Okay, I broke down. Some of you didn't agree with the choice but I did get the Winchester M70 Featherweight in .308. Just picked it up on Tuesday. Man, is it a nice rifle. Of course, I've never purchased a NEW bolt action before...only singles, autos and levers. I think I'm going to have fun at this course.
Thanks again!!
Reviving an old thread...
So, it just so happens that I finished this class today. Great class. For those of you nay-sayers out there, you really should sign up and take this class. Besides Randy being a pretty top-notch instructor, he doesn't try to present the class as anything its not. He admits there are certainly times and situations where he'd prefer an m-4 with a wheel barrow full of 30 round mags. But I was very surprised by the usefulness of a bolt gun. Even if you don't ever want to use the gun as a fighting weapon, you can use all the information given for hunting. It's worth the price and the time.
As for the guns used, Winchester Model 70 classics and Model 700's were most common. He was pretty adamant about using what you had. For me that was a Remington 700 in .30-06 with surplus Greek ammo. I had a very old 3x Burris extended eye relief scope mounted forward in a scout configuration (a b-square mount with low Burris QR zee rings). My experiences were mixed. The forward mounted scope made reloading easier, but was harder to get a constant cheek weld with. The long action (.30-06) was a bit harder to maintain my cheek weld while working the bolt. I used a Brownell's competition plus sling (1907 leather military type shooting sling), as I didn't have time to get a ching sling. It worked great for position shooting, but was not nearly as fast as the ching sling. I used a hand held streamlight TL-3 and a surefire G2 nitrolon for the low light portion. A weapon mounted light would have been nice, but I'm not sure I would have used it, as we were training to use hand held lights.
So, to get back to the OP's original question of what gear to take, I will tell you what I would take if I took this class again (which I wouldn't mind doing). First, the rifle would be either a Winchester Model 70 Classic Featherweight or a Remington 700 in .308 (although a scout modified Lee-Enfield would be cool to try). It would have a lightweight synthetic stock with a third swivel for a ching sling. I would be very conflicted between a conventionally mounted lightweight low power Leupold or a scout setup. Either would work very well, and either would be mounted in quality QR rings (like Talley). Last, I would probably have some sort of way to mount a light on the 6 o'clock position on the stock. That would be my choice knowing what I know now. Take that for what it's worth...