I am going to buy a dedicated elk rifle. I prefer wood with a blued barrel or a stainless barrel but am concerned that hunting in snow could cause problems. What do you prefer on your elk rifles for hunting in snowy country? Would be best advised to go with stainless/synthetic? Will a wood/blued combination give me a lot of headaches out on a hunt with regard to upkeep? I don't have any experience hunting in snow.

Thanks.

My dedicated elk rifle from 1971 to 2003 was a blued barrel and action and walnut stock. I killed 29 elk with that rifle. It started out as a .30-06, then was converted to .30 Gibbs in about 1977. I also used it on two back pack mountain goat hunts, two Montana moose hunts, and an Alaskan peninsula Caribou hunt.

These hunts were in all types of Colorado and Montana weather and included at least 12 horse pack-in hunts in a leather saddle scabbard. This rifle saw it's share of Montana blizzards.

There are places where the bluing has worn off from carrying and from rubbing in the leather scabbard, but I always kept the metal lightly oiled and the muzzle taped, so there aren't any rust spots. I originally finished the stock with Tru oil, and would give it a coat of stock wax before each trip out.

My dedicated elk rifle now is a blued Weatherby Vanguard in .300 Wby with a AA Fancy walnut stock. I also have a foul weather elk rifle in 7mm Rem mag that is a stainless barrel and action in a factory Remington plastic stock. So far my stainless 7mm has seen more elk hunting than my blue .300.

Kurt, Bet your not parting with that old Gibbs anytime soon...when they get that many miles on them its like they're a part of you..

264Guy:

I have hunted in the Western U.S. with wood/blue rifles starting in 1963 and never had a problem with rust.

I spent a year using a blue/synthetic rifle in the jungle, including during monsoon, and never had any problems. We were pretty anal about keeping our rifles clean and well oiled and pretty much never saw the inside of a warm building.

I've been on five Alaska hunts and on every one the barrel got a little patina on it. I didn't have any problems in the field. I noticed the rust only after the hunt was over. My guess is that moisture condensed on the cold barrel upon entering a warm building, like maybe an airport terminal.

I'm tired of re-blueing barrels so I recently bought a T/C Icon Weathershield. It's ugly but it's accurate, and reliable, and it's not going to rust.

KC

Yeah, Pat, the old Gibbs served me well for a long time. Unfortunately, that '03 bull was probably the last for the Gibbs. The following year I had an overload fire forming some brass, and swelled the chamber. To fix it, the gunsmith had to cut about an inch off the barrel and re-cut the chamber. It just didn't perform the same after that.

The bright side was, it gave me an excuse to build the .300 Weatherby.

Are you day hunting, where you go home each night and can clean and dry your rifle, or will you be sleeping out for 10-15 days straight?

You'll be fine with either, but if it were me, and I could only have one, I'd go with SS/Syn because, however unlikely of it actually happening, you're more likely to bust a wood stock over a plastic one. That being said, I love my blued/wood .35 Whelen!

Been hunting with a blue/walnut Rem 700 since 1978. Killed approx 45 animals (mule deer, whitetails, elk). Have hunted in all kinds of weather. Two years ago was a weeklong pack trip in WY. No rust ever. Only problem is that rifling is getting thin. Its replacement is a Win 70 LH 300WSM that I just bought. Have been thinking about a new tube for that Remmy though in 338-06.
John

They all work, but if your going to buy a new one it's hard to find a reason not to buy stainless/synthetic IMO.
I have and use both, but my "go to" rifles these days are SS/SYN.

I have a Remington 700 Classic in .264. I could easily find another one in a great caliber like 30-06, 35 whelen, 7mag or 350 Rem Mag for elk and I know I would feel "comfortable" with the rifle because I love the stock dimensions of the Classics. I was just concerned that I might have a little trouble keeping up with a blued rifle in snowy/rainy weather.

Mines a Stainless .375 Ruger Alaskan with the Hogue stock replaced with the standard Ruger synthetic stock. Weighs just 7-3/4 lbs and put's Hornady 300 RNs into 3/4" at 100. Scope is a fixed Leupold 2-1/2 power.

264guy �

Wood and blue will work fine. I recommend floating the barrel, though. Take the action off and thoroughly wax the stock and action, then reassemble.

