Hunting for real for the first time... which gun?

Village Vixen

Village Vixen

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My plan is to take my two sons and mother to see one of my wild bushman uncles and have him take us out on a real hunting trip this fall. We have been out riding around in the bush on quads and on the tundra on snowmobiles, but this will be the first real hunting trip for us with the actual goal of a carcass. My uncle has a "camp" semi near Prince George and has spent a lifetime in the bush , hunting, fishing, trapping, living. He is quite a character and we are looking forward to this trip.

Three of us have .22s however my soon to be 16 year old wants/needs something with more ummph than a .22. The rest of us are not ready. He is.

My uncle likes to get a moose every year, so I want it to be able to manage that level of game just in case that is what he plans for us.

I need it to be something reliable. I can't handle bush break-downs yet. I might not ever be able to.:(

I need to be able to get the ammo locally without trouble.

I don't want to have to order it from the Czech Republic and wait 19 months.
I want to be able to get the thing locally. I like the guys at Chilliwack Dart and Tackle or Hub Sports in Abbotsford. (or maybe off the EE here.)

One more thing... I'm not gonna spend $4500.00 on the thing either. :D

What say you?

Thanks in advance.
Village Vixen.
 
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A Remington 700 sps ..... under $600 at most stores and a very good reliable rifle .

Get it in a 30-06 ... good round for everything and the ammo is probably the most common there is .
If your 16 yr old is up to it (physically) opt for that gun in a 300 Win Mag caliber ... you will never need more gun for anything on the continent ;)

Here it is http://www.wholesalesports.com/onli...egory_id=10110001040005/~pcategory=1011000104
 
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go to the local gun shop, ask to see their mid priced rifles such as Ruger, Tikka, Remington, Browning...chambered in 270 Winchester, 308 Winchester, or 30-06 Springfield. Also buy a Bushnell Elite 3200 3-9x40 scope for $250 or less
 
todbartell said:
go to the local gun shop, ask to see their mid priced rifles such as Ruger, Tikka, Remington, Browning...chambered in 270 Winchester, 308 Winchester, or 30-06 Springfield. Also buy a Bushnell Elite 3200 3-9x40 scope for $250 or less
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x2 You can't go wrong with this advice. Good luck hunting!
 
Can't go wrong with a good Remington 700 in 30-06 with good glass to make the hunt memorable. Premium 180 grain bullets for game and regular soft points for practice.
Good on you for taking them out.
 
A 303 Brit sporter is a very good start for a new hunter on a budget. Reliable and tough as nails - hell, you can hammer nails with it if you have to (just kidding) Ammo can be purchased at any hardware or sporting store.
 
3 x Blued Remy SPS DM for ~550. The Remy action been build/refined over 45 so years and often used as starting point for builds - should not break in the bush. The stainless Tikka with synthetic stock and detachable magazine nice too, only a couple 100 more or so but in percentage terms thats ~50%.

Have a SPS DM in .30-06 as a utility gun / tool. Can find ammo for it anywhere (100+ years...) from light loads (110...) to heavy loads (220+) so can make shooters comfortable with light low recoil loads (wife, younger son ?) or any North American game uncomfortable with the appropriate (heavy) load.

Though all sorts of counter arguments may be made and it really is a matter of personal preference, the 300 Win Mag may offer more in some senses (can always get bigger and better) and less in others (cost, flexibility, suitability as first centre fire...) - donning my tin foil hat now.

Reliable (sponsor) has them in stock. Ensure the rifle fits and is comfortable to handle. No personal experience with them but others may offer you insight into Stevens and Savage which also represent good value - again, get son to hold firearm, run a few dummy rounds through it and get comfortable.

Get the uncle to write a book and preserve his bushcraft knowledge and the era.
 
Thanks all for the advice. It seems that there is consensus about the recommendations. I will write down all of your recommendations and take them into the shop. Thanks for posting them, I appreciate it.

The kid is clever, fit and strong.

303carbine... I can't tell you how much it will pain me to go. The "camp" is very rough. Waaaaaay put there off the road, and the next road, and waaaaay in on a 4x4 track into the camp. No running water, outhouses, common bunk area, bugs, mice, bears, ....I will be doing my level best to supress my princess personna. The last time we went I wept, truly wept, when we got home, showered and got between my clean sheets.

My uncle's are groovy guys. The knowledge they can share with us is endless, and it will be time very well spent. Hopefully something will be caught and that gruesome task of getting it out of the bush will be experienced.

VV
 
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Village Vixen said:
... The "camp" is very rough. Waaaaaay put there off the road, and the next road, and waaaaay in on a 4x4 track into the camp. No running water, outhouses, common bunk area, bugs, mice, bears, ....

