First hunting rifle recommendations

[larry4831]

7x57 or 308

 

[Cousin Bongo]

My wife decided to go with a Mossberg Patriot Youth Super Bantam - a surprisingly nice, dependable and versatile rifle. Richard Mann has written some informative articles about the Patriot. e.g. http://empty-cases.com/blog/an-unlikley-african-rifle-mossbergs-patriot/
Video: http://empty-cases.com/blog/videos-2/?tubepress_page=9 (video is titled “A Mossberg for my wife.”)
Her Patriot is in 243 Winchester which handles kudu, etc. nicely. (Shot placement and penetration.) She loves hers. Now that I’ve run the Patriot Youth Super Bantam through the mill, I can - and do - recommend it.

CB

 

[Ray B]

@Just Gina I also agree with your first rifle being a 7-08 or a .308 Win, with a slight nod to the .308. Either one can be used up to elk size animals. Stock fit (length of pull) is important, and I would recommend a 22" barrel. I buy my guns for ME, not for resale value. Most of my rifles and shotguns have been modified to fit me.


I've only been handloading for 51 years and have handloaded somewhere around 300,000 rifle, pistol and shotgun shells. I have never heard of a "certified handloader." In this day and age of lawsuits for just about anything and everything, I can see government and corporate lawyers being afraid of letting students shoot handloaded ammunition.

Was the purpose of your post an attempt to discredit my status/comment or did you just want to show your lack of knowledge?

 

[Opposite Pole]

If your budget allows have a look at Sauer 404 Artemis or Blaser R8 Intuition. These are rifles with stock shape and dimensions designed specifically for female shooters and both of them are switch calibre rifles so with time you can easily add extra barrels to suit your hunting needs. Sauer can take you all the way to 404 Jeffery and Blaser up to 500 Jeffery. I’m pretty sure Merkel has rifles dedicated to female shooters too.

 

[johnnyblues]

I have to say you cannot go wrong with a 270 or even better the 270 WSM. I don’t think you will have any problems with recoil and accuracy with most are outstanding. I’ve taken everything from deer to moose with my 270 and recently too several plains game in Africa with my 270 WSM.

 

[greyfox]

Most (if not all) "Youth rifles" are short action (for a reason), Mossberg is VERY impressive and not a lot of $$, Tikka makes a compact, as does others mentioned in previous comments.
Try each one for fit, then pick WHAT you want - not what someone else tells you will fit you best!! Round wise, 7-08 or 308 and you can't go wrong and don't look back.

 

[billc]

I would try a few but not get into what they call the rifle. Kids , youth or ladys model does not mean it will fit you. Sometimes just changing the recoil pad could make it a better fit. I would not give up on the search to find a rifle with the longest barrel you can shoot well. I would say 24" barrel would be the shortest I would go. I think it is hard to beat a Remington 700 for out of the box guns. I think the 7-08 or a 270 would be perfect for what you want to do.

 

[Art Lambart II]

The .308, 7mm-08 and the 270 are great rounds and proven killers but they all have the same limitation, they are very limited in their choice of heavy for caliber bullets. I would recommend you look at their parent cartridge the 30-06, the 06 will take everything in North America and all of the African Plains Game. The 30-06 also has the largest selection of factory ammo available of any rifle cartridge in the world and is readily available in the US, Canada and Africa.

 

[IvW]

7x57mm(or 275 Rigby) nothing more and nothing less.

If I were to recommend a rifle for you, it would be the Ruger African .275 Rigby. Perfect for all you may hunt including African plains game. Light in recoil, classic, accurate and when using the correct ammunition it is absolutely deadly.

You need nothing more.

 

[curtism1234]

The .308, 7mm-08 and the 270 are great rounds and proven killers but they all have the same limitation, they are very limited in their choice of heavy for caliber bullets. I would recommend you look at their parent cartridge the 30-06, the 06 will take everything in North America and all of the African Plains Game. The 30-06 also has the largest selection of factory ammo available of any rifle cartridge in the world and is readily available in the US, Canada and Africa.

I think that is more of a concern for the 7-08 and 270.

