I mean whether you use wood or fiberglass stocks, SS vs. blued steel. Calibers?
OZ guys as well.
I need to justify a Tikka T3 lite in 308 Win.!
Peter.

Hi Peter , I have lots of rifles , but for most of the game here I use a SS Browning A Bolt in 30/06 & a Weatherby Ultralight 338/06 , Im using the 338/06 more , but really like my Browning .

The Tikka is a nice rifle , but may as well get a 30/06 as they are all on the long action any way , more so if you reload !

Cheers

May as well get 300 Mag

Peter, I've got a mixture of walnut/blue and stainless/synthetics in my modest collection. There's some laminates in there as well. I like 'em all..

I have used various rifles over the last 17 years of hunting in NZ.

My favourite for wallabies and hares at up to 300 meters is my blue wood Tikka LSA 55.

For deer I have used blue wood Sako 6.5X55, Rem 600 308, Rem 700 243, Sako 280 Ack Imp etc.

I also used a SS synthetic custom Mod 70 358 Win. I should never have sold that rifle. I now shoot a SS Synthetic Kimber in 7mm08. I guess that will be my go to deer rifle now for a while.

Hi Peter, your choice of Tikka T3 Lite in 308Win is ideal for all NZ hunting. A good 130gr or 150gr is all you need and shoot in for 200-250m dead on.

The synthetic stocks are popular now as is the 7mm08 cartridge which has really taken off in NZ and like the 308Win is as good as it gets for general hunting on all our game animals. Light to carry and easy to shoot.

If I wasn't such a 303Guy, I would settle on a Tikka T3 Lite SSTeel in 6.5x55 Swede. But what fun would that be? They are smooth, sweet shooting, accurate and versatile and then what excuse would there be for a battery of rifles to make shoot well? And what excuse for taking them out from time to time to 'give them that preserving rub of oil'? As for the 7mm308 ? I don't like to think about it cause with that I wouldn't even have an excuse for a 6.5 Swede! A mate has a 7mm308 and I seen him drop a big Red deer on the spot at good range. (My battery consists of Lee Enfields, one of which is a 25-303).

Plastic stocks leave me cold.

I have a Husqvarna 1640 in .30/06.

Wood and blue in 30-06.
Plastic pigs should be banned

Blued steel and nice walnut in 7x57 and there isn;t a thing (short of DG) I wouldn;t hunt with it here or most other places for that matter. GS Custom 120gn at 3235 and a 160gn Woodleigh at 2700 will do it all for me.

Von Gruff.

Hmmm! Well I have just about everything that you guys have mentioned, but, for some reason I thought that you mountain types would want a light rifle, while most of mine are pretty heavy to lug up and down mountains, hence the lite, fiberglass type in a not very heavy caliber. Most hunting in the USA (East coast) does not involve a lot of tramping around, and even in the West, ATV's seem to be used a lot. I figured you guys would be using shank's pony a lot more.
Vob Gruff, I envy you your GS Custom 7mm. bullets! I would really like to try them in my 7x57 (CZ full stock) but they are the devil to get.
Peter.

Here's the reply you want - it seems like everyone I know has a 308 T3 Lite, including me. It fits the bill for me so well, I just can't think of a better rifle for my needs. Everytime I slip over on my arse and land on my rifle, or get dripping wet, blood on it, spray it with mud.... it bounces back.
A bunch of us at work were having a chat about hunting at smoko (coffee break in US English) - each time someone came over to join the conversation someone would ask them "What have you got?" - by the time the 6th person said "A Tikka T3 - 308" everyone just rolled their eyes.
I'm toying with the idea of getting a Gunworx laminated Monte Carlo stock, but bottom line, nothing needs replacing. Get one!

Just one real hunting rifle, had it now since new about 15 years. Its a Brno 600. It was a 270 originally, but I wore that barrel out and replaced with a 280 AI barrel. She looks beat and battered in an honest fashion, and I know when I miss its my fault because she is capable of more than I am, and I don't need to think of her as anymore than an extension of my arm. Will never sell her, she'll see me out now. She'll still show these plastic fantastic short actin jobbies a thing or two as well.

quote:

slip over on my arse and land on my rifle, or get dripping wet, blood on it, spray it with mud....

That's the reality of NZ hunting. Quite often anyway.

