what rifle

I am just now going to get into hunting. I have shot rifles before quite a bit at ranges and targets, but want to get into the whitetail scene.

I was just wondering what would be a couple of the better, smaller rifles to own for this.

I want to take into consideration cost and supply of ammo, cost of gun, etc..

I would guess something in the .243, .270 range, or maybe a .308.

I just wanted some opinions from guys that know this stuff more than me.

All you mentioned are great. 308 is cheaper if you are not planning on reloading.

do you want opinions on calibers or rifles?

How much do you plan to shoot at range? If not much, then cost of ammo isn't important. My advise would be to shop around for rifles, pick the ones you prefer and then decide on caliber. I personally would not start from since there are so many calibers that will do great for whitetail.

If you plan to spend a lot of time on range doing target shooting then .308Win is always a safe choice to start with.

i would look at a tikka rifle. they are great guns. good price for what you get. they come with bases and rings. they have an awesome trigger,are super accurate,and the action is as smooth as glass. many good calibers to choose from:308,270,30-06,any of these would be a great start for a deer rifle.

I like my 308 its my go 2 gun

I would like a rifle to be able to shoot targets and hunt with.

A great start? Where is he supposed to go from here?

7mm/08 wouldnt look anywere else

Tikka is a good one, Academy is selling Remington 700's for around the 350 range in a few of those calibers, a good one to look at is the 7mm-08. .308, '06, .270 are good ones as well. There's a lot of folks that like .243, and it's a good one..but I'd probably start with a minimum of a 7-08.

He doesn't reload so not the best choice. If he reloaded then I would recommend 6.5x55 over 7-08.

Caliber - 7mm-08 or .308.

Rifle & scope recommendations would depend on the budget you're trying to stay within.

The 2 walmarts and 2 small gun shops I pass on the way to my place stock 7-08.
Academy Bass pro Cabelas Gander Dicks and not cheaper than dirt stock 7-08.
Every online ammo dealer has 7-08, I've never been to a gun shop that didn't stock 7-08.
The 2 feed stores I use stock 7-08.
I don't know of a ammo manufacturer that doesn't offer 7-08.

Necessary to reload or hard to find ammo

308 and winchester powermax

I would think either the .270 or 7-08 would be a great choice for a rifle caliber that are both great shooting and will take any game animal in Texas. .270 ammo is available anywhere they sell ammo in Texas. Remington is a great rifle choice also and is my preference. Scopes depend on your budget but Vortex or Zeiss Conquest are great for the money and will last you a long time.

25-06 is a good one too

$$$ for ammo, not the cheapest out there to shoot.

.308 gets my vote.

not toooo bad unless you send a lot down range

True, and if that was the case, reloading would become a necessity anyways. If the OP is willing to learn to reload, Tikka T3 Lite in 6.5x55 would be an awesome all-around rifle from small critters up to elk and bear. From 80gr varmint loads up to 160gr elk loads, you could manage by with only one rifle. Due to fine selection of high BC bullets, it will retain a lot of energy for long range shots as well.

For short actions, 260 Remington, 6.5x47 Lapua, 6.5 Creedmore etc. Couldn't go wrong with any of these, or 7-08. For calibers like these I would highly recommend reloading, otherwise stick with .308, .243 or .270/30-06.

Basic Lee reloading kit, $80 on sale at Cabela's. Dies, $20. Calibers and small items, less than $50. Space to reload, well, that's the biggest question here.

Now that would be a good combo.

Just pick one that feels right and tickles your fancy. Deer aren't hard to kill. Good luck.

nonsense , on this forum it takes a 5000.00 custom gun loaded with an accubonded partition tsx gliding metal scirrocco.

I like the 25 bores 25-06 and 257wby. You can find plinking ammo in both in the mid $30's. 7-08 is also a good mild recoil round

Mfg like remi and the new whinnys are growing on me.

Glad you finally got it figured out.

Best advice I can give iis you don't need a cannon and 95% of people shoot a whole hell of a lot better with a 270 or less then big 30 cals

Did you bump your head today?

Nope I like the featherlight, good smith can do wonders to the trigger... not a fan of the xmark triggers.

New fn whinnys. Not old

Me too bout time he learned sumptin

Stop feeding the wildlife

ya glad you been listening to this academy gun salseman.
told you about them last year.
somebody has been paying attention to me. keep listening you might learn some more

you didnt tell me cr a p my good buddy Goldstien had one for almost three years,..... problem with them is I can get a remi for 300 cheaper.

ya right all of a sudden your looking at fn made winchesters, good on you buddy.
yer buddies might not be the fn made winny, they didnt start untill 2008 roughly 3 years ago

Infact you werent even I member on THF...dude do you not get it?

