Why not take a target gun hunting?

[eastbank]

i have two favorite hunting rifles, one is a rem 7 mm mag and the other is a rem 7mm08, both weight under 8 lbs and the reason they are both my favorite hunting rifles is both will put a cold clean barrel shot very close to a cold dirty barrel shot at 200yrds and the loads i found to do that in my rifles are a 120gr nosler BT bullet in the 7mm08 with a heavy dose of varget and a 150gr bullet in the 7mm mag with a heavy dose of rl-25 and both loads at going 3000 fps. its been a long time since i could even come close to packing a 13 lbs rifle and a 40 lbs pack for 6 miles , but i did carry a 26lbs m-60 with two belts a half shelter and lrps for 4 days 51 years ago. top picture is of two such shots at 200 yards with the 7mm mag and the second is two such shots at 200 yards with the 7mm 08 and the third is of the two rifles, these two rifles are not going any where soon. eastbank.

 

[outlawjw]

Get yourself a tikka t3 lite stainless in 7 mm REM mag , load 168 gr Berger's VLDs hunting bullets . A good scope and enough practice to be comfortable with the rifle . Train with what you've got untill time to hunt. Take your tikka & go . They are easy on the pocket high in quality ,& lite . Mine does less than 1/2 minute at 800 with plenty of killing power left.

 

[Stevenvalleyky]

Get yourself a tikka t3 lite stainless in 7 mm REM mag , load 168 gr Berger's VLDs hunting bullets . A good scope and enough practice to be comfortable with the rifle . Train with what you've got untill time to hunt. Take your tikka & go . They are easy on the pocket high in quality ,& lite . Mine does less than 1/2 minute at 800 with plenty of killing power left.

A lightweight 7mm mag doesnt sound like my cup of tea. Sounds like a teeth jarring piece of equipment to me. If I ever get a 7mm mag, it will have to be in a heavy target gun to save my shoulder.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

What do you all think? Is it completely impractical to take a long 26 inch heavy contoured barreled rifle to a treestand to hunt whitetails in big bean fields? Got friends that live in the eastern ky coal fields and shots can be a long ways off shooting across those strip jobs.

I hunt with a 20" hbar 6.5 Grendel on which I have a suppressor attached. I stand hunt and spot and stalk. It is a big, heavy rifle to carry around, no doubt about it, but I like it.

With that said, you don't need a really long and heavy gun to make 500 yard shots.

 

[outlawjw]

When you pull the trigger on a nice or otherwise animal you will not even notice the shove.

 

[LoonWulf]

When you pull the trigger on a nice or otherwise animal you will not even notice the shove.

But you will during practice, my 9.5lb 7mag is comfortable for me to shoot 40-50rounds in a few hours, a pound less and i might fire 10-20 shots.
Personally I happen to like longer heavier barrels even on guns I'm expecting to carry alot and shoot at muzzle burn range. I might fire 30-40 shots a year at game, but I'll happily burn 1-1.5k at the range.
Also while my longest shot on game, i actually expected to hit, wasnt all that far, i still generally reach for a heavier gun/cartridge combo if im expecting to shoot outside of 300yds.

 

[eastbank]

my light weight hunting rifles are not expected to shoot 20 shoots into one moa, but they are expected to shoot 1-3 shoots close to moa if needed at normal ranges and that for me is out to about 300 yards or so. i shot two speed goads in wyoming last oct, one at 280 yards and the second one at 310 yards with a rem sps 7mm08 with a 2.x5x8 leupold scope off a harris bipod. a 120gr nosler BT bullet at 3000fps sighted dead on at 200yards, it took 10 clicks to be dead on at 300 yards. i put 10 clicks in and held front center chest and at the crack of the gun the first fell dead and with the same hold on the second one it did a small semi circle and fell dead . as i don,t hunt field mice any more, the 7mm08 will do for most deer in the united states and if not i would use my rem 7mm mag with 150gr bullets at 3000 fps that takes the same amount of clicks to get out to 400 yards as the 7mm 08, but with more energy if needed. bless you if you can carry a 10-12 pound rifle all day, but at my age those days are over and not wanted by me any more. i have heavy weight rifles but they don,t go on long walking hunts. the lead sled is my friend when checking loads or sighting it.eastbank.

