André: that's a great setup. And with the case it would ride along nicely in the back of my UTV.

Hoppdoc, the interesting thing about a guy's "most versatile rifle" to me is that the options are darn near endless. We have so many really excellent calibers and rifles available to us these days a guy has to make some effort to make a bad choice. Every combination already cited by others would suit me just fine as far as practicality and usefulness is concerned.

Over the years I've used alot of different rifles/calibers and for deer, elk, bear and coyote I have more or less settled on the 6.5x55 and 9.3x57. In fact, I've sold most of my other guns that used to serve similar duty.

Do I use them because they are the "best"? No, because they work just fine for my conditions and I like them. Truth is, I could lose the x57 and be 100% A OK with the 6.5x55, even including small varmints like ground squirrels that I use my .223 on now.