A) you tell everyone it ok to load every weatherby vanguard over max blindly bc you feel the action can handle it.

I don't give a crap if it can... you know how many people look for load data on these threads????? What if a newbie is newbie enough to listen to you???


B) you knowledge of vanguards is acdemish...(new word of the day)

C) no body has ever said that whinnys, savages, weatherby, brownings,remi ect don't and can't kill...everybody has likes and dislikes.

D) I'm so sick of hearing about the v2 .99 and v1 1.5 MOA ....the tv venture offers a .99 already... but its not taken over ...think about why?

E) you give handloader a bad name...I'm sure any one that's goes to the range can't wait to see the guy next to them open a plastic shell box with reloads and start loading there h&r

Basically I don't care what gun you Pimp...fact is you reloading advice on a public forum is going to hurt someone.

It is..thank you for your concearn

Oh that ain't gonna worlk

Need some salt Ranchman

try and wrap yer little brain around this, 1 gr over max will never ever ever hurt someone. at worst you get a sticky case.
one day when yer all grown up mamma might buy you a reloading setup, till then its wal-mart fer yer ammo

Thanks but this one is not gonna last much longer.

Absolutely the most stupid comment you have made yet!!!! You have know way to know what the pressure might be on that rifle and one grain could be the difference I safe and failure. You should be placed in camp for pure ignorance and endangering other members that might be stupid enough to trust you!

Sorry I'm done just tired about hearing how the man in the moon came to earth and gave howa/weatherby some secret technology that doesn't allow them to blow up with++++++++p++++++ loads

X2

some of you really really are amatuers, bmd you dont even handload, sigh...... it really is pointless explaing to you the basics of handloading. pressure signs and what not, whats the point you know everything, even things you dont know, your an expert at.
oh well one day when yer all grown up momma might get you a reloading setup too, till then it academy fer your ammo

Lol.... guess you forgot the whole load the 7-08 thread so hot with 168-180 bullets it has more energy and better ballastics then a 257 wby at 600yards...

And I just walk away from the money comment....

Bobo just ignore the troll this is third thread he has destroyed today! I am placing him on ignore it's not worth it!

Sweet click on his name go to profile and put him on ignore, first person i have done this to. Works like a champ

WTF????

Place him on ignore it makes life easier

To get back to the original topic... check out the CZ line of rifles. I shoot a 527 American in .223. The combination of the single set trigger, beautiful wood, and cheap ammo make it a pleasure to shoot. With the proper bullet it is plenty capable for Texas deer and hogs.

come on not you too.
couple of facts , max loads are not the holy grail of handloading.
One book will list 45 gr as max for a given powder, nuther book will list it as 47 gr.
As a handloader you must work up checking for pressure signs , yep its that simple.

to recommend that folks load above max loads is irresponsible. You have no idea what the pressure is with a particular load in a particular rifle. And the classic pressure signs have been shown to be a poor indicator of actual pressures due to variance in brass hardness, primer hardness, etc. Moreover, it is not the average pressure of a given load that is of concern it is the max pressure. Shoot the same load in the same gun 10 times and there will be 10 different pressure levels (and ten different velocities). With some cartridges and some rifles the pressure variation is much greater than others. So perhaps 9 of the ten loads would be safe.

Bottom line is that unless you have access to very sophisticated, and expensive, pressure measuring equipment, you have no idea what the pressure is. All you know is that it is a couple of inches from your brain!

And look at the risk/reward ratio. What do you gain by pushing the limit? 50fps, 100fps? No deer or game animal will know the difference, but you may be putting yourself and others at risk. If you want more velocity, get a cartridge with a bigger case!

Absolutely.

I was wondering about a .223 for whitetail hunting. Is it a rifle that could consistently take a deer down with no problems?

with the right bullet, and under certain conditions, the 223 will certainly kill a deer. But it is not the best choice for general deer hunting, IMHO.

Jjh isspot on

Ive never recommended what a person should load, never, all I posted was what I was getting in one of my loads.
handloaders been loading for a long time with tell tale pressure signs, its absolutely a reliable way, sticky bolts are for sure way youve reached max, melted headstamps or shiny ones with marks are too, its been done that way and still is, sorry but yer wrong.
Factory loads can easily be made to reach high pressure, leave them in the sun a few minutes, ive seen them gain 100 fps by doing this. reaching slightly higher pressures arent going to blow yer gun up either just ruined brass. If tell tale pressure were not reliable no one would be abe to reload without testing equipmetn, man where do you guy come up with this stuff., You have to work a load up looking for signs, just cause its published doesnt mean you can just dump in a max charge, come on dude get real. One can easily exceed max cup with published data.

vanguard:

You may not have specifically RECOMMENDED exceeding max loads, you certainly indicated that it is an acceptable practice.

