BringHomeTheBacon
member
There are too many variables in choosing rifles and cartridges for whatever kind of hunting you do.
Factors include but are not limited to:
1. where you live
2. where you hunt: woods, meadows, mountains, desert, snow country, plains, open lowland fields
3. what you hunt
4. availability of rifles
5. availability of calibers and prices of ammo: the Savage Model 99 was probably mostly chambered in .300 Savage (my grandfather owned one in this caliber) but how widely available is this ammunition today and what about its price per shot?
6. rifle prices
7. ammo prices in which calibers especially if you are not a handloader which most American hunters and varminters are not
8. you inherited or received as a gift one or more rifles and you want to hunt with them for sentimental value, so you want to try to make the most out of them by getting the best loads available for whatever caliber the gun happened to be chambered in
9. velocity, some calibers like .25-06 and .22-250 Remington are notorious barrel burners because they zoom at over 3,000 fps: other calibers shoot too fast for woods deer so meat destruction might be an issue as in the case of the .270 Winchester
10. how re-load-able, neck-sizable up-load-able and/or down-load-able is the particular cartridge?
11. range and accuracy
12. legality: may I hunt deer with this gun and it's chambering in my jurisdiction lawfully?
13. recoil level
14. is the barrel lined with chrome?, important for hyper-velocity rounds with a lot of shooting
I think the following cartridges are most versatile if not most practical for most American hunters and pest controllers:
.308 Winchester - anything from little does to black bear to bull moose, sometimes prairie dog towns, .30-06 is overkill on recoil unless you want to shoot brown bear
5.56 NATO - cheap and widely available, varmints, the only trouble is, how many good-quality (forget about Ruger American Ranch bolt-actions) hunting or varmint rifles are actually on the market and chambered for it?
.223 Remington - fairly cheap and widely available, varmints
.17 HMR for small furbearers like fox to minimize pelt damage
.22 Long Rifle for everyday rats and gophers around the farm or ranch
Please name your favorite regular-production rifles and factory loads for the following North American species?
1. woods deer (blacktail, whitetail)
2. meadow/mountain deer (mulies)
3. elk
4. moose
5. sheep, Bighorn (Rocky Mountain and Desert), Dall, and Stone
6. fox
7. coyote
8. chucks
9. prairie dog
10. squirrel, tree and ground
11. black bear
12. cougar
13. bobcat
14. coon
15. gopher and rat
16. lope on the plains
17. buffalo
18. wild pig
19. feral hog
20. mountain goat
21. feral goat
22. brown bear
Here is why Mr. Gun Blue 490 does NOT particularly like the 25-06 Rem. for a number of reasons, it's a specialized niche caliber that burns barrels out:
I bought a new Browning A-Bolt II Boss in .25-06 in 1996 and took a small California buck with it and killed a few ground squirrels as well. It took the small buck in the woods that was accidentally hit in the paunches at 100 yards so I can't attest to it's meat destructive notoriety. This gun was Leupold gold ring Vari-X II 1.75x6x32mm scoped. Offhand from the bench I got a perfect MOA with Federal Premium 117 gr. SPBT. Back then even, each round was a buck a pop! A short time earlier, I bought a Ruger Model 77 in .257 Roberts that shot pie-pan groups and was promptly returned to Walmart where I reluctantly convinced the manager to take the gun back because the fore-end wood was warped and pinching the barrel on the right side. Mr. Gun Blue in the video above claims the Roberts has an accuracy advantage over the .25-06 but comparing the range testing of the A-Bolt vs the Model 77, it would be hard for me to have believed back in 1996. I got my nice Browning A-Bolt II (free-floated barrel by confirmation with a five-dollar bill) a short while afterward. It had no recoil to speak of and I thought the name of the caliber sounded cool and that's why I bought it. I knew from looking at ballistic tables even then and and knew it flew at over 3,000 fps. I only fired the gun 40 times since new and it was stolen unrecovered three years later in a home burglary. I did not know then that such high-velocity calibers burned barrels out. In recent years I've been learning one has to select a gun and a caliber not just based upon a cool-sounding name.
