I read something about 6.5X55 being the most popular caliber in Sweden and 30-06 the most popular in Finland,I'd like to know more about what they use,rifles,optics and ammo?

Lots of Tikkas, Sakos, and Norma ammunition I would bet.

I cannot even conjecture on Sweden and Finland, as have ot hunted there. But have hunted in Norway, with a bunch of average guys who worked for a silicon-chip factory along the coast. They had access to company lands.

By far the most common rifle was a cheaper version of the Remington 700 that I gathered was made for sale in Europe. The most common chambering was .308, though there were also some .30-06's. One guy carried a "sporterized" 98 Mauser in 8x57. Did not see a 6.5x55, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. Saw an older Sako or two.

Most of the scopes were a cheaper Euro brand called a Nikko, as I recall. Saw a Tasco or two as well, but none of the more expensive scopes such as Leupold or Swarovski.

Ammo tended toward Norma and Remington. There were also a couple of more obscure European brands that I hadn't heard of and haven't seen since. Several of the guys were handloaders, and used Norma or Nosler bullets. Both were available from local gun shops.

Visited a couple of gunshops and found about the same selection. In Bergen I saw the very first box of Swift A-Frames that I'd even seen in a store: 400-grain .416's!

This was 10 years ago, so things may have changed. And the guys I hunted with were definitely wokring-class.

JB

Hello,
I'm a Swede that has been shooting and hunting in Sweden for 20+ years now and during that time I've seen some changes in the preferences of my fellow swedish hunters.

First of all it's important to understand that there's some major differences between different parts of my country. In the southern parts of our Sweden there�s a lot of deer hunting as well as boar and moose hunting, whereas the nortern parts has a lot lees deer and boars but they do have good moose hunting as well as bears (at least in some areas). I do believe that the average hunter in the southern parts spend a lot more money on his (or her) hunting equipment compared to hunters in the north. The leases for hunting areas are also more expensive in the southern parts of the country.

Anyway the most popular rifles here are probably Sako, Tikka and Huskvarna but you will also see a lot of german guns such as Blaser and Sauer as well as american guns e.g. Remington, Winchester and Ruger.

(I would like to add that the german guns that Mule Deer has written about in rifle over the last years such as german mausers, drillings and double guns are also quite popular.)

The kind of optics that hunters use varies a lot depending on the kind of hunting they do, but it's a safe bet to say that during the last 10 years people have started to spend more money on their optics then what they used to do.
Deer and boars are commonly hunted in low light situations (as in dusk or dawn) and that's when high quality optics really makes a difference.Popular choices would be Zeiss, Swarovski, Helia, Kahles or Schmidt & Bender If your main quarry are moose or bears the optics are less critical and you�ll see a lot of budget scopes as well as a lot of Leupold.
Due to legislation (we are only entitled to 6 hunting guns here in Sweden) you'll see a lot of rifles with detachable scopemounts and two (or more) scopes. For the same reason switch barrel rifles such as Blaser R93 and Sauer 202 and similar guns have become more popular during the last 10 years.

Regarding ammunition, Norma is the hands down choice for the majority of Swedish hunters but Lapua are popular as well. For practice and our "running moose" training sessions people prefer the cheapest possible ammunition thats available. Handloading is also popular among Swedish hunters and shooters even though the vast majority will use factory fodder when it's time to go hunting.

Our choce of chamering might differ from your "Joe Average" as we tend to put less faith in speed and the magnums are not as popular here as I get the impression that they are in the US. We have also seen a trend where 6.5x55 is losing in popularity (at least in sales of new guns) and what used to be "the big three" 30-06, 308 win and 6.5x55 are now dominated bu the first two rounds.
Fortunately we have a tendency to document and analyze everything in our country which means that there's at least some official statistics available. I have two different documents available, the first one where are the statistics regarding 8760 mooses.
Unfortunately I'm not able to put them in a decent table when I post them but hopefully it will still make some sense


The second document is regarding 6167 mooses shot in an area in northern Sweden between 1990 and 1997. I will try to explain the figures first, eg

30-06 1938 1.5 43 this means that there where 1938 mooses shot with a 30-06 each moose took an average of 1.5 shots to go down and the average moose travelled 43 meters after the shot. So here come the figures:

Obviously the chamberings at the bottom of the list are only used by one or maybe two shooters and the statistics tell us more about their shooting abilities then it does about their choosen gun.