When I started reloading the the early '60's, there were lots of articles around explaining how to judge pressure by examining fired cases, primers, etc. I can still remember looking at a primer in a fired case and smugly thinking,
"pressure must be about 52,000 psi". And I still have a copy of an article from the late '70's, explaining how to estimate pressure by measuring expansion of the case head just in front of the web.

But as more accurate and sophisticated, non-destructive, pressure measuring equipment became available, it became very obvious that chamber pressure from shot to shot can vary significantly. And for some reason, some cartridges have a larger standard deviation than others. I believe this one of the main reasons that reloading data today is more conservative than it was 50 years ago. The concern is not the average pressure generated by a particular load, but the maximum.

Now there is also the concern of metal fatique. If a pressure vessel is continuously stressed. It may at some point fail at pressures that it once could contain.

I spent my career as an engineer in the refining and petrochemical industries. And if you have ever seen a vessel operating at 50 or 60,000 psi fail, you will never want to see one again! Especially one that is inches from your face!

Fortunately, engineers design products with a significant safely factors. So you may push the envelope and be fortunate enough to never have a problem. but the question is WHY would you do it??

Pushing the envelope, no only involves risks, it also decreases barrel life, causes increased brass stretching so more frequent trimming is required, and brass life is decreased.

And what is gained? A few feet per second, and a few foot pounds of energy. Neither of which will be noticable in the field, either in trajectory or by the animal.

excellent post and rebuttal.
Take note guys this how a conversation and dissagreement is suppose to be done, not yer a stoopid retard.
Anyway I agree but I can asure im safe, been getting about 10 firings from a case with one load one gr over max, and velocity right at what it suppose to be with 1 gr less.

But for me handloading is all about getting the most I can out of a cartridge, does it make a difference on deer, nope but it sure is nice to see that crono flash and crunch those flat trajectories

the .270 has been at it since 1930 or so.....

Me too. But accuracy, consistency, reliability, safety and terminal performance are the criteria. Not max velocity. If I need a flatter trajectory than my 270, I'll take my 264.

I would tell you, get the .308 in a Savage and ......

x1000000 lol!!

der u go talkin dat trigg nonsense dude jus get a savage no trigg job der

to give advice to load over max opens you up for someone to own everything you own, there's a reason why there are max loads in actual writing by companies. (don't care one way or the other, just saying...)

For a newbie, you could range anywhere from 243 to 300wm in the right rifle and be perfectly fine.

If u wasnt something for target shooting and for hunting den a medium range cal. would suit u best. Any of da .24,.25, or da .277,even da 708 would work great for what u asked about.

308 good rifle

I don't know my bedded remington sps sure shots good... no matter what factory ammo I put in it. Tsx's, accubonds, spirepoints and spitzers. Really like the accuracy of the VLD's I just tried out...just not sold on them as a high velocity hunting bullet .

Lol savage is the worst of all of them

There are as many opinions as the stars in the sky. Mine would be a 223 for plinking and a 270 for hunting. At least that's what I start out with.

Though I own a Savage, accuracy is my first need in a rifle. Tikka has that and more. After seeing the fit and finish, my next rifle will be a Tikka. I would recommend that you get at least a 270(my favorite), 308 or 30.06. You can hunt anything in North America with either round. The 308 and 30.36 will give you more options on ammo which is a major plus for a one gun hunter! Good luck!

Tikka makes a great gun,I'm sure you'll be happy with it .

Most of us have several rifles in several calibers, but if I only had one, living in Texas especially, it would probably be the .270. Its a great caliber for any thing from prairie dogs on up.

gotta go with the .270 or 30-06. WIDE range of bullet styles and manufacturers, will take down anything Texas or most any other "country" (yes I referred to Texas as a country) can produce.

As for the .223, my son (who was 11 at the time), killed his first and second deer (in two days) with a Mini-14 (one shot at 161 yards and another at 110 yards). At the time, that was all he was comfortable with as far as recoil goes. The first deer (chest shot) made it about 40 yards before dropping over. The second deer (he called a neck shot) dropped on the spot. (My son is an excellent shot). All that said...you can use a .223 but the .270 or 30.06 is a better option if you are comfortable with it.