A Little Rifle Help, Please (Purchased Gun w/ PICS!!! Pg 12)

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Good recommendation. Seems someone made that same one awhile back...

 

[nautical_bouy]

Davaroo, we agree on many points, here is not much but .034 of an inch,,,lol. Bluey, go up to Ace, most newer used guns will be 30-30 and .243's,,, the kids out grew them, most older rifles, usually Rem 700's and Win. 70's will be '06 and 270's, estates and guys that don't hunt anymore.

All you can do is look around and research, I and others have given their opinion and I've offered my rifles, any spoke of will kill your coon, and there was enough hot air to knock most deer off their feet....

Can't get to serious about a coon and new gun when a started pullet cost less than a box of .243 Federals by 6 bucks and a dollar more than some .17 HMR's.

 

[michaelvcrowder]

nautical_bouy,
with all respect to jack o'conner and his ubiquitous cult of .270 fanatics i am not personally a big fan of the caliber. (how do ya'll like the way i worked the word of the day into my sentence?) this round is almost flawless on paper. it is nothing but a necked down 30-06 case which make one of the finest parent cases of all. .308, 280 rem, .270, 25-06, 250 savage, .22-250, are just a few calibers based on this fine case.

if i just sit and look at the ballistics charts then i have to say the venerable .270 is a wonderful choice. but now to my personal experience. i own one and have never taken it into the woods. the reason is that i have seen more wounded deer that either took multiple shots to put down or slap ran away from shooters of .270 than any other caliber. of course there is nothing scientific about my opinion. i have several friends that use them, who i know are good shooters, and they always seem to be taking follow up shots or chasing wounded deer. in fact i have personally seen this in my lifetime at least a couple of dozen times. the only other caliber i have seen this happen more with is the 30-30.

but my personal experience does not form enough statistics or data to warrant any kind of provable theory. it is nothing but one persons limited observations. on the other side of the coin i very seldom see a deer take more than a step or two after being shot with a .308 or a 30-06.

when choosing a deer cartridge the terrain and bullet selection are the most important aspects to me. here in north georgia most deer hunting is in woods and brush. most of the time an opportunity for anything over a 100 yards is rare unless your hunting a power line cut or a field. for most of my hunting in north georgia i carry my .308. it serves me well and for the average shot distance of 40 to 90 yards it anchors a deer.

when i hunt a power line cut or a south georgia bean field i step up to a 7mm mag. the 7mm mag is a .270 on steroids. if you want a flat shooting rifle that can tote a heavy enough bullet to anchor a deer out to 400 yards then this is my choice. my personal 7mm hunting rifle is a remington 700 that has a factory barrel that we recut the chamber, black starred and cryo froze. i added a muzzle brake that was tuned to the harmonics of the hunting taper factory barrel. i had it bedded and the trigger tuned to somewhere between stock and target pull. all the metal was teflon coated and then reassembled to exacting specifications. (sound familiar? i do this same proven process to most of my rifles) below is a photo of the rifle that has never let me down at distance.

now for what i consider the real weakness of the .270 caliber. bullet selection. i assemble all of my loads. sierra bullets offers 5 different hunting bullets in .270. they offer 19 in .30 caliber. that is four times the choice. this same company only offers 8 hunting style bullets in 7mm but that is still a much wider selection that .270.

speer offers 7 hunting designed bullets in .270, 15 in 7mm and 24 in .30. this increased choice of bullets is required for me to be able to tailer loads to specific purposes and retain maximum accuracy. for this reason i have taken a pass on the .270 weatherby mag also but the .300 weatherby mag is the bees knees for killing medium sized game in the 400 to 800 yard range. if i wanted the ballistics of the .270 i would use a .280 remington which are almost identical but you nearly double your bullet selection by moving to the .284 bullet diameter. but then you are still just trying to reinvent the .308.

now that i have gone all technical i still have to admit that the .270 is a fine cartridge on paper, time proven according to a lot of people, and highly regarded by lots of folks that are more qualified than me to render an opinion. so if someone is an o'conner acolyte i can understand where they are coming from, it is just that the companies that support shooting seem to be culling their bullet selection for this caliber more and more as time goes by.
michael

p.s. once again to be "on topic" i'll state that for killing most varmints the .223 is hard to beat. if you want a get it all done caliber (varmints to medium game) try the .25-06, about a 25% better bullet selection than the .270 and all the whallop you could want. but of all this the most time proven, inherently accurate, best bullet selection, etc. is the .308. if you want to buy off the shelf ammo for a variety of purposes this cartridge gets it done.

