Yep I used to hunt a piece of property that had elevated shooting houses all over it and you would get some long shots and the sendero I had was about perfect for that situation or any other similiar "beanfield rifle" . We lost the lease on it and rarely do I use a shooting house anymore unless on someone elses private property. I use tree climbers a lot and i like light short rifles for that deal in most cases , distances are not long and handiness is better then heaviness, but in your situation the Sendero is about perfect.

you would not want a 9-10 lb rifle trackin deer in the north east. especially maine. about 6 pounds is it!

oldelkhunter: Sorry to put you off. I'm no expert. I just don't see the necessity of super light weight rifles. More to the point, I don't see that a 10 LBS scoped rifle gives up anything to a 6 LBS/7 LBS/8 LBS rifle. But opinions vary, and that is OK. The only reason for throwing in the backpacking thing is I often hear people say for mountain hunting, naturally, you just gotta have the lightest possible rifle. I don't think that changes the considerations a bit. With respect to tracking deer in the Maine woods, probably you are talking a lever action .30-30 with iron sights that weights about 5 LBS, so that very specific kind of deer hunting need not perturb the analysis of rifle weights (if that is your main kind of deer hunting, just go get an open sighted .30-30 and have done with it).

actually we carry iron sighted/ peep sightedcarbine pumps in 35 whelen and 30-06 and often carry model 7's and 700's that have been cut off to cArbine legnth and had the stock cut an inch or so chambered in 30-06 and 350 rem mag. as far as lever guns we have 32 specials but they rarely come out to play anymore

Lot of people that use Remington 7600's that weigh in at 7 1/2 may disagree with you. Where did I say that is what I would use in that situation anyway?

That is a big mistakea lot of people make. Light guns tend to jump around just a little bit morewhen your heart is pumping after running to get into position or climbing a very steep mountain. If your not used to it you can miss or worse wound a nice animal. The weight of a little heavier gun may steady the rifle and make the difference on a shot.

7 1/2 lbs is a heavy 7600.thats what remington prints but ive weighed all of mine and have only one, (in 243) that weighs 7.7 lbs my whelen carbine only weighs 6.66 lbs perhaps if you load it up w/ a scope and rings it would push the 8.5 lb mark but the weights will vary depending on the bore size and rifle or carbine and stock work. dont go gettin all humped up over it. you carry your crow bars and ill carry mine. and if your all amped up after runnin up a mountain or doin jumpin jacks or whatever it is you do theni doubt a few ounces are gonna make bit of differance

Original post was to find out what everyone else thought what the ideal weight for a whitetail deer rifle. I just mentioned the pro and con of every situation.

I didn't know there was a light rifle "craze", as i've wantedlight riflessince i shot my first buck in the early 60's... I still prefer a light rifle, and just won't carry anything heavy!

DM

I justweighed my rifle. It's 8.5lbs loaded