I�ve hunted Colorado elk since 1982, always with blued steel and with the exception of one year when I hunted with my Ruger �canoe paddle� .300 WM, wooden stocks. A little moisture doesn�t hurt. Rain is much worse than snow.

That said, I bought the �canoe paddle� Ruger for bad weather. That was probably just an excuse, though, as I had wanted a .300 WM for years.

For elk in the Rockies or SW I would not worry about using a wood/blue rifle. The climate is dry enough that even if it snows, it's still dry. That may not make sense, but that's my experience, having lived in Colorado.

If you're talking a dedicated elk rifle for the Pacific Northwest then stainless might become a better option.

I have a bunch of dedicated "elk" rifles that I mainly shoot rock chucks and bunnies with anymore. The only SS/SY rifle I own is a 340 Wby, the rest are all wood/blue. I have never had a problem with rust or stock swelling, but I don't hunt rain forests. I hunt in plenty of falling snow though and have never felt handicapped.

Looks like you have several people saying "no problem with wood or blued metal." That has not been my experience.

In about 1987 I bought a blued Ruger 77 with a wood stock in .300 win mag to hunt elk with. Elk season 1989 I spent in the coast range of SW Oregon. I verified sight in on Nov 9. On Nov 11 I hunted hard. It rained over 4 inches that day and I spent most of it thrashing through a huckleberry, blackberry, and dog hair fir jungle of a canyon that'd been clearcut in the 50s and was "grown up a bit." Returning home, I learned that my grandmother had seen some "big deer" and right at dusk I was able to see them in binocs ... not deer, elk. At daylight on Nov 12 I was 150 yard from the herd laying over the top of a big douglas fir stump with a beautiful, steady rest. When a legal bull stepped out of the bunch so I had clear shot, I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and torched off a shot lobbing a 180 grain protected point partition towards his heart. All hell broke loose, elk went every which direction. All but one which was laying there flat as a fritter. It was dead so fast because it had a broken neck.

Why do I know the dates so well? That was my first elk and it came on my birthday! Cool birthday present, don't you think?

Because the rest had been so steady, that shot placement bothered me. A couple days later I went to the range to check my sights. I was off 12 MOA horizontally. Since we'd paced off the shot at 150 yards, and the hit was 18 inches from the aim point, it all makes sense. I just got lucky. If the elk had been facing the other way I'd have made a serious gut shot.

Rather than change the sights, since I didn't expect to be hunting with that rifle for a while, I left it, but re-checked the sights occasionally. Eventually the stock dried and the point of impact returned to the point of aim.

That was an illuminating moment. I won't hunt with a one piece wood stock again except in the very driest of conditions and even then only with frequent (daily) re-verification of sight-in.

Aside from my muzzleloader which doesn't shoot very good to begin with, I shoot laminates and synthetics only on guns that see wet weather. I prefer stainless, I will use blued metal, I like plain wood just fine on a lever action or single shot with a 2 piece stock, but I won't do plain wood on bolt action guns with a one piece stock.

Tom

Interesting thread. I couldn't bear the thought of putting a big ugly black plastic thing on the custom Mauser I'm building, so I bought an unfinished Fajen walnut stock for it. It just seems to be a more appropriate match for the rifle.

But I do hunt in the PNW, in the rain. I hunt from home, so I can clean and dry things every night, but I guess my question would be what kind of finish should I put on the stock to keep the weather issues under control? I was liking the idea of some kind of oil/pine tar finish rather than a shiny hard varnish that just gets all scratched up. What kind of floating job should I be thinking of?

??

Of course such things are easily prevented..

Ok, confound me with your wisdom. I'm waiting ...

264guy,

I hunt a very wet climate and didn't start buying big game rifles until 10 years ago, and so I've always bought stainless with some sort of synthetic stock (laminate, fiberglass, plastic).

Ignoring cosmetics and finish durability for a moment, from a purely functional standpoint, synthetic or laminate stocks are more stable than walnut, on average. TOM's story is a good illustration of this.

I love the look and feel of blues steel and walnut, and should you go that route others here can give great advice on how to modify (float and bed) and seal up that stock for maximum function. Plus, if it were mine, I'd do all that and then put it in the shower for an hour, wait a day, then verify the sight-in....