 

[Llama Bob]

Eastbank's setup is very similar to mine - A winchester 7mm mag and a Kimber classic 7mm-08. I love the flexibility of the 7mm-08 - anything from varmint rounds at 3450 ft/s to 175gr partitions at 2650. The 7mag gives a bit more reach for the 175 grainers, and has enough velocity to let me switch from the partition to the A-frame for a more guaranteed exit wound on elk. But in general the 7mm-08 gets the job done and weighs right at 7lbs with scope and sling. The 7mag supergrade is 10 lbs accessorized, and only gets pulled out if there's a good reason.

I find that 18-19 ft-lbs of free recoil is about as much as I want to shoot with a 1" recoil pad, and that's right where both the 7mm-08 and 7mag sit with 175gr loads. For deer, the 120gr Federal Fusions make the 7mm-08 quite tame and a potential youth rifle.

 

[outlawjw]

I too practice with a lighter kicking gun that is identical to my hunting rig . The hunting rig only gets shot for confirmation of zero at three different ranges four or five times a year . It is my favorite & I don't want to wear it out , it is for bringing home the meat with absolute faith in its ability to do what I ask of it. I do have another 7 mm REM mag that I shoot a lot sat least to me it is a lot about 600 rounds during off season. I shoot guns with low recoil & cheap bullets for my trigger time & I always shoot to hit , not to make noise. I like all my guns , but when it has to go down its tikka time.

 

[outlawjw]

You know , if you don't mind taking one it would be a great choice.

 

[herkyguy]

I broke out my 'target' remington 700 in .308 this past season just to say i have taken a deer with it. It's a far heavier gun than the 30-06 i usually take into the woods. up until that morning, it had only punched holes in paper and rung some steel. I doubt i'll ever take it in the woods again - far too heavy.

on another note, i am making this lil' feller into some enchiladas as i type.

 

[JeffG]

If you enjoy stellar accuracy, it is very gratifying to take game with that same rifle. It's a small leap from a varmint rig to a target rig. I say hunt and enjoy it!

 

[Manny]

I was looking at a Ruger Precision Rifle (RPR) in .308 and was thinking with a Magpul PRS stock to balance it out a bit and a reasonable scope like a 4.5-14 it would make for a very fine stand hunting rifle.

 

[outlawjw]

I have a custom REM for stand hunting , but I have to carry it farther from the house to the truck than from truck to stand. It's those 30' of stairs that's tough

 

[WVRJ]

I have several rifles that don't really look much like hunting rifles,but they work quite well.There's the 25-06 M700 with a #4 contour Wilson match grade barrel and a 6.5X20 VX3 sitting in an H-S Precision varmint stock.It's always in the .5 MOA range,and is a delight for whitetails at longish ranges,maybe out to 500 or a bit more if things are right.Or my Remington 700 VTR in 308.I usually keep it in a B&C Medalist stock which is too heavy and blocky for hunting,but if I put it in the original stock,the weight's around 9 pounds with the 4.5X14 Mark 4.I have shot this rifle a lot and know it well.The last deer it killed was at 550 yards and a well placed shot made it a bang flop affair.My favorite whitetail rifle is a custom 700 with a 24" custom contoured Shilen barrel that is a bit heavier than the average sporter barrel.It's in a Magpul Hunter 700L stock and it gets a lot of strange looks from the red checkered wool coat wearing rednecks in my part of WV.Any of these 3 rifles would fall into a class of rifles that aren't really target rifles,but have a lot of target rifle features built into them to make them great hunting rifles.Except the weight.I'm just a couple deer shy of 300 killed,and maybe 1 in 20 were killed at ranges beyond 150 yards and only a handful were beyond 500 yards.Most of the time my hunting rifle will weigh around 8 pounds,but I have a couple that are below 6.The super light rifles are a lot harder to shoot well,but aren't often called on to do anything past 200 yards.I am very confident that the three rifles I've described here,in my hands will stay on a 10"plate at 500 yards because I shoot that far.A lot.In the wind.My last rounds with the 25-06 and 308 were a 3 shot group with each one on a nasty 20 mph wind,and all shots were well inside the 10" circle.Cold bore,clean bore,dirty,it doesn't matter.I will tune both rifle and load very well and when this is all done right,there is no difference in point of impact from the first shot on.It's not really the cold bore that gets you,it's the oxidized,gritty powder fouling that will cause major(1 MOA or more)first shot deviation.A well tuned rifle won't care about the first shot.I don't relate what I've said to any other source than my experience and what I've learned in the short time I've been foolin with this foolishness

 

[fpgt72]

I did not see this talked about...but another thing is when hunting stuff happens....getting a scuff on one of my "nice" rifles is one thing....getting a scuff on a hunting rifle is another.