Comfortable minimum number of guns for effective hunting?

[kennygss]

A 10/22, an 870, and an 06'.

 

[Speedo]

A lot will depend on where you're hunting, the terrain, vegetation and the animals that you are hunting as well as the ones that you might encounter.

I have a friends that hunts Sitka black tails with a 375 rum simply because the area where he hunts is also home to a healthy population of brown bears.

Are you going to do all your hunting in one location or multiple locations? It is easy for someone to sit back and tell you what kind of a firearm you need but it is better to get a little bit more information to give you a more comprehensive answer. You can kill any animal in North America with a .270 but is that the rifle you want in your hands if you might be confronted by a grizzly sow with cubs? You might see if you can find hunters from your area that can give you some advice with a little local experience.

Gus

 

[Greyfox]

I have a bunch of rifles but these would be my top choices for hunting North America:

Savage 22Lr Bolt action, small game
Remington R-15 Varmint in 223, Varmints/ for Canada, Savage Predator 22-250
Cooper 6.5x284, Medium game to 1000 yards, coyotes +1000, Large to 500 yards.
Savage 338 Lapua, large game to + 1000

 

[SidecarFlip]

I'm going to add a Model 27 S&W long barrel 44 scoped revolver and a quality Blackpowder rifle.

We have a restriction on centerfire rifles here so a revolver and a BP rifle are necessary.

Hard to beat a 44 long barrel for whitetails at close (less than 50 yard) range.

 

[webs]

Minimum?

Well

Rifles
10/22
223 AR-15
243 Rifle
7mm Rem Mag
30.06
338 Lapua
375 H and H

Shotguns
Browning 625 Sporting
Benelli SBE II
A nice 16ga SxS

Pistols
High Quality 1911
Sig P229
Browning Buckmark 22
Ruger Redhawk 44 mag

 

[WildRose]

Hi All,

I'm very new to gun ownership and hunting in general, as well as this site. All I have so far is a S&W 5 shot revolver that my granddad that is 99 years old. As I'm in Canada, this gun can't be used for hunting

So part of the selling of the hobby to my wife was that I would NOT get into gun collecting, which several of her male relatives have been bad examples of leading to marital strife. (i.e. Running up credit card bills, buying guns instead of getting something for the kids, impulse buys that they couldn't afford etc)

I life in BC, Canada, and so have a very wide availability of game that I can hunt here. I'd like to be able to hunt everything that I legally can at least once, from small game/varmints all the way to big game like Moose. Preserving meat & pelts is a priority, as is getting bullets easily. I'd like to get some fur rugs, jackets and blankets from various critters out there. At the same time, I'd like to keep my options open for long range hunting down the road once I master shooting things close to me. I'm not sure what caliber mix is really necessary for this, from what I've read a guy can get by with maybe 3-4 guns comfortably, but which calibers? Any advice/suggestions would be great.

You could easily meet your needs with 2-3 rifles total.

A .204 Ruger or .220 Swift for varmints.

A 7mm Rem Mag or 7mm STW for everything else out to 1,000yds.

If you wanted a third rifle a .300 Rum or one of the big .338's for Elk/Moose/Big Bears beyond 800yds out to 1,200 or more.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

Hmmmmmm..... the 40 or 50 rifles I own are just enough to keep me "comfortable", at least for now anyway.

 

[Rem700]

My list would go:
Shotgun
223 for varmints/predators
7mm08 for up to mulies
7mm wsm for elk and up
Do you think you'll hunt for grizzly/brown bears? That would change my last my pick.

 

[adkguy]

Thompson Center Encore. 1 gun. 30-06 barrel, .22 barrel, 12 gauge barrel. High quality, wife is happy, and you can hunt anything this side of grizzly.

 

[ishootkittens]

Thompson Center Encore. 1 gun. 30-06 barrel, .22 barrel, 12 gauge barrel. High quality, wife is happy, and you can hunt anything this side of grizzly.

I love this post! Youre a resourceful man! If you were to up that -06 to a 300win mag you could POSSIBLY whack grizzly too!

I have a 12 gauge, .300wsm, and a .22lr. Some guys would throw a bow in there somewhere but this is a long range forum and would be blasphemous to talk about. I also carry a .45 colt with me.. but that power is optional

 

[SidecarFlip]

I have to change my synopsis about quantity that I posted way earlier in the thread.

In light of todays current events. Comfortable would be 'as many as you can afford to buy'.......

 

[one crazy kid]

280 rem or 300 wsm also 243 I think are all good ones to have.

 

[big mike 2121]

243 up to white tail size...300 win mag for anything else. Unless bear is included, then 338 or 375


and a shot gun for birds

 

[Engineering101]

Tytalus

You didn't mention birds so I'll not address shotguns. Were I in your situation today (and when I was younger I was), I would have 3 rifles in the following calibers:

1. 22LR (mostly for cheap shooting practice but they will kill a pest or two)
2. 22-250 Rem (cheap, fun to shoot, accurate and will handle up to deer where legal)

And when you want to put that practice you had with number 1 and 2 to use, you drag out number 3 (with a good muzzle brake attached).

3. 338 RUM shooting Barnes TTSXs. With those bullets this rifle will kill anything you will ever find in Canada and only damage it enough to kill it. You can as they say "eat the bullet hole". I shot a small whitetail with this cartridge to test the theory and it didn't hurt a bit of meat. The deer wobbled for 20 yards and fell over. The bigger the animal the harder it gets hit as these bullets usually don't stop in the animal. If it is 3 feet thick it goes through 3 feet shedding energy the whole time. If it is 1 foot thick it goes through 1 foot shedding energy the whole time - but less total energy is dumped than for an animal that is 3 feet thick. Good luck.