Caliber advice

As others have stated, consider a caliber that you can find at any walmart or canadian tire ( 30-06, 270. 308) this way you dont have to worry about you choosen caliber not being in stock should you need to run in and grab a box in a pinch.
 
7mm-08 will do the trick in a SA Rifle, in the LA 270,280,30-06 they all are perfect, my fav is 280AI with 140gr or 160gr Accubonds or 30-06 killed lots of elk, moose and deer with the 30-06 and 165gr Nosler partitions
 
I carry a 10lb 458wm. Ive never had an issue carrying it even walking over a mile to my stand and back and covering many kms walking logging roads and cuts

For the one asking about noise of a hinged floor plate they arent that loud loading. Just take your time. What is loud is when you open the floor plate to unload and drop 2 shells down onto a metal tree stand. Seems to echo for miles. But so does a mag or knife when dropped. Ive loaded a hinge floor plate 40 yards from a cow moose and twin calves and they never reacted to the sound
 
^^^ I had one once, and, already possessing the rifle, I decided to take it hunting. As already mentioned, it was a heavy little cuss, the sights were hard to see in dim light, and it was noisy to load and unload. I never did kill anything with it, and traded it off a while later, one of the dumber trades I've made. There was no real advantage to hunting with the M1 over a more modern rifle, I just wanted to put it to work.

I had one of those Norinco 305s in 308 which is about the same as an M1 Garand. Bought it for the same reason as you. Took it to the range once and sold it quick. There are far better sporting rifles out there.
 
I carry a 10lb 458wm. Ive never had an issue carrying it even walking over a mile to my stand and back and covering many kms walking logging roads and cuts.
A 458 need to be 10lbs while a 308 or 30-06 doesn't.

Why make work out something that's supposed to be fun unless your a weirdo with a 458? :)
 
Regarding the original question, in Ontario there are many more opportunities for close range shots than ones at distance. It depends on how you hunt, of course, but I find that the shots are generally very close. My farthest deer was 72m, and my closest opportunity was "powder burns on the fur" close. It's definitely not mountain or prairie hunting. With that in mind, I recommend a rifle that is light and lively with low to no magnification. You can still make that 200yd shot if it happens, but optimize your setup for 30-60yd shots.

In this case, it works well to stay away from super-high velocity loads. Since impact velocity and muzzle velocity can be fairly close, something over 2900fps would be excessive if you want to avoid meat damage. A lot of calibers will work, but imagine how it will work on a deer with light bullets at shotgun range as well as on a moose at 100yds.

I don't see the need for it to be available at every backwoods store and canadian tire, either, as long as you can get it at home and stock up. In my experience, at least. I always had plenty of ammo in the truck on a hunting trip, enough to fix a problem and sight in again and then some. I might have not yet had a bad experience that others have encountered, but I don't see the issue there.
 
Plus, we can't generally do "backpack hunts" the way you can, due to the dense bush. A canoe is the best cheap way to get to remote spots in moose country here. There is water everywhere. In that, you can tie a floating gun case under the thwart and you're set.
 
Boring old reliable dependable, easy to buy ammo for 30-06. Will do it all. If you handload, the 270 with a 140 accubond at 3100 fps with some new age powders is pure animal death!
 
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