For over 20 years my favorite hunting rifle was my .30 Gibbs. It started out as a .30-06, and was my first centerfire rifle. I bought it from Herter's in 1967 as a barreled action and semi-inleted stock. After I moved to Montana about 10 years later, my hunting partner showed me a .30 Gibbs case, and I thought it was soo cool, I had my .30-06 re-chambered to .30 Gibbs. That cartridge shot 180 grain bullets out at 2990 fps. which was on par with the .300 Winchester. For over 20 years that rifle kept my freezers full of elk and moose meat and my taxidermists busy.
I had my .30 Gibbs mainly for elk, so about that same time I built a .257 Ackley Improved for deer and antelope. I built this rifle from a Mauser Mark X barreled action and a Fajen semi-inleted Fancy Walnut stock. For almost 40 years, this has been my favorite rifle for deer and antelope, and I also have used it for all of my bighorn and Dall sheep, a Mountain caribou, and one of my best 6x6 bull elk.
About 10 years ago I fulfilled a long dream of having a .300 Weatherby. I bought a blued Vanguard and replaced the factory wood with AA Fancy walnut that I pillar and glass bedded, checkered, had a KDF muzzle brake installed, put a recoil reducer in the stock and gave it a Timney trigger. It now wears a Leupold VX 3i 4.5-14x40 CDS scope. It shoots a variety of 168 and 180 grain bullets MOA at over 3200 fps. It's felt recoil is less than that of my .308 Win in a similar dimensioned Vanguard. After using it with great success on hunts in Montana, Texas, South Africa, Mozambique, New Zealand, and Azerbaijan, it quickly became my most favorite rifle.