Kimber Montana in 7-08. I've never seen a rifle beaten up worse. I've lugged it up and down mountains, through rivers, through snow, through rain forests, dropped it off a cliff (had to be recrowned) and it still shoots straight. I love its light weight.

On another thread there was a comment about "prepare for a 300 yard shot". Is that correct? That is a pretty fair distance to take a shot. Now I know that there are Americans who routinely make one shot kills on elk at 600 yards (DRT) but I am not one of them. So here is the question: If I use a range finder and see that the shot is across the valley but the horizontal distance is 250 yards, then that is a 250 yard shot right? Now I am am shooting down (or up) hill and the horizontal distance is still 250 yards, as long as the angle is not like 30 degrees I should still be able to hold directly on, right?
Note that I am not talking about 1000 yard shots at 60 degree angles here. What say you?
Peter.

I zero all my rifles to hit 2 inches high at 100 meters for a 250 to 275 meter zero. This gives me a "aim at animal" hunting capability out to 325 meters.

Just remember that at 250 meters if the slope is up or down hill and the target is a rabbit, you need to aim a tad low - say an inch. I tend to aim for the belly line on the grass and the rabbit is dead. It does not matter for deer sized game at that range - heart / lung regions is about 8 to 10 inches big.

What rifle? Over on the benchrest and target forum I posted my results at 300 yards ie. I zeroed at 300 yards and then went back to 100 and shot at the 100 yard target. With my 223 I was 4" high (69 gr. SMK) and with the 308 I was about 5 1/2 inches high (168 gr. SMK) at 100. I plan on retesting at 300 in a couple of weeks to confirm POI and grouping, and also doing the same zeroing at 300 with my 300WM, 7mm RM and, just for grins, 375H&H. Now, this is (hopefully) spot on, rather than minute of kill zone which is what you are talking about I believe. Eye opening to say the least. Do you guys use rangefinders when you hunt?
Thanks, Peter.

Shanks, there is nothing fantastic about plastic

quote:

Originally posted by john.d.m:
Shanks, there is nothing fantastic about plastic

Tell that to Michael Jackson

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Do you guys use rangefinders when you hunt?
Thanks, Peter.

Leica 1200.

Von Gruff.

Garry, I have had better luck with heavier bullets in my CZ 7x57 (full stock). The best groups have been with 160 grain and 175 grain bullets. Do you think the lighter high velocity bullet gives you an advantage?
Peter.

160gn Woodleigh at 2700fps over H4350 is my heavy bullet choice. I havent tried longer range than 250yds or so but the 120gn GS has the potential advantage with balistics tables. Definately has an advantage as far as expanding ability to lower velocities than most other bullet types. If I wasn,t shooting cast as I generally do out to 200yds (with some 120gn GS's with my scope in qd rings in scope bag on my back) my first choice is the GS with the Woodleigh load in case I was to go after a big wapiti or similar.

Von Gruff.

Gidday Peter,

I use a Remington 700 BDL synthetic stocked 30-06 that used to be blued for most of my hunting now along with a 260 model seven in the bush.

They are set up to be 2" high at 100 which means a dead on hold to 300.

I am running 165gr hornady interlocts over 58.5gr ADI AR2209 and getting 2940fps and everything hit falls over really quickly. It just works

Happy Hunting

Hamish

I have a Kimber 8400 in 7mm WSM.

Dear Peter

Not a Kiwi but hunt there often.

For me it is a simple answer!
1. The one you can carry up and down hills.
2. The one you can shoot 300mtrs with.
3. The one you can shoot at a moving target at 50mtrs.

I used a 308 on 2 hunts no issue.

Regards mark

The one factor I've noticed over the past 26 years apart from changing from blued/walnut (which I will always own and always love) to stainless/synthetic is that I prefer my rifles lighter.
Cheers,
Gats!

My Husky in .30/06 weighs about 7.5 pounds all up with a leupold 4x. I use it for everything and this last two weeks carried it by 'shanks pony' through Fiordland up and down and through everything you can think of including fording major rivers. We walked up to 25k on a couple of days though bush, tops and swamp...
The rifles fine.
I am not a big fan of Tikka T3's at all (had one once)and consider plastic stocks unnecessary.
If I were to buy a brand new rifle I would get one of the SC made Winchester 70 fthwt's wood/blued.
It's going to take me a while to wear this Husky out though.