I would like to apologize for the bad english and for the fact that my post became pretty long in the end. But if any of you guys have any further questions about hunting or guns here in Sweden I will be more than happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

Henrik

Good post Henrik.Thanks.

Henrik,
Very informative and interesting post. Welcome to the fire.

Steve

Thank you for your welcoming, but I have actually been a member for some time even though I have not contributed the way I should have.

Even though there might be a lot of differences between your way of hunting and mine I have always found it really instructive and interesting to learn about other hunters and shooters and to hear their point of view.

Best regards,
Henrik

Henrik,

Thank you for your very informative and interesting post. It's always good to hear from hunting and shooting brothers from countries other than one's own. Your English is just fine - actually better than some Americans I know.
_

Your English is great. Do not be afraid to post more.

Henrik,

Great post! I recently purchased a Husqvarna rifle (that was made in 1930) chambered for the 9.3x57 cartridge so I found your post about hunting in Sweden and the hunting statistics very interesting. Thanks for sharing that information.

Here's a photo of the rifle:


Cheers!
-Bob F.

Very interesting information Henrik. Thanks for sharing it and welcome to the Campfire.


HBB

I'd also like to thank you Henrik for your contribution. Your English is very good, better than many people who have it as their first language. Please post more often, as it's really interesting to get a different perspective on things - particularly from people living and hunting across the ocean.
I look forward to reading more about your experiences in Sweden.

Henrick, I too thank you for your posting; I did a lot of shooting while stationed in Oslo, Norway but did not have an opportunity to hunt. One of the interesting things brought out by your tables is that of the top three calibers; the 30-06, 6.5x55, and .308, the 308 beat out the 06 and the 6.5 in average shots required as well as distance traveled. I don't know about the rest of the CF members, but that threw me for a loop. Makes me glad I ordered an 308 barrel along with the 6CM for my custom switch barrel project. Please do continue to post, I and many others, I'm sure, look forward to learning about hunting in other countries.

Jim

Henrik,you possibly can tell from my forum name what my favorite rifles are. I own three and one or the other have been my primary hunting rifle for about 30 years. I do own other guns including some nice pre-WWII Remingtons. From what I read, I respect the Scandinavian style of hunting. The main reason for this post is I think the statistics you post are very informative and could possibly teach us some real lessons in choice of cartridges. I wish we had similar data from American hunters on American game.

thanks, henrik.
you scandinavian guys get wonderful idomatic english instruction.
in school, i presume?
but where do you practice your english? with one another? with visiting english speakers?
keep posting.

Henrik Thanks so much for your posting please keep it up. No problem with your English wished everyone was as clear.
One cartridge you mentioned is of particular interest to me.
That is the 358NM. Do you shoot or have shot one? What is your
impression of this cartridge? Thankyou for your time
Northcountry

Henrik with the others welcome! If I spoke Swedish as well as you speak English I would be dang proud of my foreign language ability.

Henrik,

With the others, I'd like to thank you for your very interesting (and well-written) post. You should post more! After all, this is very much an international forum.

Sincerely,
John Barsness

Henrick:

Your written English is quite, quite good. Better, in fact, than that of many, many Americans. You have nothing to apologize for.

Do you have any thoughts about why the 6.5x55 is becoming less popular in your country?

- TJM

Thank you all.Henrick,thank you,you did a great job.It's me who should apologize for my English,I'm from NJ.I think we all learned a lot from your post and would like very much to learn more about hunting and living in Sweden as well as the rest of Scandinavia.

Notice those low recoil, short action shooters,(308) got off a followup shot more often before the animal went down. 1.7 compared to 1.5. Could this be what shortened the distance traveled? Still can't get the warm fuzzy for the .308...

Great Post Henrik! Very informative.

What kind of Knives to the Swedes tend to use?................DJ

Thank you all for the extremely generous welcoming!


I should do my very best to contribute to this forum to the best of my ability. Over the years that I have been reading what American writers have written and also what have been written on different forums on the Internet. I have learned a great deal from that but I have also come to understand that the way we hunt and how we reason differs a lot from hunters in different parts of the world, if we are to learn from each other we need to keep an open mind. If I in any way can contribute to that I will be very proud.

There are a lot of different aspects to how we in Sweden (and Scandinavia) choose the chambering of our guns. One thing that has become obvious is that we put less emphasis on speed then what you do in America, in my opinion there are several reasons for this but that should be a subject for another post.

