Suggestions for an-all-around rifle....

Dogleg said:
I agree, but also think that is their problem not a short-comeing of the cartridge itself.

Maybe the saying should be "Anyone who doesn't think the .300 is the best thing going is unwitting admitting to a lack of ability, dedication and commitment to makeing it work, and compensates by projecting their deficiencies on others."
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I don't think that is a fair assessment at all. Some boxers have a chin made of stone, others of glass. Some people can handle recoil, others cannot. I've owned up to .416 RM, and am not ashamed at all to say that it was not fun to shoot from the bench. OK, maybe the first few were fun. I think a big part of becoming proficient is to shoot lots. And even a .300 WM in a 7.5 to 8lb rifle can become tiring quite quickly. It is certainly not a "plinking" rifle.

I'm back to my 7mm RM with 175gr Partitions for just about everything now. I don't feel undergunned.
 
do15 said:
As I am a complete newbie as far as longer range rifles are concerned, and I have never hunted, please bear with me.
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If I am off the mark, or if if my requirements don't make much sense, don't be shy to tell me.

Thanks.
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Buy or borrow a decent rangefinder, something capable of accurately measuring out to a thousand yards, and tell us if you think it possible or probable that you would ever shoot that far. My two bits. Fuggeaboutit. At least until you have a solid handle on accurate shooting at much closer ranges.
Or, play with the ruler function on the Google Earth interface and see how far 1000 Yards is from your window, if you have any kind of a view out it. It's a long bleedin' ways away.

Take a look too, at the price tags you get to pay for the optics that are most commonly used for those distances, too. Can you afford to put a $1000 or double or triple that on to your rifle? Can you make use of it?

Looks cool on a TV show, if you don't know any better, but you don't get to see the misses or the crippled game vanishing into the distance, in the show. My money is on there having been more than a few of those that were recorded over.

I've seen the hamburger mess that a .300 Win Mag can make out of a deer at close range. Like, 25 yards close. Ugly. As you are far more likely to be shooting one in close, than way out there, I'd suggest that you play the odds and kit yourself out for under 400 or so yards, for which the advice of 'any 6.5mm or larger bore and a modern cartridge', to paraphrase, is as good as any advice you will ever get. Once you have been hunting a while I suspect you will find that almost all your shots are closer than that.

I've been using a .308 Win in an older Model 70 Winchester for a lot of years. Never felt like I didn't have enough with that.
I don't feel the need to pummel myself with a bunch more recoil than I need, in order to prove my manliness either.


Cheers
Trev
 
anything but the 30-06---vanilla and sooo old ,good grief..love the 308 and 270 wsm ..take a look

do15 said:
As I am a complete newbie as far as longer range rifles are concerned, and I have never hunted, please bear with me.

Here is what I have in mind;
-capable of hitting say, deer-sized target up to about 1000 m
-popular caliber, nothing too obscure
-co-witnessing with iron sights, in case of optics failure or short ranges - I understand there are mounts/rings allowing for that
-suitable for even largest games (moose?)
-generally, the less costly the better. But I understand you hardly ever get more than what you pay for.

I have been eyeing Parker-Hale rifles in .308 from Trade Ex, they would probably fit the bill, and the dealer has a stellar reputation.

http://www.tradeexcanada.com/content/parker-hale-commercial-m98-mauser-308-win-0


If I am off the mark, or if if my requirements don't make much sense, don't be shy to tell me.

Thanks.
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bearkilr said:
Who's Phil Shoemaker?? :confused:
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A real bearkilr. Then again, it's his fault that I caught the 505 Gibbs bug.

But let's face facts here. c-fmbi is not normal. Neither is Noel. Nor Gatehouse, todbartell, 1899, Why_Not? Dogleg and a whole schwack of others, myself included. Most hunters take several years, some as much as 15-20, to go through a single box of ammo. Clearly most hunters fire a shot of two hunting each year and a shot of two (maybe) at the range to ensure that their rifle is sighted in and the spiders are all chased out of the barrel. They might only own one big game rifle and shoot only factory ammo. If they reload they likely don't have more than one pound of powder in the house. Real serious riflemen, like those above and others, are tinkerers and relish the challenge of working up loads for a finnicky rifle. They shoot more in a range session than most hunters do in a decade. They can accurately shoot rifles that others flat-out refuse to fire. These are the people that new shooters and hunters seek out for advice. We, as men of considerable experience, sometimes get caught up in what we would choose rather than tailoring our advice for the audience of the moment. Were Why_Not? and I sitting around the table digesting a tasty sheep roast and pondering what the next purchase should be, it would (and should) be a heck of a lot different than if there was a young fellow with little experience at that table in Whitehorse. The bottom line is that would a 308 be my choice of a rifle for myself at this point? Heck no! Would I encourage a new shooter to pick up a 338 Lapua and sally forth to whang away at whitetails at over 1000 yards? Not in a million years. But for certain people in our hobby both of those suggestions are completely reasonable.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "We few, we happy few, We band of rifle loonies; for he today who debates the 270 and 30-06 with me shall be my brother. "
 
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Dogleg said:
My 26" barrelled .300 Wins clock 3150 fps with 180s. My 30-06s will do 2700 with the same bullets or at least some of them do. Take that out to 500 and the energy difference is something on the order of 50% is favor of the .300. Or to put it another way the .300 does at 500 what the '06 does at 250. To me, differences of 50% more and equal at double the distance are getting just a wee bit hard to ignore. For 7 cents worth of powder I'll take it.



****7000 posts, what do I win?
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And I have safely gotten 2825fps out of an 24" barrelled 30-06. That would be 2900 in a 26".
Just a heads up, your math is out to lunch as well. Why the hell do people get all bent out of shape about this 300 Mag BS?
 
rem338win said:
And I have safely gotten 2825fps out of an 24" barrelled 30-06. That would be 2900 in a 26".
Just a heads up, your math is out to lunch as well. Why the hell do people get all bent out of shape about this 300 Mag BS?
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I expect a 24" barrelled 30-06 to deliver close to 2850 fps.
My two '06 rifles do it with at least 5 different powder choices.
So the difference is not as great as many would believe.

That being said, I really like the "big" 30's and own a half dozen or so in different flavors.
They definitely arrive at long range with extra authority.

Last fall what did I take moose hunting? a Vanguard S1 in........you guessed it! The venerable 30-06.
I knew that anything inside 500 yards would be in deep trouble.
But, ultimately, my shot was 135 yards, lol.

Regards, Eagleye.
 
Thanks a bunch, much appreciate all your input.
Obviously, the wording of my post was somewhat off. I did not mean I would ever attempt to shoot a deer at 1000 yards.
I meant I would like to have a rifle capable of hitting deer sized target at about 1000 yards under ideal conditions. I guess I deserved some beating I took over it.
Still, wealth of information, and I thank you, kind Sirs.
 
BigUglyMan said:
BlackBerry autocorrect does funny hints sometimes. Phil is a real serious bear guy...but you know that now.
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Ah, "a real bearkilr", got it. I can only dream that one day I'll measure up to make your list of CGN posters with "considerable experience", as you so humbly put it. Then again, maybe I've surpassed that already and am in fact a real "bearkilr", just like this Phil Shoemaker. ;)
 
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