 

[nautical_bouy]

Mike, I never had one run when using a 130, they fall over, I have seen many run with 7's and 06's, especially when 170 and 180 grain bullets were used. Thats why I use it when I have much bigger calibers. Look at the math, the 7 rem is no flatter shooting than a 270 at the ranges most hunters shoot. It does however quickly erode it's throat and needs a lot more powder because the round is severly overbored, and I'll add a 280 PO Akley improved duplicates the rems ballistics from the old 06 case, BTW the 308 is not based on an 06, the 300 savage was it's starting point. I can go on for hours about why the 7 rem cannot hold a match to the 300 mags, and none of them are what Bluey is after, he wants a deer rifle and I gave my opinion on why I prefer a 270 over the 243 discussed. Some food for thought about weatherbys, they have excessive free bore to build a pressure spike that causes more throat erosion than normal and strips alot from the jackets all to gain a few FPS and they use 26'' tubes, not 24's like the others usually use. My 300 win has a 27'' shilen air gauged match barrel, hand lapped lugswith allmost 95% contact, 40LB main spring, titanium pin, slightly tighter than SAMMI spec chamber, and a jewel trigger, all cyro treated,, 78 grains of 4831 drive a 180 barnes moly XBT to a solid 3175 still below max pressures and a personal best group of .398 outside to outside, not centers.@ 100 yards. I built the 300 after I foolishly jumped on the 7mm STW bandwagon and learned an expensive lesson about a 284 bore using over 65 grains of powder,, 1500 dollars and 400 rounds, the barrel was junk..I'm no stranger to building custom long range shooters.

 

[Flyingbavarian]

I have a friend who deer hunts with a .223 and takes deer every year. I would never use it for deer but that is a personal choice. On the other hand i have a cousin that shoots a 30-06 and has wounded more deer than anyone i know. I guess what i am saying is i think alot is dependent on the shooter if you don't have proper bullet placement you will not kill deer cleanly no matter what caliber. I personally use a .243 now but I have used a .308 and a .44mag levergun. I can say that the recoil from any of the magnums and some of the larger caliber rilfe cartridges can put off some shooters. That is what is so great about having all the calibers to choose from there is something for everyone.

 

[Jaybr]

Since we're doing show and tell, this is my deer rifle. As I stated in an earlier post, I deer hunt with shotgun and rarely ever use a rifle unless I'm hunting with someone in a rifle county. I think I may have carried it once in the last 5 years.

This is not a fancy rifle, and not a caliber I am reccomending. This is an 8mm Mauser (8 x 57js) that my grandfather brought back from WWII. He sporterized it, handmade the stock and shortened the barrel. My dad got it when my grandfather passed, and handed it down to me when I turned 18. Over the years I've had all the metal refinished, had the bolt turned, barrel recrowned, and added a Nikon Monarch 3.5x10x50mm scope. None of the US ammo maker make a decent round for it, they all comply with the older 8mm standards with lower pressure. I use Norma 196 gr hunting loads and it's got more than enough to take down anything in North America at reasonable ranges. I shoot it well out to 250 yds, but have never taken a deer with it, I average 5-6 deer a year with shotgun and blackpowder.

 

[bluey]

Guys, your passion for your firearms is impressive.

Keep 'em coming, I'm getting quite an education.

Jaybr, my buddy has a WWII Mauser and we fire it from time to time. Lots of fun!

 

[Ugly Cowboy]

Get a Mosin Nagant. You can pick 'em up for about $75.

 

[Davaroo]

Remember, our man is mostly interested in raccoons and deer. And, I believe the deer was only a later idea.
Neither of these two require the blast and oooomph of something like a '30-06 or .30 Russian, 8MM/.32 caliber, although he does live in PA where the deer can get pretty big.

Were it me, I'd shop on the used market, bluey, for a single shot .223 Handi Rifle or .357Mag Marlin for the coons and a nice bolt gun in a suitable deer caliber for the big goats.
Something like a .30-06/308WIN, .270WIN.
For one that could do double duty, look to the .243 WIN.

There are a ton of choices and a million guys with their pet choices, and it;s fun to swap tales and learn. But at the end of the day, these will do all you'll need of them.

 

[gila_dog]

Bluey, at what range are you shooting these racoons? If you have shots within 30 yards, I'd vote for a 12 ga shotgun with #2 or BB duck loads. Those will blow a racoon right out of the tree and he'll be dead before he hits the ground..

But, since the discussion has wandered into deer rifles it really comes down to what turns you on. Bolt action (high power, precision accuracy), or light and handy (30-30 Win 94 or Marlin), or max firepower (M1, M1A, M14, M16, AK-47, Mini-14, etc) etc. I don't think any kind of .223 is a good choice for deer hunting, tho. True they are lethal, but shot placement is very critical.

Personally, I use a Rem 700 30-06 or a .50 cal muzzle loader for deer and elk.