Rifle Weight Vs. Distance capability...

[tony m]

Being young is not a choice..lucky you ..don't waste it.Here once the game is down ,gotta get it out .Blowflies, other meat eaters etc, pretty soon find it.To my generation , (56) getting as close to game as possible was the objective, and key to retrieving it 10 minutes to darkness, on a remote sidehill.Where do you hunt those elevations? Cheers.

 

[Timber338]

on a warm season we get the flies too. our biggest enemy on the mountain has been bears. i get all my quarters back to camp and hung up high even if it takes me all night. my hunting buddies never believe me about the bears and don't take time to secure the meat and they get eaten the first night guaranteed. Hoping to shoot one of the bears this year. My elk country is on the western slope of the rockies between grand junction and montrose.

And I understand what you're saying about getting close. A buddy of mine a few years back shot his bull from literally one foot away... was not even looking through the scope, he was in the thick timber and actually had to leap forward around a tree and just held the rifle to up close to the hide. Last year I shot my bull from 37 yards wtih a bow and got a cow during rifle season from 35 yards... had to shoot past two bulls fighting in front of me at 15 yards. that was exciting. year before I shot a nice bull over 600 yards. so you can get anything you want. Don't try for short or long shots, just hunt and be ready for whatever shows up. Gotta have a rifle that can do it all and is not too dang heavy.

 

[tony m]

You got it ,get the meat out. We are are west of the divide too,just.I can see the divide fro my kitchen.Here,Grizzly bears are abundant and there is a hunting season for them.Some of these creatures can locate a rifle shot, so they can locate your elk or whatever you have down pretty easily.

 

[SidecarFlip]

What are your views on this for yourself personally?
The last few years I've been hunting and packing a 12.5 lb rifle on some pretty knarly hunts and while it serves double duty as my competition rifle, it is a bit heavy for backpack trips. Though I do feel comfortable out there on game to 700 yards or so depending on conditions (steel much farther). We are in the process of putting together a 300 Norma in hopes of it performing well enough to be our large 30-cal option for our upcoming hunting rifles. Trying to get rifle without scope to come in under 9 lbs.

Where do you draw the line for packing rifle weight? Do you feel the added distance capabilities of a semi-custom rifle is worth the extra weight over your typical factory Tikka/Rem/Savage? I'm trying to see what the majority consensus is as you are all potential customers, and we want to put rifles together that fit you and your hunting style! Thanks for the input ya'll...

Mike

Old thread but an easy answer. What ever you are comfortable on your shoulder or in your pack, limited only by the capacity of your wallet. You can build a big bore, long range rifle with very high tech alloy components and barrels and wind up scoped at less than 8 pounds but be apprised, it will be the most expensive 8 pounds you ever paid for.