How long with your primary gun?

[gspn]

I hunt whitetail deer in the south. I've used one rifle/scope setup since I started hunting roughly 20 years ago.

I've added a bunch of guns to the collection since then, but when rifle season is in...I hunt with the same gun all the time. I hunt with other guns during the primitive weapon season but during rifle it's always my A-Bolt in 7 mag.

Assume for the moment we are talking only about the regular rifle season...how many guns do you use? Same gun all the time? Switch them up?

I'll probably be using a pistol a few times this year...that will be the first time I've not taken the A-bolt during gun season.

 

[witchhunter]

In 1972 I bought a brand new Ruger 77 in .25/06. I used until the barrel went away in 1995. Then I bought a Remington 700 in .25/06 and used it until 2000. I had my Ruger rebarreled to .257 Weatherby and have used it since. It feels like an old friend. Shoots the same bullet, a 115 Nosler Partition, just 300 fps faster.

 

[gspn]

It feels like an old friend.

I know exactly what you mean by that.

 

[ldlfh7]

I switch between my Savage 110 in 308 and Win model 94. Sometimes I feel like setting up longer shots over open territory and other times I prefer close quarters in the brush. Depends how I feel that morning.
Every once in a blue moon I take the single barrel shotgun with a foster slug. Always fun to switch it up IMO.

 

[Carolina Kalash]

Hopefully I'll be happy with the next rifle I get. I plan on spending a bit more and getting something nicer than the cheap walmart guns I've had. Killed my first deer with one of them, A walmart R700 ADL in .270 Winchester, I like the 700 but that one just looked and felt cheap to me. I got rid of it the summer after that season. Despite that, I wish I'd have kept it since I got my first kill with it Probably would've let my kids use it when/if I have any and they get old enough to hunt. The next season I got a used Winchester M70 PF Synthetic in .300 Win Mag and a Bushnell 3x9x40 for $350. Shot okay but felt, also had a blind magazine like the ADL I had, I don't care for blind magazines at all, I only got that cause it was a decent price and needed something to hunt with. Got rid of that thing not too long after that season was over. Haven't hunted in the 2 years since then, due to enlisting in the Air Force, but now that I actually get a half decent paycheck, I can get something nice that I'll hang on to for years and years down the road.

 

[Citadel99]

I rotate. Mostly between my Cooper in 300 Win Mag and a Model 700 in 7mm-08. But occasionally I bring a FN PBR in .308. They all kill them dead and all have similarly lightened triggers.

Mark

 

[WestKentucky]

I bought a .270win Remington 700 when I was 15. Mowed yards and saved up. It's still #1 but it is often put away for another gun for shots inside 100 yards.

 

[witchhunter]

GSPN, when I realized that my barrel was shot out, I got a deal on a Remington and I had a couple of heavy barrel Remingtons already, they shot great. So I bought the new hunting rifle instead of rebarreling my Ruger. I regretted it almost immediately, it just didn't "feel right". So when I was moving, I was holding my Ruger, and thought, "what have I been doing" I ordered a barrel and had it redone. Best move I have made. I have only drawn a couple of tags since getting it redone, but it makes me happy to see it, every time I pull it out of the case.

 

[ZeroJunk]

I have a 1953, same year as I was born, Model 70 that I took on my first elk hunt in 1985 when it was a 30-06. Killed a rag horn bull with it. I'm not sure exactly when I bought it, but I had deer hunted with it quite a while before that. I had it re-barreled to 280 AI sometime or the other. I have used it most of the time over those years. Works flawlessly and other than being a little on the heavy side I don't know what there is that is any better.

 

[morcey2]

I have two primary guns, although they're being made more into safe-dwellers lately: M44 Mauser that was given to me by my dad and a 1903 Custom that I inherited from my grandpa. The M44 went from a bubba'd surplus gun to a very good shooter when I had it D&Td, scoped, crowned, and glass-bedded. It still has the original military barrel and it's a great shooter, even in a cheap, shortened M43 stock. (I put it in that stock because it was in better shape than the original which isn't saying much.) I'll put it in a better stock, specifically one that doesn't need an extra cheek-riser for the scope, over the winter. It shoots MOA-ish with 200 gr Partitions.

