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Old November 3, 2013, 04:15 PM   #105
jhgreasemonkey
Senior Member
 
Join Date: February 7, 2006
Location: Pacific Northwest
Posts: 2,238
On a budget, I can relate to that. I like to find good deals on used guns chambered for the most common and affordable to shoot cartridges. Here is what I use down here in WA state.

Small stuff and just having inexpensive fun.
.22lr I have a nice little 10/22 that I tricked out. Everyone loves a 10/22.

Medium stuff. Deer, etc. and woods hunting. For woods hunting I like a small quick handling rifle.
.30-30 I got a sweet deal on a used Winchester 94. If I could only keep one rifle this is probably the one I would keep. It handles anything around here but I might be a little worried in dangerous bear country lol. You could always get those 190 grain buffalo bore hard cast loads though.
or
7.62x39 I have an SKS. I don't hunt with it because I have better choices but it would pretty much do what a .30-30 does. I only have around $200 dollars into this rifle and ammo can be had at $5 for a box of 20. I think this is a good choice for someone on a tight budget.
or
.44 mag. I used my father in laws Winchester 94 to take a deer last year and it did a LOT of damage. Too much actually, we lost good meat. It was a close range shot of about 25 yards head on into the chest and I was using the Leverevolution ammo. This is a great little rifle for woods hunting and the real world killing power seems to be greater than than what the ballistics charts say. My larger rifles don't do that much damage to deer. I think this would be a good back woods rifle where you might have a close encounter with a mean critter.

Bigger game and open country hunting where you might need to make a longer shot.
.30-06 I have a plain jane Savage 110 with the accu-trigger and a weaver 3x9x40 scope. I love it. It's very accurate and the trigger is nice.
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.270 I picked up a very nice commercial grade mauser 98 for cheap. The original trigger was too heavy for my liking so I dropped in a bold target trigger for like $40 bucks and now everything on this rifle is just great.
or
7mm Rem. Mag. to me this cartridge is kind of like a .30-06 mated with a .270 lol. With 140 grain bullets it's basically got the range and trajectory of the 130 grain .270 and the power of the 150 grain .30-06. To me there's really not enough of a real world difference to pick one over the other though. I don't take 3 and 4 hundred yard shots over canyons. My 7mm Rem. Mag. was a Savage 110 with a Burris 3x9x40 scope. I ended up trading this rifle like a dummy. I later replaced it though with my current Savage 110 .30-06. I wanted another 110 and the .30-06 was the one that was on sale.
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