The Rifle you trust

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25wssmisgood

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Another current thread here asked the question. What is the most dependable hunting rifle?

Predictably everyone started listing their favorite brands and models. Ok, fine, understandable. I have a different theory on what makes "The Best" and I'm interested in your opinions on the subject. Here goes.

The Best rifle is the one that you have have experienced unquestionable confidence/trust in, loaded with ammunition you have unquestionable trust & confidence in.

I used to have a Remington 700 in .243 that quite probably was a fine rifle but every hunting trip I took with it was a bad experience. One a devastatingly bad experience. While I did in fact kill several deer with it I also had a number of seemingly unexplainable apparent misses after a near perfect setup.

When a coworker expressed an interest in buying a .243 it was sold and gone in the time it took for him to write a check. I then purchased a Winchester model 70 (25wssm) saw great things with it at the range and have had nothing but great success mostly one shot "bang/flop" hunts. It is "The rifle I trust".

Thats the definition of "The Best" or "The most dependable" for me. Your turn. Fire away.


Just my (sometimes) humble opinion
 
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Well, my .30-30 marlin usually gets the job done. It just feels so good in my hands and shoulders well.

I bought my youngest son a mossberg atr in .270. He never could shoot it well enough to kill deer as it has a horrible trigger and he lost confidence in it. I don't like the darn thing either.
 
My #1 rifle is my Type 53. Someone previous to me cut it down in a very professional manner. Its extremely accurate, light and fires a round that will drop anything I may encounter. Of all my rifles, I would stake my life on it first for a real world situation when I'd be carrying a rifle.

My 500 is my go-to SD weapon. Six rounds of buckshot will stop anything within my home. This is also my deer rifle. Its reliable, compact and the controls are natural.

My SKS, AR, 10/22, 91/30, P85 and Hawkens are all "toys". I put that in quotations only because they serve no purpose other than my enjoyment. Yes, the AR would probably be my SHTF/TEOTWAWKI rifle, but I don't see Russians or zombies knocking on my door anytime soon.
 
In just a few seconds of thinking, my 'anything, anywhere, anytime' rifle is a sporterized '94 Swede in 6.5x55. It was cobbled when I got it; I added a scout type low powered scope and a sling.

It delivers bullets to point of aim with a nearly boring regularity. 6.5x55 will do anything I have any serious chance of doing. I have to get some pictures to post. None at the moment, sorry.
 
My most trusted rifle, regardless of caliber? I know it will ALWAYS shoot, consistantly accurate, and will kill whatever I ask of it, despite the overwhelming odds against it?

CZ 452 'Silhouette,' 22lr. Burris 'Mini' 4x20AO scope.
 
both my remington 700s new and old i have a lot of confiidence in the new on a 30-06 has a pretty heavy trigger but the older one a 243 has a very light and crisp trigger but i have alot of confidence in both for hunting
 
Please understand that in my response, I am not bragging, and not thumping my chest. The folks here at THR who have shot with me, know how I shoot. I won't brag; they can do as they choose. In the absence of witnesses, videos work great.

I trust every rifle I own. Trust is the single criteria that I have for a rifle, that I cannot compromise. Trust, for me, comes only from successful range practice, and real world deployment the firearmin the field, and not just from the bench. Ten yards on stable concrete is not 525 yards, run it on a steep slope, with slick grass and firing behind a 4 foot wall and see your accuracy.

Here is my self-disclossure re: the test for my deer rifles with standard barrels: Set 6, 2-liter pop bottles with water at 525 yards. Now load your rifle with 6 loads of the best you have...test your trust.

The goal, 6 shots, 6 kills. Since I handload, I know precise velocity, the precise trajectory and the precise drift for each rifle/caliber, and am confident to 525 yards, even with a constant wind. All that lacks for trust, is the on-going experience of each time that I pull the trigger, the rifle launches a booming round...followed by a wack and splat.

For what it is worth, only one rifle ever failed me in a hunt: Remington 700V in 6mm Rem. I had developed a handload that was pushing some 95 grain Nosler Partiticians at well-over 3,351 FPS. The load was AA3100, with form-fired brass, Fed 210 Bench Rest Primers. I will not detail the powder chanrge. It took a long time to trust the rifle again.

In closing, you created a great thread! It always helps to explain the why we trust. I could write a book on this topic. :)

Thanks for the thread!

Doc2005
 
I have a Ruger Express rifle in .30-06. It is a discontinued rifle; a "standard" caliber in dangerous game rifle configuration. It was semi-expensive for a factory rifle and obviously didn't sell all that well, but the fine Circassian walnut is very attractive, the multiple folding leaves are perfectly regulated, and the gun fits me as though it was made to measure. I can throw the rifle to my shoulder with my eyes closed, open my eyes, and find the sights perfectly aligned and on target. Accuracy is not spectacular; but I can count on 1.5 MOA in the rain, in the dark, and standing on my head.

This is the rifle I count on, and the one that leaps into my hands when I pass the gun cabinet. From a technical standpoint it is no better than other rifles in the rack, and even inferior to some, but it is still the one that I trust and that has never missed for me.

And that, gentle reader, is why I think "Best rifle for ______ " is a silly and nebulous topic.
 
My most trustworthy rifle is a CZ527 American in 223 Rem. It rides around in a gun rack when I am driving around the ranch. No matter what is keeps a zero and is hell on coyotes. It would be the last rifle to leave my possession willingly.
 
