Originally Posted by
Jenks
In the US(and I only hunt in the US) I prefer a bolt action 30-06. I have several Mouser actions in various calibers but the preferred is a Mark X 30-06 with a Leupold 3X9 scope. I do not hunt grizzly or brown bears and I think the 30-06 will safely dispatch any other big game in the US.
When I started hunting I didn't own a centerfire rifle, so I asked a couple of the guys that I worked with (who had grown up hunting deer and elk in NW Colorado) what rifle I should get. They said either a .270 Win or .30-06 bolt action with a 3-9x scope .
I chose a .30-06, and for the next 10 years it worked very well for deer, elk, antelope, and even prairie dogs. I also carried it for the first 3 years that I lived in Montana and I had an OTC grizzly tag in my pocket, hoping to find a bear on my elk gut piles.
After hunting a few years with my new Montana hunting partner, who had rifles in a variety of cartridges, that I decided to rechamber my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs for elk and get myself a .22-250 for varmints and a .257 Ackley for deer and antelope.
The Dems haven't completely taken over America yet, so why limit yourself to just one rifle?