I should comment a bit on the surveys and some recent trends.
First you need to understand that the subject of both surveys is our Swedish moose hunt. Annually we shoot about 100 000 mooses in Sweden and there�s about 300 000 registered hunters here. 6.5x55 is the least powerful cartridge that�s allowed for moose hunting as well as most other big game hunting (the exception being roedeer, the smallest and also most common deer in Sweden which can be taken with rounds as gentle as 222 rem). The average shooting distance is less than 100m (probably between 60-80m) and we normally hunt moose together in hunting parties where the elder and more experienced tend to influence the younger hunters a lot. So as a collective we are less prone to follow the newest trends even though there are obviously exceptions to this. Some of my older fellow hunters still consider the 308 win a novelty that has not yet proven itself (even though it has been our service cartridge for more than 40 years).


Another thing to take into consideration is that it is more or less mandatory to practice on our running moose, which is shoot at 80m going 6m/s (or 18 fps). A lot of our hunting parties train together both as a social event and to make sure that everyone is up to par. In order to do that a lot of the training facilities require that you use FMJ as softpoints may fragment and damage the acoustic targets that are getting more common every year now. For this reason Norma has always marketed a budget line of ammunition with FMJ�s in the most common chambering in boxes of 50 cartridges. This has had a great impact on what chambering the new hunters chooses as well, the difference could easily be 2 $ per cartridge compared to ordinary hunting ammunition so if you shoot a couple of hundred shots during practice every year you will notice the difference.

Regarding the 6.5x55 and its recent drop in popularity there�s two main reasons for this, the first is legislation and our politicians. There has been legislation suggested that will ban all lead from hunting ammunition in Sweden (this includes rifle ammunition) in effect if that legislation was passed by parliament (at the moment it looks like that won�t happen) 6.5x55 will not be allowed for big game hunting due to the technical requirements. So there has been an insecurity regarding the future of 6.5x55 as a big game round.

The other reason is that the wild boars are getting more common every year and whereas 6.5x55 was judged as appropriate for mooses in most hunters view it lacks some power to effectively take a big boar (the kind that everyone dreams of both very few has actually seen). Instead we see a resurrection in chambering like 8x57, 9.3x62 and 9.3x74R.

When Swedish hunters wants to improve the power of their chambering they will look to upgrade in bullet weight and caliber but usually not in speed.
Usually we talk about two main powerlevels of big game cartridges here in Sweden, the first one are the normal big game cartridges such as 6.5x55, 308win and 30-06 which are considered by most experienced hunters as acceptable and the differences are more with the type of gun that you prefer then with the chambering itself. A lot of hunters nowadays want a more powerful rifle to complement to the former group. They will usually look as something like 358 Norma, the different 9.3�s or a 375 H&H but some will end up choosing something in between such as 8x57 or a 338 Win.

I have tried to keep this as objective as possible without trying to promote my own choices as I�m a rifle loony and not representative of the average hunter in any way.
A part from the discussion above hunting in Sweden is different in a lot ways. There�s almost no public land instead we lease hunting areas from the landowners, usually long time leases of at least five years. Most hunting in Sweden is conducting in hunting teams and we use dogs in a lot of different ways both before and after the shot. The meat hunters are in absolute majority and trophy hunters are not that common. There�s a lot of pressure not to wound any game that you don�t get and if you act irresponsible such as taking to big risks or shooting at game at ranges that you does not master you might find out that you are not welcome anymore.

Best Regards,
Henrik

I should try and answer some of the specific questions that you have asked.
Even though I'm a great fan of the 308win (after all I have trained at lot of soldiers in the use of that chambering ;)) the results of the surveys does not support the statement that the 308 win beats the 30-06 and 6.5x55 in average shots required as well as distance travelled. Actually both the surveys give the 308 an edge in distance traveled but it required a few more shots to get that edge.

Regarding the 358 Norma, that's a chambering that I have used in the past and one that I reckon to be a extremly effective chambering for big game. Unfortunately it has not been loaded with premium bullets in the factory offering until the last years and the poor performance of the factory loading has lead to the current situation where the 358 Norma mag is more or less a handloaders cartridge.

Knifes carried by Swedish hunters is a subject of its own but generally hunters here prefer a droppoint knife a la Loveless with a blade that's 3-4 inches.

About my english I have got some opportunity to train it both as an officer working together with english speaking colleagues and in recent years in my civilian career in international business. All Swedish kids learns english in school and most also learns a third language (german, french or spanish being the most popular).

