I shot a Ruger M77 Ultralite 270 for 19 years and killed a "mountain" of deer and hogs with it, but the recoil was quite abusive to my shoulder. Hunting was fine, but I dreaded range time and began to flinch. A couple of years ago, I decided to try an Encore. I took the custom route with my barrel and stock coming from Virgin Valley and a trigger job from Mike Bellm. I was unsure what caliber to choose, so I let Steve at VVG talk me into 300 WSM. I have ABSOLUTELY no regrets.