I had the same concern before buying my 308win Browning lever action. While I don't trust accubonds or Barnes bullets just because of 308 velocity, there are several heavier factory loads on the market that are easy to find (depending on your location I guess - the folks up in the northern US love 180gr 308 loads and I live by a Cabelas and BassPro which keep a lot of variety in stock).
It's hard to beat the 180gr round nose or pointed Core-Lokts as well as 180gr Federal Fusion for cheap general close to home use. I personally use the Federal 165gr Gameking bullet which is a good tough bullet for what it is and can be used for game up to around 400 pounds. They load 180gr Partitions and a couple others. There is almost as many heavy bullet factory loads out there for the 308 as there is 30-06.

To your point, I think the 06 is a fantastic cartridge. If one wanted to carry the extra weight of the long action rifle (which varies greatly depending on brands [some long action rifles weigh less that some companies' short action rifles]) and can handle the additional recoil, it does give a little more range and omph

 

[Hogpatrol]

Just a heads up, there are a lot of different heavy for caliber 7mm/.284 bullets available from 170 grains up to 195 grains.

 

[curtism1234]

Just a heads up, there are a lot of different heavy for caliber 7mm/.284 bullets available from 170 grains up to 195 grains.

Yes, but the factory rifle twists in a 7-08 can not shoot those bullets well. You are going to struggle to even hit paper unless you have a custom barrel.

 

[Hogpatrol]

Yes, but the factory rifle twists in a 7-08 can not shoot those bullets well. You are going to struggle to even hit paper unless you have a custom barrel.

Agree. I'm shooting 195s in an 8 twist. I have shot 168s and 180s out of a 9 twist. You do need the horsepower to spin them up fast enough to stabilize. A 7-08 probably doesn't have it for the heavyweights.

 

[One Day...]

Back to the basics?

Very easy to get very quickly and very deeply into the weeds here ;-)

Maybe there is value in looking a little bit at the basics? What are we looking for in that first gun? In some semblance of order, it needs to work; it needs to kill; you do not want it to hurt you; it needs to allow you to grow with it; you need to spend your money where it is needed; you need to fall in love with it, and maybe a few other things like it needs to fit. In a way it is like buying a first car or a first motorcycle; there are classic mistakes: buying too big; buying too small; buying too expensive; buying too cheap; not buying what you need; etc. Let's try to take a look at these...

Need to work. About most any modern gun design in commercial production will actually work, regardless of brands, whether new or used. Where things require a bit more attention is that modern mass manufacturing (i.e. low cost) and quality control (or lack thereof) will occasionally turn out a lemon, even in a revered brand or model. For example the last few years of manufacturing of the Winchester 70 in New Haven, on worn out machinery and with a demoralized workforce, produced some guns that were objectively defective. On one of mine for example, the safety simply could not be engaged. It only took me 15 minutes to fix it because I knew how to take apart the firing pin and I knew what edge to file, but to many people this would have been an non-fixable issue short of returning the gun. It can happen with any manufacturer. The advice here is to buy your gun, new or used, from a reputable dealer that can perform a warranty exchange or repair, should you be unlucky enough to have a problem. A first time gun buyer should probably abstain from purchasing from a private party, unless you know the person well, or unless someone can assist you in making sure the gun is functional before you pay. Observe that so far brands or calibers have not even been discussed.

