What is the most hated deer rifle you owned ?
- Thread starter Rosebud
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fta0303
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I found that Model 88 in 284 Win to kick like a mule, not something to stand and shoot all day. For a couple of shots, OK. The rifle is a wonderful rifle, light, strong, scopable, maybe the best lever rifle ever produced. But not for the bench.Two, a 99 Savage.358 then a Model 88 Winchester .358 . Thought that might be better. Wrong! At the time I weighed a buck 35.
Winchester Model 94 in 30/30. Bought the rifle brand new and took it to the range with a couple of buddies. After the first several shots, actuated the lever to load a round and the rifle went off as I closed the lever. Good thing I had the rifle barrel positioned in a safe direction. I sold the rifle and have not owned a lever action since and that was 50 yrs ago.
Probably the Remington 700 Mountain rifle that you are talking about. They made a few of them waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day. They were built with lightweight barrels that were a bit longer for long range sheep/goat hunting.
fta0303
Well-Known Member
This combination reminds me of the video of that Arab guy shooting a 577 Trex !
fta0303
Well-Known Member
a famously bad stock....
742 remington 30-06 it wouldn't group anything factory or reloads less than 6" at 100 yards
Wow... lots of great and interesting replies on this thread. I have been around the sun many times, and presently working on the 78th trip. With that said, many of the rifles that have been mentioned on this thread are familiar to me. At the age of 15, I can remember purchasing my first "ever" large caliber deer rifle. It was a .303 British Lee Enfield SMLE 3 (?) for $10. The rifle had a brass butt plate on it. This rifle gave me a true lesson on how it felt to be kicked by a mule. Loosened up my back molars and made room for my wisdom teeth for sure.
I am thinking that above all of the deer rifles that I "ever" owned, and the rifle that I hated the most was a Harrington and Richardson model 300 in 300 WinMag. This rifle had the worst recoil of any rifle that I have ever owned or "ever" fired in my lifetime!!! The rifle was light weight, with a pencil stock. After a few rounds through this rifle I had to send it back to the factory because the stock cracked. This was the kind of rifle that one could take to the range and put rounds out on the bench and ask if anyone wanted to shoot it. There maybe would be one or two takers and then no one would touch this thing!!! And... never any repeat takers, even for free ammo. After reading many of the replies on this thread comparing what one rather prefer to do about shooting a particular hated rifle, or...... ?? I know I would rather hug a rabid porcupine in a phone booth with a locked door than ever shoot this rifle again!!
I am thinking that above all of the deer rifles that I "ever" owned, and the rifle that I hated the most was a Harrington and Richardson model 300 in 300 WinMag. This rifle had the worst recoil of any rifle that I have ever owned or "ever" fired in my lifetime!!! The rifle was light weight, with a pencil stock. After a few rounds through this rifle I had to send it back to the factory because the stock cracked. This was the kind of rifle that one could take to the range and put rounds out on the bench and ask if anyone wanted to shoot it. There maybe would be one or two takers and then no one would touch this thing!!! And... never any repeat takers, even for free ammo. After reading many of the replies on this thread comparing what one rather prefer to do about shooting a particular hated rifle, or...... ?? I know I would rather hug a rabid porcupine in a phone booth with a locked door than ever shoot this rifle again!!
birddog 68
Well-Known Member
I noticed a majority of rifles on this list are horrible kicking SOB and inaccurate. Most are probably inaccurate because of the horrible kicking that you know you will be receiving. 
Jim’s Hunt
Well-Known Member
A model 77 tang safety in 280 and a Winchester 70 in 270. On a good day they would shoot 2"
Groups. Now I have a 1909 Argentine Mauser in 7mm X 57 that has a beautiful walnut stock perfect inletting with a steel butt plate that is a little abusive to shoot but I just have a hard time parting with it. So it's a safe queen
Groups. Now I have a 1909 Argentine Mauser in 7mm X 57 that has a beautiful walnut stock perfect inletting with a steel butt plate that is a little abusive to shoot but I just have a hard time parting with it. So it's a safe queen
Playtimefun
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- 237
For starters... I kind of have to agree with @Reelamin... the one I truly (actually) hate still has to be bought!!!!
But... semi dislike but still like enough not to sell it... Heckler & Koch 770 in 308 which is a cartridge I've seen fail more often then succeed in the field by friends (still own 3). Has the factory scope mount but it's so high its tough to look through it and pull the trigger. The safety location and operation is impossible to do unless your sitting in a blind. I picked up an HK 940 off a gun site thinking it would have the same stock configuration as the 770 (or similar) and the fore end is like hold the fat end if a baseball bat. But... the scope mount at least fits the sight plane properly.
