my 35 whelen just shoots too good to want to let go of it.


I've narrowed the handguns down to 9mm, 357, 44 mag, and 480 ruger. The 9mm's and 44 mags will all be staying but I'm considering letting the 357 and 480 go.

Have any of you used similar strategies to simplify things?

Bb

One 300 WSM and one 223 would work.

Yeah, that's why I don't have a .24 caliber anything anymore.

What do you own in a 240? A Roy?

You got rid of the best 2!


ddj

about 4 years ago i developed a rule - if i haven't hunted with a center fire rifle the 2 past seasons, i sell it or give it to my kids. i'm down to 4 cf rifles now, and would give my son one of my two 270's if he would take it, but he has a safe full already. i can easily understand folks wanting a lot of rifles though.

I've sold off a bunch over the past few years just because I got sick of having guns stuck in every nook, cranny, corner and closet in the house. About all I ever use anymore are the .22, .223, .243 and .30-30.

I agree with the bullet diameter theory. I have 3 rifles that shoot 308 diameter bullets and one that shoots .223 and to really simplify things I'm trying to talk Myself into selling My only other centerfire rifle which is a Mod 700 7 Rem Mag, your theory is sound but even after you made a few cuts your collection of rifle and handgun calibers is way more vast than mine ever was.................Hb

Strategy? Owning at least one rifle in every 0.5mm increment?

I listed all the calibers I didn't have like 17, 19, 20, 23, 29, 333, 348, 366, 416, 424,480 etc. and got rid of those first. I am good to go for awhile on the others. Magnum man

Heck, that sounds like a worthy goal!

Sell any gun that you would not buy if you did not have one just like it and you were offered it at %75 of what you could sell it for.

Sounds like exactly the same problem I have managing MY "condition" but I don't want to be cured!!!

I seem to buy a new rifle ever other year and now it is getting out of hand. I have a .223, .243, 6mm Rem, 7mm08, 280, 7mm Rem Mag, .308, and 338 Federal. Next up, 25-06! I am thinking about selling the 7mm-08, 7mm rm, and 338 Federal. But then again, I would like a Rem 7600 in .243! The sickness continues.......

"Thinning the gun herd"? I have absolutely NO idea what you're talking about.

Kinda' like when Napoleon Dynamite asked if the chickens had large talons.....

i keep threatening it but i'll never actually go through with it...

I'd still go out of my skull with this lineup.

In 1994-5 my lineup was similar....I dumped everything except a single 270 Winchester, but realized the errors of my ways and got my 375H&H back.Forget varmint rifles, cause they are playthings,so whatever off beat cartridge suits your needs,you should have those,because they get shot a lot and the trigger time is good.A 223 makes tons of sense.

YMMV but for my BG hunting, 40 years of kicking around North America hunting taught me I needed a lightweight bolt gun (#1) with a 22" barrel chambered for a general purpose standard case cartridge between 270 and 30 caliber,ie., "read" 270, 280,or 30/06. This rifle is handy enough and serves in Maine whitetail thickets,Wyoming or Utah mountains,Alberta cutlines, and open plains on anything from pronghorn antelope to elk.Any of them will slay a moose or grizzly, too,if you bump into these.

Ideal? No maybe not; but like any general purpose items,they cover a lot of ground.With todays bullets on the bulk of NA game there is not enough difference in terminal effect between the three to spit on.

Next up is another "all-rounder",in a slightly heavier rifle, with 24" barrel slinging slightly heavier bullets, at somewhat higher velocity for flat trajectory,and a bit more power than the three stated above.A Big 7mm or Big 30...had both,and used them extensively.I ditched the Big 30's after years of use.Rifle weight and excessive recoil precludes them for me anymore, excellent though they may be.They aren't needed.

So make #2 a Big 7mm for me.If you have one, you don't need any 6.5's of similar capacity.

For #3,I need some more bullet weight,but blow off ALL the mediums of any flavor until I hit the 375H&H in a light bolt gun......no 8mm's, 338's, 35's,9.3's etc....after owning and shooting many of them,I still don't know what any of these are for..Historically they have been hanging around.None of them do a thing you can't do with a 375H&H and todays bullets.

I can load it down to 35 Whelen levels(if I want but what's the point in that?),or 9.3x62 levels(so I don't need them either);or push a 250 gr Bitterroots at over 2900 fps.(I scratch my head at a recent thread where someone was loading a 9.3x62 to firewall levels to get more velocity from it.....for what? Get a 375H&H!

There is nothing on the Continent the 375 will not handle easily,and shoots with the same trajectory as many 270, 280 or 30/06,and 338 loads.It also kills like a champ.

I can see little reason for a 338 of any sort unless you are a LR specialist with a 12 pound rifle cambered for a 338 Lapua, or RUM,and a Nightforce scope.But this is a specialzed rig, not general purpose, and I wonder, who carries that on foot in mountain country? I don't have a need for that kind of rifle.So,for me there is no excuse for any medium other than a 375H&H with modern bullets.

If Africa looms,and it will,I make the jump to 300 gr bullets.

I don't need anything else.

I gotta quit reading your posts. You make way too much sense, and the inner loony cringes at making sense.

+10 on that, I have been in self denial and quietly trimming my own pistol herd, shotguns and rifles are next on the list when I can steel myself to it.Geez did I really say that. Magnum Man

Nothing Pi$$es me off in quite so special a way, as someone who can make perfect sense, while telling the truth, based not on conjecture, but experience, and having it go so sideways against my own ideas and convictions.

Dammit man.

Seriously though, I could definitely streamline my own choices, but some of the ones in the safe were gifts, and although I don't hunt with them, they will always have a home.

As of today, I don't have "my own" rifle for hunting. I have been picking them up for my wife and my son for the past couple of years, and I have traded around and traded out of the last one that I called "mine".

Truth told, I now enjoy guiding them on their hunts over taking deer myself. Maybe soon, I'll run up on a rifle that brings me around again.