Originally Posted by
mjw176
Hello there!
I have an odd question for you all. I don't have experience with hunting styles except for PA and MD whitetails. I am thinking of purchasing a new rifle for some possible out west mountain hunting. I am not understanding why some people strive for a light weight short rifle and other say the perfect hunting rifle is a Long range rifle that seem to weigh twice as much. I am looking into the standard 300 Winmag. If you were to choose one type either Lighter weight(standard) rifle or the special Long range for the money? I don't see why for hunting the extra Bull barrel and weight will make for better accuracy at long range that a one shot same caliber standard rifle will not do?
"Out West mountain hunting" covers a lot of hunting and areas, not to mention methods of hunting. Do you have some idea of what states and game you think you'd like to hunt? Do you like or think you'll be hunting from a tree stand or ground blind or do you expect to spot and stalk or still hunt? Providing more information could help members narrow this down quite a bit for you.
Everybody has given you quite a bit of good information and advice based on their experiences. Some of the people on here guide hunters and others have enough knowledge and experience to be a guide. Some of them have taken over a hundred animals which is an impressive amount of big game hunting experience. Just off the top of my head, I believe most of those members who have taken 100+ big game animals use "standard rifles." I don't recall any of them mentioning a heavy barrel target rifle and most of them haven't mentioned lightweight mountain rifles either. I happen to agree with them and use standard rifles also.
