Why Winchester or Remington? The Rugers are a great deal, nicely finished in stainless with a decent laminate stock, controlled round feed, etc. etc, about $450 INCLUDING RINGS (add on $60 - $80 to other guns to factor this in). As for caliber, why not a .270 Winchester?

Happy spending,
Todd

That's a very young age to start aquiring a hearing loss. Whatever you get him also insist some other family member spend $200 on a set of electronic earmuffs to be worn in the field.

Wow! I've been busy the last several days with some home improvement projects and haven't logged on since making my initial post! Thanks for all the responses and suggestions!

I'll try to respond to the points raised in the thread.

His father is a successful businessman and, although he does not want to spend a fortune for a custom rifle at this point, money is not an issue. Hence I felt no remorse in suggesting Talley rings and bases.

Regarding the choice of caliber. We can't know whether the young man will eventually become a certifiable gun nut like most of us in this Forum. Even some avid hunters I know are not interested in owning a different rifle for every type of hunting they do. So, I thought it would be a good idea to start him with a caliber that offers the most flexibility possible in case he becomes one of the proverbial "one gun hunters" we have been warned to beware. Someone recently wrote a book about taking all the recognized big-game species of North America with one rifle; and it was a .30/06. Besides, even if he becomes a certified gun nut, everyone ought to own at least one .30/06! I have two.

Every gas station, Wal-mart and two-bit crossroads sporting goods store carries .30/06 ammo, and it's available in more bullet styles and weights than any other caliber. If he never becomes a handloader he can buy factory ammo to hunt anything from prarie dogs to pachyderms. In the High Energy loadings, the .30/06 equals some of the .300 magnums!

The boy's father had visited a gun shop and looked at some rifles. He did not like the synthetic stocks; he preferred the look and feel of real wood. I suggested we choose a laminated wood stock to get the esthetic quality of wood without losing the stability and weather resistence laminated stocks provide. It will also add a little weight over a synthetic stock to help reduce recoil.
The father wanted this to be a surprise, ready and waiting when the boy came home from boarding school for Christmas vacation. That precluded having him involved in the selection process.

I searched through several wholesalers catalogs at the local gun shop looking for a blued action in a laminated stock in .30/06. I was particularly interested in a Winchester model 70 Classic. Would you believe that the only laminated stocked model 70 available was in .300 WSM?

Finally, it seems the choice of scope has aroused the most attention. The Leupold brand was a given. I own a bunch of them including several 20 year old 3.5-10 x40's and newer 3.5-10x50's, and they have never let me down. In previous threads on this Forum about scopes, Leupold always seems to prevail as a "best buy."

As several posters commented, here in coastal South Carolina we usually hunt in fixed stands overlooking soybean fields, logging roads, power lines, clearcuts, etc. It is not uncommon to have shots presented from 50 yards out to 300 or 400 yards. I'm not going to allow this young hunter to take shots beyond 200 (point blank range) until he's more experienced, but eventually the magnification potential of the 3.5-10 will be useful. Especially so if he chooses to try his hand at some varmint shooting.

The choice of the 50mm objective seemed to create the most controversy. We have a 4 1/2 month deer season here. After a month or two of hunting pressure the trophy deer and hogs learn not to poke their heads out until "0 dark thirty" as someone put it. We can legally shoot until 1 hour after official sunset, but even in an open place with a clear sky overhead it's awful black one hour after the sun goes down. Some of the biggest bucks and hogs I've killed over the years have been during those last few minutes before absolute darkness. In some cases I've shot animals that I could not even see with my naked eyes. But with the help of a pair of very bright binoculars (Swarovski 8x56) and the brightest scopes I can find, I'm able to cleanly take animals that would just be unidentifiable dark blobs seen through lesser optics. I wanted him to have the same opportunity someday to whack a monster at last light.

If the .30/06 is too much for him I'll load it down and work him up to full power loads slowly. If for some reason he doesn't like the scope, I can always find a home for another 3.5-10x50 Leupold in my gunsafe.

He just came home yesterday and his new laminated stock Remington 700 .30/06 with the 3.5-10x50 Leupold should be arriving tomorrow. I think he will be as thrilled receiving it as I was helping his father make it happen. We'll be sighting it in and hunting with it this weekend.