The 1903 originally had an old Weaver K4 and we used to use it all the time to kill jackrabbits out to 300 yards all the time when I was growing up. Someone, probably one of my cousins, decided that the "old scope" needed to be replaced by something better so they put the cheapest BSA 3x9 on it that they could find and it wouldn't hold a zero one shot to the next. I finally replaced it with a Bushnell Elite 3200 and it's an absolute tack driver. The only downside to it is that it only has a 20" barrel. I'd like to get a barrel-stretcher and make it 24". That would give about 150 fps increase and kill the muzzle blast a little. Anyway, it has killed lots of game, carp, and (unfortunately) a horse that had been gored wide-open by a longhorn bull. That was not a good day. I'd also love to have that K4 back. It just fit the rifle.

They're both slowly being supplanted by a 7x57 Dominican Republic mauser that I bought as a donor rifle. It already had a really good trigger and was setup for a scope. It had already been glass-bedded, but I didn't like the style of the stock. Then I shot it. It shoots shockingly well. 1.5" 5-shot groups at 200 yards with boring regularity with handloads ( both 120 & 140 gr Ballistic tips) and just over 2" groups with PPU factory 139 gr ammo. I haven't hunted with it yet, but it'll happen.

Matt

 

[OYE]

rifle for elk and deer

For elk and deer purchased a Rem 721 30/06 with a 2 1/2 power Lyman Alaskan
scope with a 3 minute Lee dot on Griffin and Howe side mounts (the ones you can slide the scope off and on without changing the zero) in 1972 from the original owner and what was left of the original 2 boxes of shells (about 30 rounds) that were purchased when the gun was new. ( the owner was a family friend and was known to me). $110.00 as I recall. Used it as a primary elk and deer gun until 1984. It's now the backup elk gun and gets used in the winter occasionally as a long range coyote gun.
Purchased a Win model 70 carbine (push feed) with a 20 in. barrel 30/06 in 1984 ($259.00 as I recall) and installed a Leupold 2 x7 scope on a 2 piece STD leupold mount. Have used it for the last 30 years.
The wooden stocks on both guns are closet dwellers and the Lyman Alaskan
was retired to a drawer about 5 years ago in favor of a 3 x 9 leupold.
Both guns have spent the better part of their active lives in a horse scabbard.
Neither rig ever lost their zero in use. So it does matter what kind of mounts and scope you use and who installs them. OYE

 

[Skyshot]

I've used a model 700 7mmMag Remington for 35 years. Around 2010 had shoulder surgery and have been battling some other illnesses. So I've added two short action Savages, a .243 and a .308 to my deer hunting rotation. Still love my 7mag, but the 6.5 lb. .308 seems to get the nod more and more these days. Hunting with a 30 or 40 lb. pack makes every pound a critical factor for me at age 60.

 

[Citadel99]

I'd add that the Cooper usually comes out when I have the potential to run across a Nilgai...

Mark

 

[Walkalong]

My main one has been a Sako .308 for about 25+ years now. Before that it was a Winchester 94 in .44 Mag. My son has that one. My secondary is a .35 Remington. If I go this year, that is what I'll use. Shots will be short where I would be hunting.

 

[MCMXI]

gspn, I have four rifles that I've set up for hunting but am new to this so have only used one of them to get any meat (the Talkeetna). They all have Zeiss Conquest scopes with RZ reticles for consistency.

Kimber 8400 WSM (.300 WSM)
Kimber 8400 Talkeetna (.375 H&H Mag)
Winchester M70 Extreme Weather (.308 Win)
Winchester M70 Extreme Weather (.300 Win Mag)

After my hunt a couple of weeks ago I'm seriously considering selling the Winchester in .300 Win Mag and possibly the Winchester in .308 Win since the two Kimbers can do just about everything I could want from antelope to elk in Montana. The Winchesters are nice rifles but I don't see the point in keeping them. I'd rather practice with the two Kimbers so that no animal is safe inside 500 yards. Having numerous rifles tends to make me a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. Working up a load for the Talkeetna was great practice for me. I've shot almost 200 rounds through that rifle now and it helped on the hunt. I have other rifles (suppressed) for varmint hunting.