My uncle's are groovy guys. The knowledge they can share with us is endless, and it will be time very well spent. Hopefully something will be caught and that gruesome task of getting it out of the bush will be experienced.

VV
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I wish I were going with you. Or without you. I just wish I were going.

I hope you will enjoy it a lot. Even if you don't, your kids probably will, and that is a great thing you are doing for them, and when you get back home and shower and put on your tiara again and slide into your nice clean sheets, you will deserve all the satisfaction you will feel then.

Meanwhile, instead of a Remington 700 SPS or a Tikka, just get a Stevens 200 for about half the money. It's at least as good as the SPS and the Tikka isn't going to make anyone twice as successful at hunting as they would be with a Stevens.
 
You've heard all you need to regarding which gun to buy - all valid advice so more importantly, good for you for getting your family involved in such a great sport. There's not too many that an entire family from kids to grandparents can participate in together and truly enjoy it. Awesome.

Cheers
 
You haven't said what the rifle will be used for, but usually the .30/06 is the correct answer. The more important questions are which rifle, which sight, and which loads.

First lets talk about the rifle. My first .30/06 was a Remington, and I shot that thing until I needed to replace the extractor. Every Remington fan will tell you that these things won't fail! If that was the case I'd still be a Remington fan, but now controlled round feed rifles in general and the Brno in particular is my preference. A better solution for you given time and budget considerations might be a Ruger 77. The key is that regardless of your choice of rifle, it must feed flawlessly, every time. It it does not the problem needs to be addressed and fixed before you take the rifle afield.

Little velocity is given up by choosing a short barrel, but the cost in muzzle blast can be high, and some .30/06 loads tend to be noisy anyway. I think a 22" barrel is a good compromise, with 24" bordering on clumsy. The exception would be if you're hunting is in a thick jungle of willows; this is where a short barrel would shine.

The choice of furniture can be a bit of a problem, and North American rifles become outrageously expensive with anything like a good wood stock. What you need is a a good stable stock and the answer to that is synthetic. The factory Ruger synthetics are OK I guess, but not in the same league as a McMillan. McMillans are expensive and take a while to get, again outside of your requirements. Having said that, the factory Hogue stock on my pal's Ruger Alaskan is strong and stable, the only down side I could see is that the soft texture makes it a dog hair magnet.

An often overlooked item is the sling. If you want a simple carry sling the new neoprene slings make carrying a rifle less fatiguing. If you are in the habit of using the sling as a shooting aid, and I wish more people did, I highly recommend the Galco Safari Ching Sling.

I'm a strong advocate of iron sights on big game rifles. The best of these IMHO is a ghost ring and post. The factory sights on the Ruger Alaskan are very good, but only a few of the Ruger 77's come with irons, and most seem to have a rather inferior Williams style folding rear sight. NECG makes a very nice ghost ring for the Ruger, and a gunsmith could install a Ruger front band if the rifle you select is not iron sight equipped. While not the cheapest option, this will build a level of reliability into your rifle that it would not otherwise have. There are not many gunsmiths out in the bush should your scope fail. You could purchase a second scope so that you have a back up to your primary sight, but this is expensive and cannot be instantly put to use.

Many first time hunters over-scope their rifles with the belief that if 6X is good then 10X is better. Big game is big, therefore not difficult to see, so one does not need a big power scope to hit within normal hunting ranges. The biggest advantage the scope has is that the aiming point and the target are on the same focal plane, thus eliminating any problem with focusing between the sights, front and rear, and the target. My Leupold 2X EER allows me to hit out to 300 yards without difficulty. The 2.5-8X Leupold is a nice sized scope that allows the rifleman to engage near and far targets. While hunting, it's best to have the scope set to a low power. You usually have time to adjust to a higher power for a long shot, but you probably won't haver time to switch from a high to a low power when the action is up close.

Ruger includes a set of rings with their rifles, but this is sort of a good news/bad news situation. Ruger rings are pretty good quality and their attachment system is strong and gives you a QD element that is fairly repeatable. The problem arises if your choice of scope doesn't match the ring spacing, the ring height is too high or two low for your scope, or if the scope as mounted with those rings is to far ahead or too far back. Should any of these issues occur a different ring set will have to be ordered.

The big advantage the .30/06 has over lesser cartridges is the variety of loads to suit every situation. The Barnes TSX has impacted North American big game hunting to a huge degree. Anyone like myself who refuses to choose the TSX is just being obstinate. If the caliber question is answered by the .30/06, then the question of which bullet to choose is answered by the mid-weight TSX. I would make excepts for specialty loads. Small game loads with cast bullets perform very well, and if big bears are on the list, particularly if the range tends to be short, I would choose a heavy for caliber, round nose, bonded lead core, solid shank bullet like the heavy weights from Woodleigh.
 