Best Regards,
Henrik

In Finland by far the most popular all-round cartridge is .308. Bird hunters tend to gravitate towards .222, .223 or 6,5x55. Those who mostly hunt deer and moose typically choose .308, 30-06 or 9,3x62. Factory cartridges are most often Lapua, Sako or Norma, the rifles Tikka or Sako. Pretty boring actually, but boring tends to bring home the meat

Henrik,
That's more interesting information. I think it's very good advice, and it is the way I am going with my cartridge selection. Only problem, it cost me a lot of money to learn the lesson. I wish I had started hunting with some of those mentors! Anyway, I had fun and learned a lot along the way.

My Dad and I are currently moving up the power range from 6.5x55, 270, 308, and 30-06. We are working with a 9.3x62, and I have a 375 on the way. I can't wait to see the larger caliber rifles in action.

Steve

Ruistola,
Welcome to you as well. I really appreciate information from another perspective. Thanks for your input.

Steve

thanks, ruistola and henrik.
some choice posts there.
the swedish - and, i assume, finnish - hunting style is very similar to the way most southerners used to hunt for deer: small parties of older and younger hunters, using dogs and post/drive techniques. it was/is a big social thing.
thanks again, and welcome.

You have me wondering. I'm American, 49 years. Although not an english major, I struggle to write as well as you in my native language. Can I see some ID?

Gmack, what kind of ID would you prefer? I could try to pose with my car outside my house and send you a photo

Or if you could wait until Monday I could send a picture of myself and a typical swedish roe deer.

Best Regards,
Henrik

lol to funny..............please post the pic of the roe deer.....dont think ive seen to many pics of them

What ID?, my thought processes haven't gotten that far. You have nothing in your campfire profile so I wouldn't expect you to compromise privacy.

It's not important, great posts, good luck.

Here's my ID:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...&topic=0&Search=true#Post1486745

that's what i'm talkin' 'bout ...

My FIL hunted in Sweden a couple of times during the early 1970s and shot some sort of large grouse (Capercaillie?) with his (now my) Heym combination gun in 16 over 8x57JSR. I've seen pictures of the grouse and it looked to be quite a bit larger than an average Nebraska turkey. Do you shoot many of those big birds?

Jeff

Wherever we live and hunt we are all brothers as hunters. The world would be a better place if there where more things that like hunting bring us together.........................DJ

How about you next to a Swedish Girl with pig tails and a smile.
:-)

Conrad,
When I was stationed in Germany, me and two of my single lieutenant friends drove up to Stockholm and spent a few days. I guarantee you we tripped all over each other the entire time gawking at the gorgeous women. Let me assure that we hated to leave and took with us some memories that will NEVER fade.

Expat

Jeff, the Capercaillie is a bird that lives mainly in the northern part of Sweden whereas I live outside of Gothenburg in the southwest. During my time in the Sweedish army I was stationed in the northern part of sweden where I was lucky enough to shoot some capercaillie. The capercaillie is a pretty big bird that could easily weigh more than 10 pounds. They are either hunted during winter when they feed in the treetops and the hunter will usually try to find them as he is skiiing around in the forest. Alternatively they can be hunted with dogs in a similiar way as grouse or pheasants.

I will try to post some pictures from Sweden and our hunting on monday when I'm back.

Since my wife is darkhaired there will be nuo pictures of blond girls with pigtails

Best Regards,
Henrik

Gents,
I promised to deliever some kind of "ID" as to who I am. I'm not sure if this will suffice but I'll give it a shot.
Unfortunately I don't have a lot of pictures taken of myself but I'll show some that i got.

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222898.html[/img]
This is me and my son taken in our garden


[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222812.html[/img]
Thats a decent roebuck that I shot last season, Roedeer are pretty small creatures and the will weigh up to 50 lbs but they are ferocious out of proportion to their size. They are hunted with chamberings from 222 rem and upwards. Here in Sweden we get to hunt them from August 16 to January 31 (some areas also has a spring season).I don't have any pictures of myself together with roedeer from last season which means that I'll have to post an older picture of myself and an average roebuck

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222813.html[/img]

Later in the season will start to hunt together in huntingclubs and this is a picture of some of my friends during a coffebreak.

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222816.html[/img]

As Jeff asked about capercaillie I'll add an old picture of my best (as in heaviest) capercaille even though the picture might be 6-7 years old. The picture is taken in the northern part of Sweden which is where I was stationed when I was in the army.