Or, do what I do. Buy stainless in a synthetic stock of some type and remove an entire realm of maintenance and worry from your mind.

FWIW, if you like the feel of wood in your hands (har har), laminate works great. They tend to be a bit heavy though. Fiberglass is the "best" stock material- like a McMillan or M700 Ti takeoff stock. Plastic is the "worst" material, tending to be more flexible than we'd like to see, but I can report that the plastic stock on my M700 XCR is a model of stability and repeatability and so on, so... they can work too.

All IMHO and IME, and good luck with whatever you choose!

Pillars and some bedding, free float style..revolutionary [bleep] for sure

I've never had anything rust or corrode from snow. Rain, maybe. Sweat and dust, yes.
Frankly, even carrying a semi auto pistol inside my waistband w/o a holster during the hot summer months where the gun would get soaking wet, I found that wiping it down with a reasonably fresh silicon rage works wonders. May take the bluing down after a few years, but none of mine rusted.
Since I insist on hunting with a fouled bore, I prefer stainless, but have never had any of carbon steel barrels corrode.
I like synthetic stocks if they are lighter, especially in the butt section, than wood. Saves weight and moves the balance point forward which allows me to shoot better.
Last of all, while I dearly love nice wood, I hate seeing my nice walnut stocks getting beat up in the places where I hunt. So, that's another reason to use synthetic stocks. However, if I ever hunt under more civilized conditions, I may have to get a nicely stocked rifle just for that. E

Blued 338/06 in a Model 70 with a Bell and Carlson stock.

It definitely works ... sometimes. I've seen it fail often enough I won't count on it. Depends on the piece of wood the factory gave you to start with. Just as steel with residual stresses can change shape and push groups around or have them open up or shrink as the metal heats and cools, wood can also have residual "stresses" that shrink and grow unevenly as the wood gets damp and dries. Get a stock made from good wood that's relatively consistent through the stock blank and what you're suggesting may do fine. Get wood that is not so consistent and it doesn't work worth a [bleep] sometimes. Your luck getting nicer wood may be better than mine. I've had special order factory rifles show up with wood that looks like it came off the lumber pile at the mill rather than wood meant for gun stocks. What we call "pond dried" 2x4s.

Tom

A lot does depend on the wood. How many years has it been drying, was it kiln dried, what was the moisture content when it was made into a stock, how straight are the grains and what direction do they run....

Was it properly sealed? If wood is not sealed properly it allows moisture to be absorbed and swelling occurs.

It also depends where you hunt. Coastal areas (like parts of Oregon and Alaska) are hell on steel. Some from the salt air, some from condensation that occurs in a humid environmet and going from cold/ very cold to warm temps.

Colorado surprises people with its very low humidity. Even the snow here tends to be "dry". As long as you don't expose your rifle to a constant stream of water, wood should be no problem.

264guy: I have Hunted Big Game for 25 years now with my Remington 700 Classic in caliber 7mm Remington Magnum!
It and its Leupold 3.5x10 scope have been out in all manner of adverse even hellaciously adverse weather!
I have Hunted Mt. Goat, spring and fall Black Bear, Elk, Antelope and 3 kinds of Deer with it!
It looks just about as good today as it did before it went to Alaska and all over the west!
Yes you must simply take along on your Hunt a simple cleaning kit!
I hope in fact YOU do find a Remington 700 Classic in 7mm Remington Magnum - they are a handsome and VERY universal Big Game Hunting Rifle!
Best of luck come Elkin time.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Thanks Varmitguy,

I think a 7Mag Classic would do me just fine or maybe a 30-06,

06 kill's em just fine.

These are non-issues with laminate, plastic, and glass stocks...

Face it, walnut and blued steel are obsolete!

(ducking for cover.....)

