Best Deer gun for "Pushing the Bush"

Best deer hunting gun for "pushing the bush"

  • Lever action 30-30

    Votes: 246 48.7%

  • Shotgun with buckshot or slugs

    Votes: 55 10.9%

  • Remington or Browning Semi in .243,.270,.308,30/06,etc

    Votes: 33 6.5%

  • Ruger Mini-30

    Votes: 18 3.6%

  • Bolt Action Rifle in .243,270,.308,30/06,etc

    Votes: 78 15.4%

  • SKS

    Votes: 28 5.5%

  • None of the obove (explain)

    Votes: 47 9.3%
  • Total voters
    505
  • Poll closed .
Not to insite a riot but...
Am I to understand in Ontario it is common practice to use a high powered centerfire rifle to hopefully harvest a game animal by using rapid fire on a moving target and that theoretically one of the projectiles might actually hit the intended target?
What about all the other shots?
What about being sure of your target and beyond?
How many holes does the average deer get in it?
Do you get to eat any meat?

Sorry, but nothing, and I mean nothing can make up for poor shot placement.
Go back to the range and start practicing- and not on the bench.
Any action will work fine so long as you can pack the heft of it and are well practiced with it.
My 2 cents, but what do I know...
 
a j cave said:
When we push here I don't expect to get a shot. I am only the dog & still hunters at the end of the line are the ones to do the shooting. Sometimes we do get a shot, I have a 94 trapper 30-30 and a Ruger #3 45-70. Auto are a hard sell around here & pump rifles are worse. YMMV
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This is how I've always seen (and been part of) it being done too.
 
All of these choices have there own merit, as long as the shooter has self-discipline and some competancy with his chosen arm. It must be used within it's own effective range too. We all strive towards the one shot, one tagged deer.

Myself I lean towards a lever gun in 30-30 or 356. Not because they are repeaters, but IMHO, they are about the best handling for quick offhand shooting at big game.
 
A good levergun that you are practised up with, in the following cals. in order!

45/70(surprise), 44 Mag., .444 Marlin, .45 Colt's, .356 Win., 38/55, .35 Rem., 32/40 +.32 sp., 30/30....
 
RupZuk - Yes people do take shots at running deer with centrefire rifles in the deer camps in Central Ontario. More remarkably, people even practice their skills by shooting at moving targets.
 
Rupzuk....It is common practise to push the bush in Ontario. The hunt camp I go to has done it from day one, several generations ago. Usually 3 guys and a couple of dogs spread out about 100 yards apart, start from one sections of the bush, usually about 1km away from were maybe 5-8 guys are in treestands that are roughly 10-14 feet in the air. When the deer are bedded down or hiding, the guys pushing the bush, send the deer into the direction of the hunters in the stands. From there, the other hunters get to take shots at them. The other hunters are usually far enough from each other, that no 2 guys are shooting at the same deer, and when they do shoot, it is in a downward motion and if they missed the target there bullet would go into the ground.

The guys pushing the bush are far away when the shots are going off, and the shots that are being fired in a downward motion by the other hunters, so there is "no one in the line of fire".

That pretty much sums it up, atleast for my hunting party. We take turns so one day you push the bush, and the next day you get a turn in the treestand. Usually takes only 3-4 days and all 10 guys have there tags filled, unless they can't shoot. The guys pushing the bush have less of a chance to shoot a deer, but they still often take a deer. They just have to be ready to shoot fast, and often shoot a deer on the run.

If someone were to just sit around in a treestand, they still have a good chance at taking a deer, but your chances are alot less slimmer. Pushing the bush is very effective .
 
a j cave said:
When we push here I don't expect to get a shot. I am only the dog & still hunters at the end of the line are the ones to do the shooting. Sometimes we do get a shot, I have a 94 trapper 30-30 and a Ruger #3 45-70. Auto are a hard sell around here & pump rifles are worse. YMMV
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A good dog man in our area gets as many or more deer than the stands.
Just a matter of getting a spot to watch right where the dog starts the deer & sit down. My guess is 50% of the time the deer will run in a couple circles right back thru where he was started from..... I qualify that statement to include when useing beagles or other shorter legged dogs, our experience is log legged hounds tend run them to fast, to far & generally into the water.

Our camp has predominatly Rem pumps & autos, with a 99 sav, couple 94s, a Marlin 45-70GG, couple Winny 100s & one 303Brit, one extra heavy scoped BAR, most with a peep but one Husky bolt with a red dot :rolleyes:
I personally favoured the weight & handling of a peep sighted Winny 100 Carbine when I dogged. I am not a fan of Rem autos but the 7400 line seems to be free of the old JAM problems the earlier models had, one guy has a peep sighted 308 Rem Carbine that I've grown to like quite a bit.
 
I bring two guns to deer camp , a lever action and a bolt. When on stand in the morning
the bolt is on my lap, at noon we push with dogs and thats when the lever gets used. The bush where we are is so thick that if a deer is seen it disappears in a second.
 
We occasionally push deer at our camp, but mostly we stand/still hunt. I use a bolt action .270 scoped for stand and still hunting usually and a Marlin 30-30 lever for pushes and occasionally for still hunting to mix things up.

On pushes you often have to shoot moving deer. We set guys up so they have a safe field of fire. Sometimes the pusher gets a shot. Most shots are less than 30 yards.

Sure, occasionally we have a deer that has more holes than it probably should, but most times it is a single shot or a single shot with a finisher. We do our best to ensure clean kills.

The trick is to not push the deer very hard. If you push them hard, they will RUN through the woods. If you push them slowly, they will sneak or trot, stopping often. Usually the pushers are 500-800 yards away when the deer hit the standers.

It might be hard for westerners to understand this style of hunting, but in many areas of Ontario this is heavily used either with hounds or people doing the pushing.
 
daveg01 said:
It might be hard for westerners to understand this style of hunting, but in many areas of Ontario this is heavily used either with hounds or people doing the pushing.
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I used this method last fall in eastern Alberta, where the cover is small patches of bush out in farmland. Once the deer hunker down for the day, the only way to get them moving is to push the patches of bush, usually with one hunter on each side of the bush and one walking through the center. Shots happen fast and are almost always on moving game. It is about like flushing grouse, just with deer instead.

Mark
 
got to love the shotguns for this job ,hard to get any faster then a good pump or semi shot gun ékilled lots of deer that way.it is the only way we can down here aside from bow hunting . it has worked for the past 50 years and will still be doing it for the next 50 years i hope DUTCH
 
archie_james_c said:
Countdown to someone from the west making a comment on the ethics of shooting game on the move in 3, 2, 1.....
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Wrong my friend!
When I lived in Southern Saskatchewan and had ample opportunity to shoot gophers, snowshoehares, jackrabbits, foxes, & coyotes, this was my warming up time to get ready for deer season.
In the winter of 1996, I had no qualms about shooting a nice sized whitetail buck on the run. The bullet took him in the neck.
Mind you for every .308 bullet I launched at deer (2-3 deer), I probably shot 40-50 .222 rifle rounds at numerous & various varmints in that calendar year.
But I learned more about leading game, shooting a SxS 12 gauge at running jackrabbits using buckshot in the beginning.
Those shotshells fired, probably almost matched, the number of smallbore rifle cartridges I expended.

I do miss those fun & dusty days on the prairies picking ground cactus needles out of my..........
 
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