You know it is personal. My Dad worshiped his 742 30.06 woodmaster.
I on the other hand feel this way about my Savage 110's.

The Simpler the weapon the more reliable it will be. KISS
 
I have a rifle.. My hunting partners have named it 'Mr. Lucky'.

Nope, I never named it. They did. It's a Marlin 30AS. I've carved notches in the leather sling for my Deer and Deer taken by others that have carried it. Just something about it, It's been a lucky gun. Last day of the season type gun that you really want in your hand.

Has a person gotten a deer every time it's been carried? No. But it's always been 100% reliable. I verify the scopes on the hunting rifles before season, and it's just one of those iron sight rifles that I pull from the case, and just shoot off hand at a 10" plate at 200m. Ting! Ting! Ting!

I've ticked off more than one huntin buddy.. 'You go that way, I'll go the other way. We'll meet on the other side for lunch'. More than once I never made it half way. I don't know that it's my hunting skills. That rifle has something about it. A friend clipped a buck in the antler once. (Blacktail) His first hunt. I handed him my Marlin. We told him to sit, (here near were the first incident took place only minutes before), THAT BUCK CAME BACK. The Marlin delivered. (OK, Blacktail are curious, and often do come back to where they were disturbed from.)
-----------------

I have this other one. Some here may have read that I carry an old Ruger77 in wildcat 30-338. I bought it used after a season where I shot a big Black Bear at range with hand load (rather warm) 30-06. I hit him twice where I should have with good bullets. (Witnessed) Even after a timely dive into the brush with magnum pistol in hand.. -The only animal I've hit that hard that I didn't recover. It's almost haunting. I decided I needed magnum power for those long shots after that. So I get another 500fps with the same 190gn bullet compared to the old Ot-Six. I've yet to take a Bear with it. Several Deer though. The only time it's not been reliable was on an Elk trip where it and I took a rough tumble and the scope was trashed. Otherwise, the stock is cracked at the forward end, the bluing isn't perfect, but the action is smooth, the trigger perfect at 3 pounds with not a bit of creep, (easily as good as the Timney in the old Ot-six), and every time I cycle the bolt, every time I squeeze the trigger, she performs flawlessly. I'd take this rifle into the back country any time. (and do)

I have others. Rifles and Hand guns I'll put in the same ranks. But those two stand out.

-Steve
 
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I've owned freakin' hammers less trustworthy than my AK-47.
 
My POF AR is my most trusted. I went for a while without cleaning it, just for a test, many rounds later, it was working fine. No malfunctions. And it is VERY accurate.
 
The rifle I "trust" most is my Dad's old (now mine) Win 94 in 32 Win Spl. The "trust" part of it is kind of a symbiotic thing though. I longed for that rifle since I was old enough for my eyes to focus on it, and was allowed to handle it often, under Dad's tutelage. When I was 7, Santa, in his great wisdom, got me a Daisy Spittin' Immage (Mod 94) BB gun for Christmas. The guns were identical in dimension. Over the next 7 or so years, I unquestionably put somewhere in the neighborhood of a half million bbs through it. That's a lot of carrying, shouldering, and cycling, and snap-shooting... and the developement of muscular memory. When I transitioned to the Real Deal, everything but weight and recoil was the same.
43 years later, the rifle still comes to shoulder, on target, seamlessly and almost unconciously. I trust the rifle, and I trust me with it.
 
What is the most dependable hunting rifle?
Click to expand...

Manual action.

Because each round is manually fed into the chamber and extracted, a manual action is unaffected by ammo of varying power and much less vulnerable to feeding malfunctions then a semiautomatic action.

There are semiautomatic actions that are very good, to be sure, but even those can't compare to the reliability of a manual action. Even the legendary AK can't compare to most manual actions in the reliability department.

The main advantage of a semiautomatic action over a manual action is that it gives you a higher rate of fire and quicker follow-ups. However, this is the last thing you need to worry about in most hunting rifles. If you miss your first shot, Bambi isn't going to stick around long enough for you to take a second shot even if you are using a semiauto.
 
hmm...my first reach for rifle if I want to put a bullet where I want it?

my custom 98 in 308. I know, for a fact, with most factory ammo, put whatever bullet where I want inside of 300 yards.

why 300 yards?

I live in the Texas piney woods...most pipeline and wireline right-of-ways are about that long around here. I am sure I could touch out farther than that, just never needed to.

Plus...it makes one mighty fine Tannerite ignition device. :)


second would be my Model 94 in 30-30.

D
 
My Remington BDL in .270 that wears the same cheap tasco scope I put on it back in '87 when I got the gun new as a gift and was too young and broke to afford better glass. Never a miss, never a lost deer, has never lost zero. Something just feels right about it and it works.

I have other nice rifles with much nicer scopes, etc. but that BDL is "the one". So many times I have thought about getting rid of that scope and putting a nice Leupold or something on it, but I am almost too firm a believer in "if it ain't broke don't fix it", so it has stayed in it's original form all these years. It's weird but I don't want to jinx it by screwing with it. I do that with other guns.
 
i hunt yotys and the rifle that does the killen isnt my AR.or mini14,rem700,or any of my 22s or 17hmr its dads old trusty rem 222 mohawk 600 refit for 223. best little dog killer that ever killed a dog. THANKS pops
 
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