I will add one category of rifles to see if people agree and I suspect it will be an age thing (maybe)????
Wood stocked guns over synthetic stocked guns over black rifle styled (adjustable butt stocks with aluminum hand guards that feel awful in the hand) stocks. Nice to shoot at range but just don't feel nice in the field.
But don't get me wrong... as I get older I am carrying my synthetic stocked ultra lightweights vs my wood stocked guns... but wood always feels so much warmer and looks better.
But... semi dislike but still like enough not to sell it... Heckler & Koch 770 in 308 which is a cartridge I've seen fail more often then succeed in the field by friends (still own 3). Has the factory scope mount but it's so high its tough to look through it and pull the trigger. The safety location and operation is impossible to do unless your sitting in a blind. I picked up an HK 940 off a gun site thinking it would have the same stock configuration as the 770 (or similar) and the fore end is like hold the fat end if a baseball bat. But... the scope mount at least fits the sight plane properly.
I will add one category of rifles to see if people agree and I suspect it will be an age thing (maybe)????
Wood stocked guns over synthetic stocked guns over black rifle styled (adjustable butt stocks with aluminum hand guards that feel awful in the hand) stocks. Nice to shoot at range but just don't feel nice in the field.
But don't get me wrong... as I get older I am carrying my synthetic stocked ultra lightweights vs my wood stocked guns... but wood always feels so much warmer and looks better.
I am not trying to hijack this thread, but hopefully helping anyone who does have an early model Remington 740 or 742. I have read a lot of the replies on this thread about the inaccuracy of these autos. About a year ago I refinished a 1959 Remington 740 in 30-06 for a friend. It was his deceased brother's rifle and in really poor cosmetic condition. The rifle stocks looked like they had been dragged a long distance down a dirt road behind a truck!!! When I finished with this rifle, he asked me to mount a scope on the gun for him as he was planning on taking it deer hunting with the next couple of months. He gave me some of the ammunition he was planning on hunting with to do the sight in. He gave me only one box (he's tighter than bark on a tree), so I used some of my reloaded ammunition to get this rifle sighted in, and then fine tune to his ammunition. Well... I went to two boxes of my reloaded ammunition, both some 180 and 150 grain bullets. This rifle would shoot all over the place. Finally I gave up trying, I figured there was something wrong with the scope. So he sent the scope back to the factory and they replaced the scope. Now we are back to square one with the new scope. Again I tried to get this rifle sighted in, only to find the same situation, point of impact was kept to within an 8 inch circle no matter what!! Now I am really POd with this thing and the "junk" scopes. So I decide to put one of my trusted Leupold scopes on it and give it a try again. Same thing. This rifle was "not" going to get the best of me and I started doing some research. I found an interesting article published by Wolfe publishing about the accuracy problems with the Remington 740 and 742. The article stated that the accuracy issue was due to a design flaw in the rifle. The article stated that what Remington did was design the fore end to be tightened to the rifle by the fore end screw and tightening that screw so that the fore end tightened against the front of the receiver. In principle this makes sense, but... in doing so this process also puts upward pressure on the barrel. The fore end wood on these rifles is thin, recoil will cause them to flex and move. Plus again there is the upward pressure on the barrel that would change as the barrel would heat up and cool off as well as climate change/s. I have attached this article to this post. It shows an accuracy block that was made by Williams Gunsight company. This block went in between the gas block on the 740/742, the fore end wood and the fore end screw. This block got sandwiched between these three and took the pressure away from the fore end and the received. I do not believe that this block is still manufactured, but the dimensions for this block are included with the article. I know that I personally could make one of these blocks with the limited tools that I have in my basement. I definitely know that this block could easily be made in a machine shop with not effort or time at all. I apologize to the OP for this long reply. I do hope that it helps those 740 and 742 owners.
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bonie
Well-Known Member
a Western field bolt action 30-06 with a steel but plate bought for me as a Christmas present at 15, my weight was around 120lbs at 6' tall. the dam thing killed on both ends. As I remember it shot ok but always bruised after target shooting even 5 shoots. Thanks anyway mom and dad.
69precision
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- Mar 4, 2016
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- 171
Ruger m77 with the skeleton Zytel stock. I had 2 of them, one in 270 one in 7 mag. Loved how they looked and felt. Both were 5 moa guns from the bench at 100yds. It wasn't me because I had 3 other rifles that I could keep under moa to 500. Crazy thing is they got super expensive. I was gonna give it one more try when I found one in a 308 a few years back at an lgs for like $400. I looked on gunbroker at was astounded what they were selling for. It looked unfired so I didn't even shoot it, just tossed it up on gunbroker with a $1,000 reserve price. Sold for $1,768.
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