Need to kill. Well, that means two things: accuracy and caliber adequacy. Again, most any modern gun will be plenty accurate for hunting purposes, but a few will not. One would say beware of used guns in hot-rod calibers that burn out barrels in a couple thousand shot, but you are probably not in THIS market, and most people will never shoot a couple hundred rounds in most hunting rifles. In a used gun, check the barrel. Shinny? Sharp edges in the rifling? No rust or pitting? etc. In a new gun, back to the dealer/manufacturer warranty discussion.
The second, and much more complex discussion here is caliber. Everyone has (a) favorite caliber(s). Try to leave that aside and analyze your needs. For example you say "plains game." That covers a myriad of animals from a 50 lb duiker to a 2,000 lb eland... Hmmm... Let us tie in the discussion now the 'you do not want it to hurt you' and the 'it needs to allow you to grow with it'. You see, most caliber recommendation you will hear are made based on the recoil generally associated to a cartridge. This is why you hear now .308, 7mm-08, 7x57, .270 etc. These are all mild recoil calibers and good suggestions. But this is not enough. A more complete way to look at it, is that recoil - which you generally want appropriately mild in a first rifle - is a direct function of caliber indeed, but even more: bullet weight and gun weight. For example, an 8 lb 7mm-08 Rem. shooting a 140 gr (grain) bullet at 2860 fps (feet per seconds) will produce 12.6 ft/lb (foot/pound) of recoil, while a 8 lb .308 Win. shooting 180 gr at 2600 fps will recoil 17.5 ft/lb. 39% more! You will feel it. But, the same 8 lb .308 Win. shooting 150 gr at 2600 fps will only recoil 14.2 ft/lb. You will likely not feel the 10% increase in recoil, but the 7mm-08 is essentially maxed out with 140 gr bullets that are too light for heavy game when things do not turn out perfect, while a .308 has a lot of room to grow if you start with 150 gr. The same concept applies with the more powerful calibers, to the point that a .300 Weatherby, for example, is literally two guns in one between 150 gr bullets and 200 gr bullets. The advice here is: do not buy too big, of course, but do buy smart/big enough that our gun can grow with you as you learn to control recoil and as you hunt different animals. And for crying out loud, if you are a reasonably healthy young lady, yon CAN carry a 9 lb scoped rifle, so stay away from the foolishness of a 6lb. gun that will quick you into the next county everytime you pull the trigger.

Spend your money where it is needed. Very simple here: you need to spend as much, and likely more money on the scope than on the gun. And spend money on the mounts too. You cannot hit what you cannot see. You cannot hit with the wandering zero. nough' said.

Get the gun you are in love with. You will not hit with a gun you do not like. You will kill like by magic with a gun that you trust. Yeah, really. Truly EVERYTHING ELSE (within reason, i.e. it is mere foolishness to shoot an elk with a .223) is secondary to that.

Oh yeah, we have not covered yet the 'it needs to fit you' thing. This is because, you see, countless kids of any gender have killed countless game with their Daddy's gun, that they drooled upon for 5 years, worshiped for another 5, and finally have been allowed to take on that first hunt after months of increasing hopeful anticipation. Never mind the gun did not fit them... Of course, by all means, do get a stock that fits you, but do not think that just because you are a young lady it needs to be pink or half the size of a man's gun stock. Fit has nothing to do with gender; it has to do with build, and many, many men are not built all that different from many, many women. Marketing geniuses not withstanding. Do not give up a "men's gun" there is essentially no such thing ;-)

Ah, but now we can get into the Savage vs. Remington vs. Winchester vs. blah blah blah LOL.

One parting thought: if you are not all that enthused about oiling your stock every year, cleaning your barrel after every shooting session, etc. give a good hard look at stainless steel guns and synthetic stocks. Not to mention that you WILL sooner or later hunt in the rain ;-)

Another parting thought: did you notice I spoke about used gun? Killer value (pun fully intended) in many cases, if someone helps you to buy, or if you can get a 10 day or a 2 day return-warranty (i.e. enough to go shoot a box of ammo with it). Spend half a day at the closest Cabelas or Sportsman Warehouse or such and touch a lot guns, new and used. You will know when you find the ONE.

Welcome!

 

[Hogpatrol]

^^^^ good post^^^^

 

[fsrmg1]

I'd recommend a Winchester mod 70 pre-64 style Featherweight in either 7-08 or 308. I'd practice and do general hunting/shooting with normal loads, but you can always reserve a bit more power and range with some of the light mag loads.

 

[petrusg]

if you like the 308 i will stick to it, great all round calibre

 

[Spooksar]

My oldest son has shot Elk and plains game with a 7-08 using a 160 grain bullet. Zebra, Kudu, Gemsbok all one shit kills. It does the job if you do yours. And you can find ammo just about anywhere

 

[TXhunter65]

My oldest son has shot Elk and plains game with a 7-08 using a 160 grain bullet. Zebra, Kudu, Gemsbok all one shit kills. It does the job if you do yours. And you can find ammo just about anywhere

LOL!!!!

 

[Ray B]

One WHAT kills?? What sort of propellant is used?