From what I gather, you want a fool proof rifle for yourself and your youngens. You want somthing good, affordable and mild enough to handle. I've been to PG and have seen a good selection of ammo on one stores shelves. That is going to dictate on the cartridge I'm going to suggest. If you enjoy the experiance, I assume this will become a more regular thing for you and your family. Deer, elk and maybe moose or bear could be on your agenda.

I would suggest, (perhaps a couple?) a Steven's 200 rifle in the 7mm-08. These rifles are not fancy, but they are accurate, and despite what alot of others think about it being so cheap, they really are a good rifle. In fact, my only complaint about them is the plastic triggergaurd, which you will probably never break. I like the Tikka rifle, but it has a detachable magazine, which is somthing I don't suggest to you if your out in the boonies with any possibility to lose. The Stevens has an internal, blind box magazine. That means you will always have a full magazine with nothing to misplace. The stock is synthetic, so it will put up with abuse, and the rifle is lighter than the Remington 700 which is a plus in my mind for a hunting rifle.

As for the 7mm-08, it is a fantastic cartridge capable of killing anything you might be inclined to hunt. Ammo availability is the only issue since places like Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart don't usually sell it. But as I said, any good sporting goods store will. It doesn't really kick too bad, and the blast isn't too loud. It will offer you virtually identical performance as the .270 Winchester, but I feel it kicks just a bit less.

Also the advantage to buying a lower cost rifle allows you to spend a bit more on a good scope for it. As Todd said a Bushnell 3200 or as I would suggest, a Leupold VX-I. Both are great and around the $300 mark. I like the Leupold's myself, as they are a bit lighter and I see through them better. Just don't cheap out on optics. You can't shoot what you can't see. You can have complete faith in good quality scopes, as they aren't affected by the magical safe fairy. I used to use cheap scopes that when I shot them, they were bang on at whatever distance I sighted them in at. Then on my next outing, taking them from the safe to the range, the rifles would print their bullets a few inches left, right, high or low. (I will shoot that fairy one day.)

Also take the time and spend alot of it at the range. Start out off the bench with a bag of shot between the rifle and your shoulder. Get used to the noise. Wear ear plugs and muffs, then lose one. Start firing off-hand, kneeling or however you think you will fire in the field. I like to sit on my butt when possible and fire off my knee's. It's get's me above tall grass, and still keeps me stable, so try that one. Buy as light a bullet as you can to start out, as it will kick a little less. After a couple trips, start using what you decided upon for your hunting load. For the 7mm-08, a good 140 grain bullet will do whatever you need.

One more thing, choose good mounts. The store wher you buy will help you with that. Just stay away from the cast aluminum or Chinese stuff. Leupold is always a good choice. Good luck and have fun shopping. :)
 
i'm going to assume we're talking about right handed /right eye dom people as well as nobody has mentioned anything to the contrary- again, i'd go with something in '06 /180 or 308/180- you just have to sneak a little closer with the 308- the big magnums cost you in recoil, weight, number of shots, and price of the ammo- and unlike the pistols, you just can't shoot "specials" for practice( you actually can, but that takes us into the world of reloading)and definately a bolt of some kind- topped off with a good 3x9 scope- somewhere in the 40mm is a good compromise- i got a 338 win mag years ago for BIG bears and i've shot less than 20 rounds through - and had the sear break- it's a bar- i'm left eye/left hand, so my carry is a savage 99 with a 4x12x40, but i've been at this game 30+ years
 
TheTooner said:
I wish I were going with you. Or without you. I just wish I were going.

I hope you will enjoy it a lot. Even if you don't, your kids probably will, and that is a great thing you are doing for them, and when you get back home and shower and put on your tiara again and slide into your nice clean sheets, you will deserve all the satisfaction you will feel then. QUOTE]


I will enjoy seeing my uncle, breathing deep of the fresh air once again, and having my ears ring in the utter peace and quiet, and then I hope to be stricken with complete amnesia until I return home to my clean sheets and hot water. My kids will love it: thrashing around with the axe, fire, guns and maybe guts, riding quads, bouncing in the 4x4 and maybe shooting something.

I will post up what I buy for all to see. Hopefully we will have a carcass to pose with for a good pic too.

vv
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A $100 .303 enfield (sporterized)

Solid, good action, tough, heavy enough (get best hunting load you can find is always good), very accurate with iron sights, and can have a good scoped one for about 200-300.
Sight in and your good to go:)
 
Village Vixen said:
I can't tell you how much it will pain me to go. The "camp" is very rough. Waaaaaay put there off the road, and the next road, and waaaaay in on a 4x4 track into the camp. No running water, outhouses, common bunk area, bugs, mice, bears.
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Sounds good to me!! ;)
 
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