Favorite do-all rifle

My mother bought my father a Savage model 99E in .308 Winchester in 1960 on his 30th birthday. I tried more than a few times to get him to shoot other rifles/cartridges unsuccessfully over the years. His last hunting season was 2015 at the age of 85. He gave it to my son. As for me, my .280AI built around a Defiance action with a minor hesitation while glancing at my X-Bolt in 7mm-08.
Wow! My dad bought his 300 Savage 99 about 1970 when we came home from visiting grandparents one evening to find a bear after our turkeys in the backyard pen. His deer rifle till then was a 44-40 Winchester (sadly, traded for the 99). When Dad quit hunting 10 or 12 years ago, he gave the 99 to my son. 20 years ago I got a 99f in 308, put a 2-7x Nikon on it. It fits me wonderfully! Feels like I could almost shoot birds on the wing. With about 15 other rifles that would be fine for deer, the 99 is "my deer rifle ". Often, elk too.
 
Best do all RIFLE…? That's a hard one for me. I guess for me it would have to be my Remington 700 BDL in 30-06 Springfield. I've really been loving my Weatherby Mark V Ultra Lightweight in 6.5-300 Wby Mag as my do-all and it's really been amazing at killing everything it's pointing at for the past 2 years. But my 30-06 has done the same thing with 165 gr Accubonds cooking out the barrel at about 2950 fps for the 10 years preceding me starting hunting with the 6.5-300 using 127 gr LRX.

The reason my Remington 700 in 30-06 would get the nod is it's a 22" barrel instead of a 26" + muzzle break which makes it easier to handle in the bush and to hunt Bison in BC there's a caliber restriction and the minimum is a 175 gr bullet that retains 2000+ ft-lbs at 100 m. So switching my load to a 175 gr Barnes LRX is going to be a fun reloading challenge now!

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I can't see what any modern bottleneck cartridge from a .270 on up to a .338 Win Mag, including the 6.5 PRC, 7.8 Western, 7 and 300 PRC couldn't handle in North America. Where I'd pick on the spectrum depends on edge cases and personal preference. I don't know if there's a significant difference across the spectrum that would affect the outcome of an opportunity.

Out of what I have that's ready today, my M70 Classic in '06. My Mausingfield M7 SA in 6.8 will be the do-it-all tomorrow, perhaps with a spare .338 WSM barrel.
 
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