NitroX
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| (.700 member) |
| 04/08/23 11:01 PM |
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Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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What did people use in the days before special lightweight composite stocks and "specialist new" cartridges?
https://www.outdoorlife.com/story/guns/great-rifles-for-mountain-hunting/
Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
Hunting for a light, accurate, and dependable rifle to take into the mountains? Look no further
BY TYLER FREEL
| sharps4590 |
| (.333 member) |
| 05/08/23 02:19 AM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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Well, into my 50's I pounded the Northern Rockies carrying a 10 1/2 lb. Shiloh Sharps chambered for the 45-90. These days, if I still hunted, it would probably be either my 1903 or 1908 Mannlicher/Schoenauer. Who knows....heck, I'd probably use one of my double rifles. I have a Merkel in 8 X 60R Magnum.
| grandveneur |
| (.400 member) |
| 05/08/23 07:31 AM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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Mountain hunting will always be connected to shooting at long range. That is right as well.
Sure, you can shoot at long range with different weapons and caliber, but for us hunters it is about shooting game and not making holes in cardboard targets. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary animal suffering, one should use all the technical possibilities in terms of weapons and cartridges that are available to us nowadays, and not to experiment with for our times unsuitable weapons and cartridges.
| Waidmannsheil |
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| 05/08/23 11:07 AM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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For many years the most successful mountain hunting rifles were the MS1903 in Stutzen form and light weight Mausers in 6.5x57. In the US it was rifles in 257 Roberts or 270 Winchester and in the UK they loved the 256 Mannlicher on a M1895 action. They seemed to work very well, so not sure that one specifically needs to have any of the rifles listed in the article. Having said that, each to their own.
Matt.
| prairie_ghost |
| (.300 member) |
| 05/08/23 02:38 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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Silly article. Advertiser sponsorship maybe??
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NitroX
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| (.700 member) |
| 05/08/23 03:10 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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Quote:
Silly article. Advertiser sponsorship maybe??
I feel I've lost 5 minutes of my life reading it ...
| grandveneur |
| (.400 member) |
| 05/08/23 05:27 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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My comment was not related to the article.
Many is written on the topic anyway and there are a lot of suitable weapons for mountain hunting.
| lancaster |
| (.470 member) |
| 05/08/23 07:48 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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but this is ugly like hell!
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NitroX
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| (.700 member) |
| 05/08/23 10:54 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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Per the author, the future ..... Of ugly silly rifles. But it'd look appropriate for the latest Bourne Idiocy movie.
| Rule303 |
| (.416 member) |
| 06/08/23 08:31 AM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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What I find a bit hypocritical about the article are the pictures of rifles with Bipods on them. Here they are talking about light weight and shaving ounces off the weight then add weight with the bipods when most would use their pack to rest the rifle on. Probably a better option as well.
| 9.3x57 |
| (.450 member) |
| 07/08/23 12:47 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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Mountain hunting here traditionally did not involve long range, just brutal terrain and thick timber with shots of about 125 yards or less. Heavy clearcut logging for the last 20 years has changed that combination quite a bit and offered many more long range opportunities.
However, as the replanted cuts grow up, they now present new challenges....super-dense jungles of pines and firs which are effectively impossible to cover on foot, leaving lots of good cover for game to hide in. As natural and planned thinning takes place where these plantations exist, we are in many areas seeing the need for the old closer-ranged cartridges.
I never gave in to the really long range game. The problem is one of simple ethics and effort. A shot taken at say, 500 or 600 meters in spotty timber may indicate no hit at all and be lethal, leaving an animal to walk off, sometimes not too far where it beds down and dies, unknown to the shooter. WILL every shooter climb down that canyon and back up to the other side and once there even be able to FIND the spot where the game was hit?
I some years ago was able to get the law changed in Idaho to allow a blood tracking dog but unlike some places in Europe, it is not required and few use them, tho they are gaining in popularity. Mine has been extremely useful in finding game hit well that, even tho it goes less than 100 meters, would very possibly never have been found, running zigzagged and switchbacked in that dense new growth timber.
I hike a lot and am in good shape, so rifle weight has never been a deciding limitation for me, but as the tooth gets longer, I do appreciate my Sauer 100 in 9.3x62 which is very light and handy and with a double biathlon sling, of no great bother even on skis.
| grandveneur |
| (.400 member) |
| 07/08/23 05:30 PM |
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Re: Great Rifles for Mountain Hunting
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I also agree, hunting in the mountains is certainly not always synonymous with long range shooting.
In our regions we also hunt in low mountain ranges that are hardly higher than 1000m and often very densely forested. There is also no need to shoot at great distance.
Different, however, in the plain in the wide Rhine valley, where this type of shots would be necessary from time to time, especially at roe deer, shots which, however, are hardly feasible for safety reasons in areas with high human population density.
My experience with long range shooting when hunting refers primarily to the high mountains of Central Asia, where I could hardly shoot below 200m at altitudes well over 4000m, and where above all I would have to shot game at up to 400m.
I did not use a particularly special weapon at that time, and the weight of the weapon also never played a role either.
As far as the problem of long range shots is concerned, I also agree that, due to the flight time of the bullet, there can be problems with a game that are moving, and in the case of a wounded animal that it is extremely difficult to find the spot at a great distance where the animal was hit, for find it or start a blood tracking.