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222811.html[/img]

In the area where I normally hunt the mooses are not as big as they tend to be in the northern parts of Sweden but we do have a lot of them. Moosehunting in Sweden is normally not trophyhunting as most hunters focus on the delicious meat instead and the goal is to shot 50% calves, 25% cows and 25% bulls. Normally I get to shot a couple of mooses every year but I have never shot a really big bull (even though I have shot a lot of mooses). But lets show some pictures

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12223345.html[/img]
This picture is of a cow and her calf taken in early september and I belive that I shot the same calf in mid december but then it was a bit bigger (see below).

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222814.html[/img]

I figure that the calf weighed around 300 lbs live weight at that time.

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12223347.html[/img]
Thats a picture of the best bull that I've ever taken (and that was 8-9 years ago).


[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222818.html[/img]
Since the different seasons often overlap and you do not need tags for most game animals we often get unexpected results, I shot this fallow deer when I intended to hunt moose.

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222817.html[/img]
We try to shoot foxes whenever we get an opportunity, this is my younger brother with a fox that he shot last season.

Another big game animal that is increasing in numbers as well as in popularity (among hunters not farmers ;)) are the wild boars I have added a couple of pictures of thoose as well.

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12222815.html[/img]

The last picture is showing a boar that I shot last season unfortunately I did not bring any camera so I had to take the picture with my cell phone

[img]http://www.pixbox.se/pic_show_id12223344.html[/img]

I will stop now since I don't want to be expelled because I show to many heavy pictures.

But please feel free to ask any questions that you might have, I'll try to answer them ASAP.


Best regards,
Henrik


For some reason the pictures will not show, this is a link to the photoalbum that I'm using.
Pixbox

Hi Henrik and Welcome
Are your rifle barrels from Germany still hammer forged? Most of the big hunting rifle makers in Europe hammer forge their barrels. Sako and Tikka in Finland, Heckler&Koch, Steyr and Sauer in Austria. Now,Ruger in the US make their barrels also like this. I guess it is the fastest method since you can produce a barrel in 3 mins including profiling/rifling. The quality although is poor. Is Huska also hammer forging?

I believe that the quality of a rifle barrels depends on a lot more then just if it's hammer forged, cut or button rifled. The attention and the knowledge put into the manufacturing process. I've seen some pretty impressive results from hammerforged barrels both in military sniping and in ordinary hunting guns.

So I'm curious of what you are basing your statement on?

Best regards,
Henrik

I'm basing my statement on that not a single hammer forged barrel is in the winners circle on any long range shooting competion in the USA. Could there be something to that? Correct me if I'm wrong anyone on the campfire.

That's probably correct, but then you'll not see any factory barrels at all in thoose winner circles will you?

I have seen quite a few 1/2 moa guns with hammer forged barrels (mostly Sako TRG's) but I do agree with your reasoning. For my own custom project I've choosed to install Borders Cut rifled barrelblanks right out of Scotland. So I'm not exactly putting my money where my mouth is .

Best regards,
Henrik

Very good choice. The Germans invented the hammer forging process because they couldn't produce barrels fast enough to keep up with the consumption of them on their machine guns.
Pretty well common knowledge. The reason I believe that this type of barrel is not used in competition is because of the heat generated by shooting so much that the barrel built in stresses from hammer forging make the barrel distort slightly. Of course they are good when cold shooting and I believe you about the capability of less than .5 MOA. Border single cut their rifling and lap with lead so you can be sure of a good result. Stress relieving the barrel after each step which will guarantee a good job. It would probably take several hours to produce the barrel you have chosen not even counting the 100 strokes of lapping in the procedure. Let me know how your project goes, I also am interested in Border products.

Hej Henrik

I used a Border barrel for my own custom rifle in .358 Norma Mag here in the north (Ume�). Great barrel! Extremely accurate, doesn't foul much, easy to clean... all one could ask for.

John

I believe the rotary forging machines and the foundations to mount them have such a high initial expense it prevents any small barrel maker from using them.

That's what I suspect as well.
There's no reason for any custom barrelmaker to invest hundredthousands of dollars just to save time as they are able to charge the end customer for their time anywqay.

As I said before, I've seen hammerforged barrels perform extremly well on both Sako TRG's as well as Mannlicher SSG's so I know that given a decent operator and good ammunition they will perform.

Regarding the barrels on Huskvarna I checked it with a former employee of Huskvarna and he said that the barrels cut at least to his knowledge.

