I never understood this line of thinking. My jeep usually carries my rifle, sometimes a horse. I don't think either would mind a pound or two. As for carrying it on my back, I am not the svelt young guy I once was. I could skip a couple of meals and loose the weigh of the rifle from my body. I might even feel a little bettr an hike a little farther. I would bet that 99% of us could say the same. If the place I was hunting was really so bad as to make me fret over two pounds of rifle weight, then, I guess you can't get a horse in there?? How will you get your dead buck out??? How could two pounds of rifle make any difference when you are dragging a couple hundered pounds of dead buck??? Seems to me that the money spent on a fancy ultralight rifle would better be spend on a gym membership?

I would spend my hard earned money on top quality barrels, fancy wood, checkering, and engraving. But, to each his own.

Don't mean to befoul the thread. I like all kinds of rifles. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My opinion is no more valid than yours. I just thought I might provide some food for thought.

Take a look at the singleshot rifle forum and handgun hunting forum under Encore frame weight 6lbs and lighter depending on the configuration then tame it with a brake.

For my kind of deer hunting, a Blaser K95 single shot would be very close to ideal. Not only light, but short. When climbing through creek bottoms or up talus slopes, short is very good. Of course, you're back to that $2,500 number.

For woods hunting, something like a BLR or other handy lever would come close, too. It depends on what kind of deer hunting you are after. FWIW, Dutch