I use both wood/blue and syn/ss. Bear in mind that stainless steel is not throughly corrosion proof and should be wiped with at least Remoil or the like after use particularily after time spent in the rain or snow. If you hunt horseback insist on or better yet purchase a high quality scabbard that preferably fits your rifle and scope. Chap leather lining is best on the inside of stiff cowhide. This system protects your rifle from dings and the elements to some degree depending upon the design and how you place it on your horse. Such a custom made scabbard will cost $300 to $500 but if you hunt off horses much you will soon discover that it is worth the price. Never ever use one of the fleece lined cloth scabbards as they gather horse sweat and will rust your rifle in a day. You will be amazed how wet your favorite old pre'64 M-70 in .264 is when you yank it our of that cloth bag come time to unsaddle. You will be as mad as a mashed rattlesnake. Actualy an old well worn scabbard is usually a decent choice if you oil it with Bick-4 or something similiar. A poorly fitting scabbard will allow your rifle to jiggle and rub the bluing in short order. As much as I love my wood and blue rifles I have to confess that I prefer the synthetic and stainless best. From 1970 to 1990 you couldn't give me one. Then I had a .338 so built and realized the merits of that combination for following elk in the rough Rockies.

Blue and wood will work-and so will wool, unlined leather boots and two wheel drive pick-ups. But, there are a lot of upgrades in equipment available today that have fewer maintenance issues, provide comfort and safety as well as utility beyond what was provided by the historic tools of the sport. In my view, stainless/synthetic rifles are an upgraded hunting tool that reduces a lot of the fussing and feuding that I went through with blue/wood rifles during long wet hunts. I have blue and stainless walnut stocked rifles, and I like and use them. But if it storming hard or I am wall tenting miles from the trail head, you will find a stainless/synthetic rifle in my hands. CP.

I would go with the SS/Synthetic option. I have both and rarely hunt the one piece wood stocked ones in bad weather.

At the very least I would run a synthetic stock.

I had a wood stock on a pre-64 FW'06 freeze on me and change the zero. I had hunted it the week before on the coast.

I like to hunt blacktails in the rain and have geared up accordingly... when I get home with a soaked rifle at night, I lean it in the corner by the woodstove (not too close). That's it. Then back in the rain the next day.

When I hold a fine blued/walnut rifle I appreciate the nice qualities they have. And they do have a real patina to them that a stainless/synth rifle won't ever posess. Good, honest wear on a quality tool, be it a rifle, guitar, or a hammer, shows the investment and appreciation that the owner made in the item.

So that's all cool. But, in the end, as much as I hunt in the rain, the practical considerations of rust and pitting, moving zero, and so just make the choice pretty obvious for me..

But western Oregon ain't Colorado, and an all-day drizzle ain't dry Rocky Mtn powder.

I'll just stick to what I said before. If the OP is worried about a shifting zero, put the rifle in the shower for 30 minutes, wait a day, and shoot it. Just see for yourself if there is a problem. and if you can't stomach putting the gun in the shower (I'd put any of my hunting guns in a frikkin' BATH with no worries) then perhaps that answers the question right there...

Never tried the shower trick.
Of course, I hunt in pretty dry country compared to you, Jeff.

I have a hunch my Montana and 700LSS would pass with flying colors, however.

Seems like a reasonable test for a rifle, IF a guy is worried about it pre-season.

I like hunting in the rain because it levels the playing field down to my level <grin>!

I don't mind hunting in the rain, but I don't get much practice with it.
I think that Montana would be up to the challenge, though.

It'll get little spots but the rain won't hurt it functionally. That's my prediction.

Here's a picture of me in the shower with my rifles:

I have gotten a few spots of rust on the trigger-guard on that Montana, from my sweaty hands, I would guess.
Perspiration is pretty corrosive!

Well since 1996 a Sako 75 SS in 338 been my go to rifle and since 2006 a Blaser R-93 in 7mm Remington Mag. I expect a rifle to get looking like its been carried and shot. What would be the point if you don't? Each one of my current rifles has a story to tell, each little ding or worm bluing or surface rust tells the tale of hunts that have very successful and abject failures. This is not to say my rifles are abused in any way or manner, more like a pair of good boots, broken in worn and well cared for.

if i hunted the rain forests of washington/oregon i'd use s/s. everyplace else i'd use wood/blue.

I built a lot of dedicated elk rifles back in the 80's but my favorite back then was a 300 Win Mag on a M70 action with stainless 24" barrel and Brown Precision stock. It went everywhere,horseback, foot,all over.Worked great.

I've hunted elk with wood/blue,too.

The best solution is to have both....today though,as back when I got my first synthetic along about '79-'80,it is hard to beat the utility of a stainless synthetic.

I've used both. Nowadays all my elk rifles are stainless and synthetic stocked.

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