Best Regards,
Henrik

Henrik, welcome to the forums and thank you for your input. I have relatives in Norway who live in a valley with a large moose population. It is my sincere hope to hunt with them some day and to also visit Sweden. Again, many thanks for your posts and the pictures. Ward

Henrik,
Welcome to the campfire, I really enjoyed reading your informative posts.

I know the rotary forge that Steyr had 25 years ago cost well over $1,000,000. The steel becomes work-hardened, but very hot from the zillions of hammer blows, and the cooling process can be controlled to control temper and annealing to some degree, before any other steps. Also, there is nothing to say that you cannot do a final broach cut or ceramic finishing operation on the bore.

When hunting in snow, do Swedish hunters use insulated clothing or mostly wool?

Forget all the myth about barrel making.

Just take a hammer forged barrel out of the box, shoot and enjoy.

Ruistola Just what breed of dog is your wife training
and you are using in some of the other pictures they
look a bit like water spaniels. Also welcome to the
forum. Always look forward to input from other parts
of the world. Thanyou, Cheers Northcountry

Henrik what is your project ,calibre, lenth of barrel etc.
When you say I have project you must tell what you are up to!!
I look forward to your reply with all of the details'
Cheers NC

Well, just to play Devil's Advocate a bit...

Unless you are interested in benchrest accuracy... (I don't happen to be interested in .01 inch differences that make the benchrest game, but there is a reason hammer-forged barrels don't dominate benchrest competition.

Unless you want a custom twist not readily available in a hammer-forged barrel (which I did: standard twists in .35 cal are slower than what I wanted)

Unless you want a bore-size a little larger or tighter than standard (I specified a slightly tighter bore to let me better shoot .357 handgun bullets better in my .358 Norma Mag -- I like shooting big bores for practice, but cheaply!

Unless you find available hammer-forged barrels too heavy in contour. Hammer-forged barrels often don't take kindly to being turned down to a lighter contour for a custom rifle -- the residual stresses from the forging sometimes causing problems. In contrast, cut rifled barrels can be turned down quite drastically...

All joshing aside, I totally agree that there is a lot of "mythconceptions" among hunters regarding barrels, and I do agree that hammer-forged barrels are certainly accurate enough for virtually all hunting applications, but they are "one size fits all".

Part of the satisfaction of having a custom rifle is having it exactly the way you want it -- including the inside of the bore! Neither forged, nor button-rifled bores offer the flexibility that a cut-rifled barrel maker can offer. Sako hammer-forged barrels are readily available (at least here in Sweden!) and great value because they often shoot extremely well, but they don't offer much flexibility.

Having said all that, I must admit that most of my past and present rifles had forged barrels and shoot better than I can in any hunting condition...

Of course, if I had any common sense I'd just shoot a factory rifle with its factory barrel and never spend any money on a custom rifle anyway!

Thanks,

They are cocker spaniels.

Hey Du Svenska Devils Advocate - almost all the stuff you wrote is true - but mostly true is your last sentence.

Serious - cold hammer forged barrels were never as excellent as today. In the shooting seminars I do, and during the tests for my magazine, we use many test rifles. In the last 5 or 6 years I simply can't remember one hunting rifle with an inert accuracy potential of not better than 1/2 MOA, given the right factory fodder and using proper mounts and decent sopes. Handloads improve even more. I'm talking mostly Blaser, Mauser, Sauer rifles with the occasional Sako, Tikka, Steyr, and Brno.

ROE_DEER:

Indeed, my shooting hobby is almost completely unencumbered by common sense!

Nice chatting with you -- and pulling your leg a bit... We don't disagree on much, judging from your other posts that I've read!

John

great chart and info on hunting in Sweden. a bit of a bucket list item for me. Another 'rifle loony' here as well Henrik.

Wow. 11 years. Neat seeing some old names and reading some the posts.

^^^^^^
I agree with you,although I have rifles with cut rifled barrels my latest acquisition is Tikka in 6.5 Creedmore .Before I shot it I cleaned the barrel and scoped it.It looked as good as any new Cut rifled barrel I have owned.I was more than pleasantly surprised.I cleaned it because I now Dyna bore coat all my rifle barrels.(Yes it really does work and is that good!!!)This is a most interesting thread,Huntz

Although Henrik originally posted the data in 2007, I wonder if there is more recent data available? Interesting to see the trends.

Old thread!!

Yes, an old thread, but, a lot of insightful info from Henrik on Swedish hunting and cartridge choices. He needs to post some more. After his and others posting in '07, it gave me a better appreciation of my 7x57. Not that it was mentioned a lot, but, you know, just because.

I like old threads.