Dear nutz,
Have not posted much lately – I’ve moved to the UK! I’m here for two years without guns. But they can’t stop me from dreaming about them. So this thread is about the guns that are on my mind with the goal of settling on what few purchases I might make for when I get to come home, and so I’ll have new toys to play with on my visits home. Now I’m just out of my Ph.D., and the cost of living here is pretty high, so despite the unlimited dreaming there’s a limited budget. It’s not a strictly set budget – but a new gun per year is about where I’m at.
My main interest is in big game hunting rifles, but I hunt small game and birds too. Somehow it seems important to me to hunt big game with nice guns, but for small things it is somehow more acceptable to use guns that are just good tools. Right now the core part of the collection is:
1. Savage Mark II .22lr – simple gun, quite accurate
2. Remington 870 12ga with 3” chamber, 26” barrel and a collection of chokes including turkey
3. Ruger No 1 K-Hornet
4. Remington 725 in .30-06, stock refinished to what I think is called a satin finish
5. Savage 99 in .358 Win
(plus another .22 that I'll unload soon, a near complete cap-lock muzzle loader from a kit, and a Mosin)
If I jump through all the hoops and buy anything while in the UK, or if I stay longer, it'll probably be a .223 because that type of thing is all that's of use for the types of critters that common folk are relegated to shooting here. Or maybe it'd be a .243 with a 26" barrel so it'd complement the K-hornet if I managed to figure out how to bring it home. I'll leave this topic alone now as it's a thread unto itself.
So you can see what I mean by being drawn to nice centerfires, and the rimfires and shotguns being just good basic field guns (at least for now). List two is the guns or type of guns that I’m finding myself thinking about, number of stars indicates interest level:
1. **Some kind of upland shotgun, ideally a 16 ga. SxS, maybe IGA/Stoeger Uplander
2. *17 HMR semi-auto of some kind. My cousin had one of the nicer model 597’s that cycled well and shot really well. Not sure that this combination is still available.
3. ****Some kind of very accurate centerfire in come kind of 6.5mm cartridge. Either 260 Rem, 6.5x55, or 6.5-06. Or maybe a 25-06 with the idea of ultimately changing the barrel.
4. ***Ruger Hawkeye Alaskan .416 Ruger
The 6.5 is the one that interests me the most and the one that I’m least settled on details-wise. I’d like it to come in around 8lbs scoped (probably with a 4-12x40 Leupold VXII). I’d like a 24” barrel, especially if it’s to be an -06 cartridge. I’ve thought a lot about Savages, but fit and finish is important to me – perhaps I need to be educated about aftermarket stocks, etc?
Don’t tell me that the Hawkeye would be more sensible for a Canadian if in .375. I know that.
List #3 is for my wife. I might live vicariously through her. She currently has a Stoeger Condor 20 ga O/U and a crudely converted Swedish Mauser. She could use a lighter gun for still-hunting whitetails. And she dreams about someday hunting great bears, but is on blood thinners so bruising from recoil is a consideration. She has little interest in anything that’s not a bolt action. So her list is:
1. Ruger Hawkeye compact in 7mm-08
2. 35 Whelen, or some such low-end big bear gun (will serve as moose gun too), make and model still open but she sure likes the looks of Ruger M77s
Any thoughts on these potential purchases will be welcome!!!
RG
<><
Have not posted much lately – I’ve moved to the UK! I’m here for two years without guns. But they can’t stop me from dreaming about them. So this thread is about the guns that are on my mind with the goal of settling on what few purchases I might make for when I get to come home, and so I’ll have new toys to play with on my visits home. Now I’m just out of my Ph.D., and the cost of living here is pretty high, so despite the unlimited dreaming there’s a limited budget. It’s not a strictly set budget – but a new gun per year is about where I’m at.
My main interest is in big game hunting rifles, but I hunt small game and birds too. Somehow it seems important to me to hunt big game with nice guns, but for small things it is somehow more acceptable to use guns that are just good tools. Right now the core part of the collection is:
1. Savage Mark II .22lr – simple gun, quite accurate
2. Remington 870 12ga with 3” chamber, 26” barrel and a collection of chokes including turkey
3. Ruger No 1 K-Hornet
4. Remington 725 in .30-06, stock refinished to what I think is called a satin finish
5. Savage 99 in .358 Win
(plus another .22 that I'll unload soon, a near complete cap-lock muzzle loader from a kit, and a Mosin)
If I jump through all the hoops and buy anything while in the UK, or if I stay longer, it'll probably be a .223 because that type of thing is all that's of use for the types of critters that common folk are relegated to shooting here. Or maybe it'd be a .243 with a 26" barrel so it'd complement the K-hornet if I managed to figure out how to bring it home. I'll leave this topic alone now as it's a thread unto itself.
So you can see what I mean by being drawn to nice centerfires, and the rimfires and shotguns being just good basic field guns (at least for now). List two is the guns or type of guns that I’m finding myself thinking about, number of stars indicates interest level:
1. **Some kind of upland shotgun, ideally a 16 ga. SxS, maybe IGA/Stoeger Uplander
2. *17 HMR semi-auto of some kind. My cousin had one of the nicer model 597’s that cycled well and shot really well. Not sure that this combination is still available.
3. ****Some kind of very accurate centerfire in come kind of 6.5mm cartridge. Either 260 Rem, 6.5x55, or 6.5-06. Or maybe a 25-06 with the idea of ultimately changing the barrel.
4. ***Ruger Hawkeye Alaskan .416 Ruger
The 6.5 is the one that interests me the most and the one that I’m least settled on details-wise. I’d like it to come in around 8lbs scoped (probably with a 4-12x40 Leupold VXII). I’d like a 24” barrel, especially if it’s to be an -06 cartridge. I’ve thought a lot about Savages, but fit and finish is important to me – perhaps I need to be educated about aftermarket stocks, etc?
Don’t tell me that the Hawkeye would be more sensible for a Canadian if in .375. I know that.
List #3 is for my wife. I might live vicariously through her. She currently has a Stoeger Condor 20 ga O/U and a crudely converted Swedish Mauser. She could use a lighter gun for still-hunting whitetails. And she dreams about someday hunting great bears, but is on blood thinners so bruising from recoil is a consideration. She has little interest in anything that’s not a bolt action. So her list is:
1. Ruger Hawkeye compact in 7mm-08
2. 35 Whelen, or some such low-end big bear gun (will serve as moose gun too), make and model still open but she sure likes the looks of Ruger M77s
Any thoughts on these potential purchases will be welcome!!!
RG
<><