Did I mention that the Ruger in .257 Roberts was a bit on the stout side too, kick-wise?
Factors include but are not limited to:
1. where you live
2. where you hunt: woods, meadows, mountains, desert, snow country, plains, open lowland fields
3. what you hunt
4. availability of rifles
5. availability of calibers and prices of ammo: the Savage Model 99 was probably mostly chambered in .300 Savage (my grandfather owned one in this caliber) but how widely available is this ammunition today and what about its price per shot?
6. rifle prices
7. ammo prices in which calibers especially if you are not a handloader which most American hunters and varminters are not
8. you inherited or received as a gift one or more rifles and you want to hunt with them for sentimental value, so you want to try to make the most out of them by getting the best loads available for whatever caliber the gun happened to be chambered in
9. velocity, some calibers like .25-06 and .22-250 Remington are notorious barrel burners because they zoom at over 3,000 fps: other calibers shoot too fast for woods deer so meat destruction might be an issue as in the case of the .270 Winchester
10. how re-load-able, neck-sizable up-load-able and/or down-load-able is the particular cartridge?
11. range and accuracy
12. legality: may I hunt deer with this gun and it's chambering in my jurisdiction lawfully?
13. recoil level
14. is the barrel lined with chrome?, important for hyper-velocity rounds with a lot of shooting
I think the following cartridges are most versatile if not most practical for most American hunters and pest controllers:
.308 Winchester - anything from little does to black bear to bull moose, sometimes prairie dog towns, .30-06 is overkill on recoil unless you want to shoot brown bear
5.56 NATO - cheap and widely available, varmints, the only trouble is, how many good-quality (forget about Ruger American Ranch bolt-actions) hunting or varmint rifles are actually on the market and chambered for it?
.223 Remington - fairly cheap and widely available, varmints
.17 HMR for small furbearers like fox to minimize pelt damage
.22 Long Rifle for everyday rats and gophers around the farm or ranch
Please name your favorite regular-production rifles and factory loads for the following North American species?
1. woods deer (blacktail, whitetail)
2. meadow/mountain deer (mulies)
3. elk
4. moose
5. sheep, Bighorn (Rocky Mountain and Desert), Dall, and Stone
6. fox
7. coyote
8. chucks
9. prairie dog
10. squirrel, tree and ground
11. black bear
12. cougar
13. bobcat
14. coon
15. gopher and rat
16. lope on the plains
17. buffalo
18. wild pig
19. feral hog
20. mountain goat
21. feral goat
22. brown bear
Here is why Mr. Gun Blue 490 does NOT particularly like the 25-06 Rem. for a number of reasons, it's a specialized niche caliber that burns barrels out:
I bought a new Browning A-Bolt II Boss in .25-06 in 1996 and took a small California buck with it and killed a few ground squirrels as well. It took the small buck in the woods that was accidentally hit in the paunches at 100 yards so I can't attest to it's meat destructive notoriety. This gun was Leupold gold ring Vari-X II 1.75x6x32mm scoped. Offhand from the bench I got a perfect MOA with Federal Premium 117 gr. SPBT. Back then even, each round was a buck a pop! A short time earlier, I bought a Ruger Model 77 in .257 Roberts that shot pie-pan groups and was promptly returned to Walmart where I reluctantly convinced the manager to take the gun back because the fore-end wood was warped and pinching the barrel on the right side. Mr. Gun Blue in the video above claims the Roberts has an accuracy advantage over the .25-06 but comparing the range testing of the A-Bolt vs the Model 77, it would be hard for me to have believed back in 1996. I got my nice Browning A-Bolt II (free-floated barrel by confirmation with a five-dollar bill) a short while afterward. It had no recoil to speak of and I thought the name of the caliber sounded cool and that's why I bought it. I knew from looking at ballistic tables even then and and knew it flew at over 3,000 fps. I only fired the gun 40 times since new and it was stolen unrecovered three years later in a home burglary. I did not know then that such high-velocity calibers burned barrels out. In recent years I've been learning one has to select a gun and a caliber not just based upon a cool-sounding name.
Did I mention that the Ruger in .257 Roberts was a bit on the stout side too, kick-wise?
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