I'll make sure that he uses earmuffs when shooting from the bench and I'll give him a set of earplugs like the ones I use while hunting so he won't wind up half deaf by middle age like so many of us have!

We'll let you all know how it works out!

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NRA and GOA Life Member
Do your part to protect our 2nd Amendment rights and preserve our hunting heritage!

[This message has been edited by Mark in SC (edited 12-14-2001).]

It sounds like you did your homework. I'm sure he'll never forget this gift.

This christmas will be remembered for years and years...I know exactly how you feel about helping find him the right stuff...I just went through it trying to help my dad pick out a shotgun for my little brother who just turned 12 (a day after big game season ended, mind you ) and is now an "avid" waterfowl hunter. On behalf of hunters everywhere, a big thanks to his grampa, his dad, and you, for helping this young man join our ranks.

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God Bless and Shoot Straight

Mark, I'd say both the boy & his father are lucky to have you as a friend & it sounds like your choice of scopes will be a good one for the conditions you hunt. But I'd sure recomend you download that 06 BEFORE the kid shoots it, I know from expierance it's a LOT easier to get a flinch than to get rid of one.

Hey Marc: From your second post, it seems that the outcome of this purchase was predetermined. Why did you bother to ask our opinions if you had already ordered the outfit?

Eagle Eye, I made the original post on Dec. 11th and the follow-up post on Dec. 14th. I didn't place the order until noon on the 13th. The rifle and scope were shipped "next day air" to be here in time to hunt this weekend.

The many responses received were greatly appreciated and given serious consideration prior to making the final selection.

Another factor was the in-stock availability of the various rifles under consideration at the wholesale distributor the local gun shop deals with. His father wanted to give him the rifle by Saturday, the 15th.

I realize that there will never be unanimous agreement on this kind of question. What fun would that be, anyway; if we didn't have differing opinions we wouldn't have anything to talk about! But, I was pleased to see that a number of people supported the final selection (of the rifle and caliber anyway... if not the scope objective size).

I'm happy to report that he received the rifle yesterday and was absolutely thrilled! The first thing we did was teach him to clean it, then we went to the range to sight it in. Over the course of the afternoon he shot 15 rounds of Federal Premium 150 gr. Ballistic Tip ammo and enjoyed every minute of it. I had him use a Past Magnum Rifle shoulder pad and he said he wasn't bothered at all by the recoil. I also had him use earplugs and earmuffs while shooting.

We started at 25 yards and eventually went to 100. By the end of the afternoon he had shot several groups of 1 1/2" to 2" for three shots. We sighted the rifle 1" high at 100.

This afternoon we are going hunting! I'll let you know when he takes his first deer with his new rifle!

Thanks for all the responses, they were greatly appreciated.

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NRA and GOA Life Member
Do your part to protect our 2nd Amendment rights and preserve our hunting heritage!

Okay, although it reads differently than you say, I'll buy your story.

Now, please explain why you only sighted this long range rig at +1" @ 100 yards?

I chose the 1" high at 100 to allow him to hold "dead on" out to around 200 yards without worrying him about being 2" or 3" high at close range.

I'm putting him on close range stands (100 - 150 yards) for this season. Before next year I'll take him to the range to practise shooting at 200+ on lifesize deer targets.

He passed up a shot at a young spike yesterday afternoon. We're going out again in about an hour to see what we can find for him today.

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NRA and GOA Life Member
Do your part to protect our 2nd Amendment rights and preserve our hunting heritage!

Yesterday afternoon he saw a bigger spike and shot him on the point of the shoulder at about 130 yards.

The 105 pound spike fell right in his tracks! The 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip went through both shoulders and stopped under the hide on the far side.

We had a very happy young man learning how to clean his deer last night! I hope we can get him another couple deer and maybe a hog or two before he goes back to school in early January.

He's a very bright and responsible young man, the kind we want to bring into the sport. I was happy to be a part of that and thank you all for your responses to this thread.

I'm going to give him this website address and encourage him to participate in the forum once he gets back to school.

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NRA and GOA Life Member
Do your part to protect our 2nd Amendment rights and preserve our hunting heritage!

Your quite a story teller there Marc. Are you sure your name isn't Boddington?

By the way, thanks for the heads up on those Ballistic Tips. Any 30 cal bullet that won't go through a 100 pound deer sounds like it is too frangible.