Easy shooting rifles, for deer

[Vince]

After I bought my Winchester Model 70 in 25-06 I became a big fan of the .257 caliber.
I'm in the process of selling two .300 Win Mags and two .308 rifles but my 25-06 will stay just in case the wife ever decides she wants to shoot rifles or hunt. She's right handed, I'm left handed. All the rifles I'm selling are right handed.
I have a left handed Model 70 in .338 Win Mag and I'm on the hunt for a left handed 25-06, .270, or 30-06. If it's not a 25-06 I'll have it rebarreled. I refuse to be without a 25-06 now that I've been spoilt.

Vince

 

[gerry]

Ruger, Browning, Savage, Tikka and Sako all make left hand 25-06 rifles off the top of my head, shouldn't be too hard to find one you like Not sure if Winchester or Remington ever chambered it but maybe they did in the past. My sister in law has a Tikka T3 25-06 and this year my nephew, brother and her took 16 deer with it, they really like it a lot.

 

[Larry in SD]

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have seen a parent start a child out with a Cartridge / Gun that was WAY too much for them.

For my own daughters and ultimately grandchildren I did the opposite. In those days I didn't have a lot of extra cash for different rifles (I don't now either for that matter) and basically had one Deer Rifle and one Varmint / Predator Rifle, generally a .30-06 and a .223.

My oldest daughter used a Ruger KM77RP MKII in .223 shooting 70gr. Speer Semi Spitzers at about 2900 FPS. When her chance came the rifle, cartridge and load did the job. Even as she got older she really didn't like pounding recoil. She opted to purchase a Ruger Hawkeye Stainless Synthetic in .308. We had the barrel shortened to 18 1/2" and I worked up a load with 150gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips with H-4895 Powder to a muzzle velocity of 2500 FPS. This one turned out to be quite accurate and the one and only Whitetail she has shot with it to date didn't know it was a reduced recoil / reduced velocity load, it just dropped in it's tracks at 175 yards.

My youngest daughter was a different story altogether. She never seemed overly comfortable shooting Rifles regardless of the chambering. She hunted with the same rifle as her older sister but with 64gr. Winchester Power Points Handloaded to 2950 FPS. She never did get a shot while using that .223. However the day her chance for her first deer came was an odd day. She wasn't going to go hunting but as I was leaving decided to go along. We had had an argument (parents and kids imagine that) so I told her I was leaving if she was coming to get in. After we were in stand did we figure out the only gun we had along was my Super 14 .30-30 AI Contender Handgun. Maybe that was the good luck charm we needed that year or not but it worked. In fact my youngest daughter to date has never shot a Whitetail with a Rifle but rather only with that T/C Contender Handgun. We hope to change that this year.

When my grandkids started hunting I actually went a totally different direction (as I did for my local conservation officers kids when they started hunting). This time we took a load straight from the Hodgdon web site under the youth load data. This was for a Remington Model 700 Stainless Synthetic BDL that we had shortened the barrel to 18 1/2". I use 125gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips with a charge of H-4895 taken from the Hodgdon youth data. Groups ranged from 3/4" to 1 1/4" at 100 yards depending on the day and the shooter.

My oldest granddaughter has taken 3 Whitetails with what she affectionately named STUBBY (the above .308 with the youth load) and one with her mothers Ruger .308 with the load outlined above. My grandson also used STUBBY to take his first ever Whitetail.

The neat thing is all of these have been one shot kills, DRT. Ranges have been from 40 yards to 200 yards and the deer didn't know this was a special reduced recoil / reduced velocity load.

For my youngest granddaughter (that is old enough to hunt that is) I used a totally different approach. I loaded up 65gr. Sierra Gameking Spitzer Boat Tails with Varget for my DPMS 16" Oracle .223. Her chance came after a intense waiting game as the little buck made his way 1/4 mile across a combined bean field to his resting place 20 yards from us. This was a neck shot facing us and the little buck was DRT so I have yet to learn what this bullet will do on a lung shot.

At any rate I feel much more comfortable and confident with a larger cartridge / caliber using a reduced recoil / reduced velocity load for these new hunters as I feel their very first experience in hunting should be enjoyable and memorable. Starting out with a Cartridge that is going to pound them it will probably be memorable but not for the good of the young shooter.

The above mentioned Remington .308 belonged to my wife who also doesn't like recoil. Unfortunately my wife never did have the opportunity to take a Whitetail Deer with that rifle with the youth loads and never will as her hunting days are over.

The point of this is to anyone with children that have not reach the age to be able to hunt as yet, please start em out right with a cartridge that they will enjoy shooting and hunting with as I believe the shooting part prior to the hunting part is at least equally important and should be enjoyable.

Larry

 

[gerry]

Great post Larry, looks like you have had considerable experience with young shooters. I got a chuckle out of your first line about guys choosing too big of a round for their children, on another website where the question came up about what would be good for his kid someone actually recommended getting a 300 Weatherby for a youth gun :shock:

 

[Vince]

Great post Larry, looks like you have had considerable experience with young shooters. I got a chuckle out of your first line about guys choosing too big of a round for their children, on another website where the question came up about what would be good for his kid someone actually recommended getting a 300 Weatherby for a youth gun :shock:

Gerry,

I think I saw that post.
If it was in a forum that used to award prizes, by points total for stories and such posted, I did. I also replied but with a different moniker.
As for my finding a 25-06, that will be harder than anyone thinks. It has to be a Winchester Model 70 CRF.

Vince

 

[gerry]

It was on HuntingBC a couple of years back Good luck on the Model 70 LH 25-06 it will be hard, you may have to get a donor and get a new tube. Maybe this will be the year they finally come out with the LH model again and all those "generous" souls jacking up the prices to obscene levels will get knocked back down to earth.

 

[Vince]

I talked to Winchester a month or two ago and they said two years before they do a run of left handed rifles.

 

[Guy Miner]

All Ruger Number One rifles are equally suitable for left or right handed use...

They look & shoot great too!

Guy

 

[big rifle man]

All my deer hunting has been in the Northeast (Maine) and either my 7-08 or my 336 in .35 Remington has filled the bill nicely. Don't need anymore power as shots are within 60-70 yards.

 

[PJGunner]

All Ruger Number One rifles are equally suitable for left or right handed use...

They look & shoot great too!

Guy

I know. :grin: I have two in 25-06. One is a tack driver and the other one is very pretty. I just haven't found what it likes, that's all. The tack driver was to be a donor for a .35 Whelen. Should not have shot the donor. It looks rode hard and put away wet. The pretty one is proving to be a tad stubborn but I'll whip it. I've made more than one stubborn #1 shoot.
Paul B.

 

[Oldtrader3]

I also had a Number One also that proved to be stubborn. I never did defeat it's accuracy problems with any level of satisfaction and sold it. My other Number One's have been fine for accuracy with the right load.