Being the son of a serious collector, I've tried literally hundreds, if not thousands, of different rifles and cartridges. But in all honestly, my heart lies in the old smoke poles. I own several but I still have quite a few smokeless that I go elk hunting with. I actually just picked up a Win mod.71 in .348win that I was initially just helping the guy out with some cash and was intending to resell it for a tidy profit. Till curiosity got the best of me and I took it out back and shot it. I do believe it will be replacing my backup Savage 99 in .300sav in the saddle scabbard on elk hunts. My main elk rifle is Model 70 in .300wm but would be just as comfortable with my Model 70 in .30-06. Along with practice, fit is one of the more important aspects of any shooting platform. Be it handgun or rifle. If it doesn't fit you, you won't be anywhere near as competent as you could be. Fitting yourself to the rifle is poor replacement for fitting the rifle to you. With the old man and 4 of the 5 of us kids being larger in height, arm, and neck length, fit has always been a bit of a predicament for us. The youngest got her height from her mom, or rather the lack of it. And with these long necks comes comb height for proper cheek weld. Eventually the old man became quite good at fashioning stocks.