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one rifle for everything

Laguna Freak said:
When I was a kid, I once took half a dozen tasty small game birds with a 22 LR before the rest flew off. I know, I know, pot-shooter! 🤣

Purty dang good shooting though, knockin' their wee little heads off 😜👍
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Back in the '60's, put a lot of Robins in the freezer using a .177 Benjamin Pump….. a bunch of them makes for good Gumbo! 😉 memtb
 
memtb said:
Back in the '60's, put a lot of Robins in the freezer using a .177 Benjamin Pump….. a bunch of them makes for good Gumbo! 😉 memtb
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On the farm where I grew up in the 1950s. Neighborhood pal would catch crawfish. A piece of tin on two bricks. Built a fire and cooked those crawfish and ate them. His name was Terry Tippens,
 
memtb said:
Back in the '60's, put a lot of Robins in the freezer using a .177 Benjamin Pump….. a bunch of them makes for good Gumbo! 😉 memtb
Click to expand...
Ha ha! Mine never saw the freezer. I remember like it was yesterday even though it was 47 years ago. Walking home late afternoon from my buddy's farm. Heard them whistling for ol' bob white. I jumped the ditch and crawled under some sumac. They were just sitting there a little down hill of me, about a dozen of them 15 yards away and more calling out of sight. Every time I'd shoot that old springfield auto loader they'd jump up and then gather 'round their buddy looking sideways at him/her trying to figure out why he was flapping around on the ground. I still can't believe they let me shoot 6 before they flew off 🤣👍
 
Its got to be 2 guns

1 open sight walking rifle/carbine
1 scoped rifle

And they are backup to each other if one fails

No you wouldnt carry them both, but keep the one you aren't carrying in the truck or at base/camp
 
Laguna Freak said:
Ha ha! Mine never saw the freezer. I remember like it was yesterday even though it was 47 years ago. Walking home late afternoon from my buddy's farm. Heard them whistling for ol' bob white. I jumped the ditch and crawled under some sumac. They were just sitting there a little down hill of me, about a dozen of them 15 yards away and more calling out of sight. Every time I'd shoot that old springfield auto loader they'd jump up and then gather 'round their buddy looking sideways at him/her trying to figure out why he was flapping around on the ground. I still can't believe they let me shoot 6 before they flew off 🤣👍
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A friend, an avid bird hunter trained his dogs to not chase rabbits. It could interfer with bird hunting. He sat in his yard and watched his dogs watching rabbits eating his garden.

Nosy neighbors made him not use his .22.
 
Marplot said:
A friend, an avid bird hunter trained his dogs to not chase rabbits. It could interfer with bird hunting. He sat in his yard and watched his dogs watching rabbits eating his garden.

Nosy neighbors made him not use his .22.
Click to expand...
Personally I had a peach tree in my back yard and squirrels eating my peaches. My housekeeper brought her pellet rifle and suggested she could make a squirrel and peach pie.

Took her up on it. Zeroed in on one of the tree rats. Drilled the bugger through! He fell, bloody, in my open hot tub! My wife, at the time, insisted that I drain the hot tub, scrub and refill it. So I kept the cover on the hot tub unless we were in it!
 
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I'm currently very tempted to do exactly as the title says. I'll write something down to clarify my thoughts to others and especially myself. I currently have two (centerfire) rifles, and a 22LR and a 17HMR.

My large game rifle is a pencil barreled 30-06. It is adequately accurate, works as intended and I don't really have too much to complain. What I slightly dislike about it that the thin barrel gets hot real fast and causes plenty of mirage on range that distorts the scope image. It also is not superbly accurate. It can hold most ammo within 1 MOA for 5-10 shots but it seems to be somewhat sensitive to any changes (temp, support etc). It has a really nice Steiner M7xi scope on top of it.

My varmint/range rifle is a 223 with 1:12" twist. What I like about it is that it is really accurate with certain loads, easily sub-MOA. The recoil is light and it is easy and cheap to shoot and reload. The powder consumption is small, cases are easy to resize, the bullets are cheap etc. What I don't like about it is that the slow twist rate that prevents the use of ballistically efficient bullets. Anything past 300 meters is ****ing in the wind.

My hunting is mostly from a blind or other static location, so I rarely have to carry the rifle more than a mile during the hunting day. I mostly hunt white tailed deer and raccoon dogs with an occasional hare, fox or roe deer in between. I've lately also become interested in learning and competing (mostly to evolve as a shooter, not so much to win) in PRS. None of my current rifles are well suitable for that. The 30-06 is not a good fit for a rapid course of fire and the 223 is ballistically inferior.

I'm somewhat of a minimalist by nature and now I find myself considering buying a third centerfire which also would need a scope, suppressor, dies, scope mounts and all that. This has led me to considering replacing both my existing rifles with a single varmint or semi varmint, most likely a Creedmoor. Throw the Steiner on top of it, fit it in a nice stock and do everything with it. Sure, it is a bit more expensive to shoot and reload than a 223. Sure, it does not have the oompf of 30-06. But there are certain benefits in using the same rifle for practice, white tail, raccoon dogs and PRS.

Driven hunts and moose hunting are something I very rarely actually do. This rifle wouldn't be the perfect tool for those, but I think it could be manageable. I also have the small, light and easy to carry HMR for smaller game and the 22LR for practice.

I'm thinking of something like a Tikka T3x CTR or (super) varmint in 6.5 Creedmoor with a Steiner M7xi 4-28x56 on top sitting e.g. in a KRG Bravo. I don't really see much cons in replacing the two rifles with a single one. It will definitely be suppressed, so a 20" barrel most likely would be my choice though it is not the perfect solution for a PRS rig.
 
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If the OP from 2008 is still following this I like the idea and am essentially doing it with quick change barrels and qd optic mounts. 1 action, 1 stock, selection of barrel plus a conventional scope and thermal in a qd mounts.

Very versatile you can go from 223 all the way up to short mag in minutes. Also have the thermal scope in qd mounts. Day to night rig in seconds!

Not 1 caliber but 1 platform. I have the same length and contours in the carbon barrels so everything is identical.
 
WMDM said:
If the OP from 2008 is still following this I like the idea and am essentially doing it with quick change barrels and qd optic mounts. 1 action, 1 stock, selection of barrel plus a conventional scope and thermal in a qd mounts.

Very versatile you can go from 223 all the way up to short mag in minutes. Also have the thermal scope in qd mounts. Day to night rig in seconds!

Not 1 caliber but 1 platform. I have the same length and contours in the carbon barrels so everything is identical.
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OP is last seen Jul 12. 2019.
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