 

[courtgreene]

I switch them up. That's not because of the rifles themselves, it's because I want to see how the bullets and my loads work on game. You're not going to find out the answer to the age old question (does a .223 work on deer) if you take your .308, and you're not going to find out if Hornadys work better than Noslers in .308 if you take your .223. So, whereas last year it was 3 different guns (.300WSM rem 700, .308 win Savage 10, 8mmx57 Mauser) to test those loads, this year we'll start things off with the Mosin Nagant to test my 7.62x54r's and then move on to the next gun to test something else. Probably back to the AR15 to test the tsx's in .223, even though game kings worked fine. If that goes well we'll move down the line and you can see how this can continue forever. So, even though I have a favorite (the aforementioned savage), I don't allow those preferences to interfere with my experimentation. After all, we only have a month of gun season.

 

[Art Eatman]

I bought a couple of rifles in 1971. An '06 and a .243. l generally use the '06 when I'm figuring on the probability of longer shots. When I'm just meddling around in brushy country, the .243 is plenty good.

 

[Muskyman]

Every deer I have shot so far has been with a different gun. It started out as a coincidence, and turned into a fun "game" of sorts, so I plan to keep it going for a while. This year I hope to take one with my muzzleloader for the first time.

As far as a "primary" gun, I'd have to go with the Winchester Model 88 in .308 that my grandfather bought new in 1955. Needless to say, it holds a lot of sentimental value and family history. I've had it for several years, and yes, I have shot a deer with it. Once I run out of guns to go hunting with, or get bored of using a different one every year, that's the gun I will come back to.

 

[Coyote3855]

Model 70 in .30-06 since 1960.

 

[DM~]

This is my "go to" gun,



It a Krieghoff Semper and it was "proofed" in Oct. 1935, I bought it in the early 1980's... I've been using it for "most" of my hunting ever since and I have 28 one shot kills in a row on big game, since the first time I hunted with it shooting a very nice bull moose...



I think within a week or so, I will up that number to 29...

DM

 

[ZeroJunk]

It is cool that you use it.

 

[MCgunner]

I've taken deer with pistol, rifle, black powder, revolver, multiple calibers. I do have two favorite whitetail rifles, but lately am hunting with a CVA Wolf shooting a 385 grain 50 caliber Minie ball. I mean, I've killed probably a couple dozen with my old tried and true Remington 722 in .257 Roberts that I inherited, but after so many, you wanna mix it up, try something different, hunt with a handgun, hunt with black powder. It gets old hunting with the same rifle year after year. But, then, I always did prefer ducks, geese, and doves as targets vs whitetail deer. Deer hunting puts meat in the freezer, but I don't get the thrill out of it anymore that I did when I was young, but I STILL get the thrill and enjoyment out of waterfowl, wing shooting in general. Go figure.

I've tried archery over the years, really got after it last season, but didn't shoot anything. But, my weak eye that I MUST use to shoot a bow (have shot left handed with long guns since age 8) is pretty poor in low light. I am afraid of making a bad shot, so I talked myself out of bow hunting until maybe I can get me a crossbow (now legal in Texas).

 

[loose noose]

I have quite a few "hi-power" rifles but for muleys, elk, pronghorn, and white tail, I always use my Remington 700 BDL Custom Deluxe in .270. I bought it brand new in 1973 and it has always been my go to rifle and has never let me down. Like was already stated it is truly like an old friend. In fact it still has the Weaver 3X9 scope I had installed back when I bought it, once about 20 years or so ago I had to send it back to Weaver in Texas and had them repair the horizontal reticle that came loose. Never had any other problems with it, and it's taken more game than I can count.

 

[Glockula]

Got my Weatherby Vanguard VGX in .270 in 1994. That gun has killed a decent amount of deer. My Savage 11 in .308 get hunting duty as well, but my Weatherby has been with me for 20 years now. I just trust that gun in the field.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I have a beat-up old 870... bought before they introduced screw-in chokes... harvested lots of waterfowl. I have a bolt action .22, and a custom made .308 (that I had built 25 years ago as an experiment, and as I was single, without kids so had ca$h)... plus I have a couple black powder rifles. These have all been used to hunt, though the .308 sees very little use as centerfire rifle hunting has been phased out in my state. The rest of the "hunting" guns or rifles that I have bought have been for the kids.

The 870, the .22, and one of the black powder rifles are my go to guns, and have been for decades. No real reason for me to look for something else...for me that is...


LD