'back up' rifle when hunting

For the deer season i always have a few with me on the trail (on my atv anyways).

Primary - Browning BAR Shorttrac in 308.
Secondary or if i am in tight woods - Benelli M4 with Aimpoint Micro.
Also carry a reminton 870 with a pistol grip in the front box of my ATV.

Call me crazy but thats my set up. Along with way too many at camp for just having fun.

Gunner
 
The only other one I bring is a chicken gun. Just a wee 16ga. Have never entertained the notion of a backup. Maybe if it was the $25,000 hunt of the lifetime, but hunting 30min from my doorstep...meh.
 
My main hunter is usually my Ruger Scout in .308, just a great rifle - never needed a backup yet ....

BUT*

I usually take along my Marlin guide Gun in .45-70, why ?.... because it makes me GRIN & makes things be affected by gravity faster :D
 
One time we did the opposite. Two of us were going on a tough mountain hunt for goats. We carefully calculated the minimum we would need for camping and hunting. When it came to rifles, we gave it careful thought, then, because we were going to stay together, settled on one rifle between the two of us, for easier packing. We took only my 30-06 Husqvarna!
Now, you can trash us, or say how inexperienced we were in the bush, etc.
But first consider the facts. Each of us were senior citizens. Each of us had experienced a lifetime of hunting and travel in wilderness areas. I had done more goat hunting, but my partner had been a guide in his younger years, where the principal game animal they hunted was grizzly bears.
We had a good, safe, memorable hunt.
 
Why would anyone trash you for that.....we do it all the time. Saving 7-8 pounds on a backpack trip is significant!
 
H4831 said:
because we were going to stay together, settled on one rifle between the two of us, for easier packing. We took only my 30-06 Husqvarna!
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I'm currently sorting and weighing stuff for a fly-in backpack hunt that I plan to do later in September. Your solution is looking smarter all the time!
 
I always take a back up, even when I am close to home. On stand, with short carries, I will carry both out and keep one tucked to the side just in case. I don't mind waiting until I get a next to perfect shot, even if it means I go home empty that night, but not being able to take the shot because of something wrong with the primary gun would be wrong, but distance and terrain determines which goes where. On away from home trips, I carry 2 ATR 100s. One in .308 and the other in .30-06 (my primary).

If it comes down to walking, short (under 200yds) shots, then I take my Rem 799 in x39mm (lightest rifle I own), backup for that would be my 340 in .30-30 (it is heavier than my 799).

Close country / pushing bush (shots +/- 50yds) heavily-sported 1898 Lee Enfield Carbine backed up by a Jungle carbine.

Longer shots (+/- 400yds) get the nod for the ATR in .30-06 and this year to be backed up with a Ruger M77 chambered the same. Long shots (in excess of 400 yds or so) are no longer in my bag of tricks since I don't want to have to go that far over tough ground and then drag them that much further to the truck, not even deer ... maybe rabbits or coyotes...

Usually carry an SKS and a 10/22 in the truck year-round, so they would be there, too. There are a lot of milsurps in the cabinet that, unfortunately, don't get the nod anymore (unless they are loaned to first-timers) even though I have hunted with them all over the years. All of my children learned to shoot centre-fire on a drastically lightened, but nicely sported, #4. Two of them took their first, and only, deer with it and my son has used it for years (it would have been the wife's moose gun this year, but, alas, not drawn).

I have a couple of P-14s I am working on to make them matching his and her moose/elk rifles. So far, both reamed out to .303 Epps (both were already sported), excess metal (shortened barrel, rear sight and ears, knob on bolt handle drilled out), removed on one, stock cleaned up to fit her hands and LOP shortened. Dayton Traister triggers ordered. In a few years, should have nice rifles. Until then she hunts with a Savage 111 in .243, or one of the #4's.

There was a time when a back-up did not exist for many years, now, not taking a back-up is inconceivable.
 
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sheephunter said:
Why would anyone trash you for that.....we do it all the time. Saving 7-8 pounds on a backpack trip is significant!
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You know how easy it is to get trashed on here!
I expected someone who has probably never been on mountain trip, to say we were very lucky, to have gotten back without the bears chewing us up.
 
H4831 said:
You know how easy it is to get trashed on here!
I expected someone who has probably never been on mountain trip, to say we were very lucky, to have gotten back without the bears chewing us up.
Click to expand...

I would of offered to pack that heavy beast.
Then in a bear confrontashun, well only one shot would be required........:wave:

Last year I went on a week hunt away from home and most of my fine treasures came
with me.
The house next door had a wee bit of thieving going on.
The old 7.3 cursed me on a few hills.
Made for some interesting camp show and tell.
 
H4831 said:
You know how easy it is to get trashed on here!
I expected someone who has probably never been on mountain trip, to say we were very lucky, to have gotten back without the bears chewing us up.
Click to expand...

Well put, most of my hunts are on foot given our local terrain (mountains), and it's just not even feasible to contemplate a second gun. Secondly, even on a traveling or otherwise "heavy" trip I hate packing and hauling crap everywhere! Nothing brings me more pleasure than a tidy small backpack and a single gun case when traveling. It saps the fun out of even just a trip to the range for me to have to pack numerous items into a truck, so I do one gun at a time at the range too. Part of the reason I focus so much on using individual guns for more tasks, simplicity, when I found out a .308 or a .375 will do literally everything you can do hunting I cut a lot dead weight in guns built for niche uses.
 
H4831 said:
You know how easy it is to get trashed on here!
I expected someone who has probably never been on mountain trip, to say we were very lucky, to have gotten back without the bears chewing us up.
Click to expand...

Well Bruce, call me yalla, but I have been on many forest trail trips with my dogs right near home here, and we have come across many black bears at less than a stones throw away, especially this year, I just don't know why there are so many around! I have lost all interest in going on these trips with an open air side by side ATV, as my dogs go nuts when we see a "big black bear" or any bear or sizeable animal as far as that goes! I guess it doesn't help when I say "look'et that big black sucka" with some huge "wow" in my voice! So, I bought an older GM Blazer 4x4 with A/C to go in now on warm/hot days. Power windows is a good thing, too. We have a serious off roader Cherokee 4x4 for the cooler and deep snow and general tough trail going weather. I know the blacks aren't anything like a brown or grizzly bear, but we here have to take precautions too, against the blacks and cougars around here. I fear my dogs would chase hard if they got the chance to jump out and most certainly would loose the battle against those powerful teeth and claws. We had a pretty good scare with the grand-daughters along in the 4 seater open air sxs. Momma bear in a tree top looking and calling for her cub, we were in between the two! We tried to go out the other way, but got dead ended and had to go back the same way and lost site of the momma, she was down and out of the tree!
 
I always take a second rifle. My primary is some kind of scoped rifle and the back up has iron sights. I have used the back up several times. Once I fell and bang the scope hard enough to break it. Another time I slipped on the ice in the ruts of a bush road and broke a sight. Another time I fell in real bad mud and packed the rifle with so much mud I had to take the back up and leave the primary to be cleaned that night.

I have been caught in real heavy wet snow falls more than once and the snow was so bad the scope was a liability. My back up rifle is always an iron sighted rifle (Williams Foolproof, usually) so I have a bad weather rifle. My back up was borrowed one by a fellow whose Marlin 35Rem packed it in. He got a deer with my Mauser 8mm sporter.

I am a pilot. Always want to have a Plan B.
 
I always have a back-up rifle when gone on a hunting trip. The cartridge will be from a 240 weatherby to a 300 weatherby.
 
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