Hooo boyo, Our personal ideal deer rifle. At first I thought it was a Ruger Mk 2 lightwt .308. Killed many deer cleanly, but it never quite made me happy with the accuracy end (from the bench). It never failed me in the field. I sold that when I found a Savage 99 in .308, which I thought would be the ideal. Despite alot of time and effort to optimize the very difficult to work on trigger/sear, it also was far from what I expected for accuracy. It was sold to pay for a craved for Henry single shot in .308. Beautiful wood, great handling little rig. The trigger on that was worse than the Savage, with even less you can do about it (alot of info on stuff to try on the internet, but none really fix the problems..too heavy a pull and a horrible step just before hammer fall ). Alot of folks are happy with them, I was not. I traded that for another Ruger Mk2 in .270 winch. , a round I never understood. With my preferred scope on it, it was a tack driver and all flat shooting, with a much improved trigger from the previous two guns (my previous Ruger I put a competition firing pin and trigger in, which I will probably do here too).
Ultimately though, I know damn well I have my ideal rifle already. It is the rifle I killed my first buck with, two moose, and I have no idea how many deer, all to one shot. It shoots flat, is reliable as a rock, and I handload for it for forty years now. It is my fathers 8x57 Mauser Oberndorf Mauser, a sporterized rifle he started and I finished to my liking. When I am serious hunting it is always there, rain or shine and wears a 1.5 x 5 Leupold scope (forty years old) that has never failed me. Like all of us, we keep looking, but kind of like marriage, happiness is right there at home if we just open our eyes. If I only had one rifle, It will be my Mauser.