My Dad was always a shotgun guy. Carried a pre-WWII Browning A5 16ga and killed just about any game in Md. with the thing. In the 1960s, when white tail deer were really beginning to make a comeback, he bought a British .303 surplus rifle for $11 and chopped some wood off to "lighten it up". He killed some deer with that rifle. No scope. He also continued to kill deer with the Browning shotgun, until he quit hunting in the 1980s, well into his 70s.
He had been a subsistance hunter as a boy and never viewed firearms as I do. A firearm was no different then a hammer or saw. Just a tool. He would've never dreamed of putting any sort of money into a battery of firearms to go out of state to hunt. Just was not in his scheme of things. I still have my grand dad's Remington Model 11, in 20ga with Poly-Choke. Those guys loved the Poly-Choke. Grand dad never hunted with any other gun that I know of.