New Rifle

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Bro. Risher

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I am New to the board, and just wanting a little feedback, my son and I are going to get identical rifles for deer hunting, He is 12 now and about 125 lds. He has taken about 15 deer with youth modle 77 in a .260. and I have hunted for the last 20 years with a Rem. modle 700 in a .280. Now we are looking for a shortaction lightweight ,bolt action. I am a little interested in the new wsm's especially the 270 wsm but I am wide open . Thanks in advance.
 
The 270 WSM is about 300 fps faster than a 270 win. If you want the speed go for it. Do you need the speed for a Mississippi (I always like to type that word:D) Whitetail? Of course not. It will kick considerably harder than the 260 and the muzzle blast will be much greater than the 280. I am no fan of short mags, although I only own one. The 260 is an excellent deer round. I hope to aquire one in a year or so.
 
Short action for deer? OK.

How about a 7mm-08? Or, if you want to shoot a bit heavier round, the .308 Win.

Both of these rounds will kill deer very well. And without the extra kick and noise of the 270 WSM, especially from a lightweight rifle.
 
The .260 sounds perfect to me as well. You could get one of those for yourself (maybe an LSS) and spend the the money you allocated to your son's gun to upgrade his stock and get the barreled action Cerakoted. If you just have to have a new caliber, the 7mm-08 is the short action equivalent of your .280.
 
+1 to the Nose-in-the-Air at the mention of Short Mags. Why not get a rifle in a caliber that's been around for generations and will be for generations more? Agree with the suggestions of a .308 or 7mm-08.

Lightweight? Go Kimber, if you're willing to spend the money. Their .308 is purpose built for the round and as light as can be; that or a Winchester Model 70 Classic Featherweight....tougher to lay hands on.

Rich
 
Sounds like you could do worse than our own Hunting Moderator Art Eatman's recent choice: a Remington Mountain Rifle in 7mm-08. His is titanium, making it less than 7 lbs, rigged out. I'm quite impressed with the caliber-- while it's not a monster, it's more than a match for any deer in the world.
 
I am sure glad I checked on this board. I had not considered the down-side of the short-mags. But what yall said makes good sense. ( muzzle-blast and recoil are not my friends) I think I will really start looking hard at the .308 or the 7-08.
Money is a factor( as it always is for a Baptist preacher) but I am willing to spend a fair amount. Maybe as much a 1200 for each set-up, including a 400-600 $ scope. So I am looking at a 600-800 (or in that range) rifle. Thanks again.
 
In legal hunting hours, I've never needed more than a 40mm objective lens on my rifle. I've hunted in the river bottom country along the Appalachicola in Florida, the Hill Country of central Texas, and the very-wide-open country of the SW Texas desert/mountain country. That has made me partial to the venerable 3x9. I've never gone "fancier" than a Leupold Vari-X II. And, I've found that Weaver rings will hold against the recoil of a .30-06 as good as any.

Per my loading data book, the 7mm08 sends a 140-grain bullet out at 2,800 to 2,900 ft/sec. Well, the .308 or .30-'06 is commonly only 10 grains heavier, and leaves the muzzle at about the same velocity.

IOW, I did a bit of studying on the subject before I dropped a bunch of money on that Rem 700Ti in 7mm08. Sure, it was 1,100 bucks, but I already had "stuff" lying around. Scope, mounts, sling. All that "wild animal" stuff an old guy winds up with. :)

And even with the "-itis" brothers working on my shoulders, it doesn't hurt when at the benchrest. That Is Good.

Art
 
I'm pretty new to the site as well, but Art is the man. He turned me on to the 7mm-08 a few weeks ago. Others affirmed his advice. I went ahead and bought a M 70 featherweight in 7mm-08. Its just over 7lbs with scope. I love it. The round is incredibly friendly - no flinch what so ever! I bought it at Gander mountain, at $549 to $649 it should fit your price range. They didn't have many left in any of their stores so if you are looking for a new Winchester you will have to move quick. Good luck.
 
The 7mm-08 is a fantastic cartridge. But...so is the .260 rem (extremely close to being the same), and you've already got ONE of those! The .260 is arguably the perfect whitetail cartridge. I gotta call this one a no-brainer, in light of what you have already. Definitely forget the wsm's - barrel life is much shorter, not to mention ammo expense/recoil/blast/potential obsolescence.

I'd look at a Kimber or Sako in .260, or if on a budget, a Tikka or Remington.
 
As for glass, I recommend going to a shop with a good selection of Barska scopes.

They are cheap. And I mean cheap, but don't let the price fool you. If you can look at several different scopes of the same model sometimes you find some truly righteous glass for very few dollars. Barska seems to have some quality control problems, some of their glass is the best stuff you can get for under 4 figures in about $300, some of it is trash.

I personally don't mind looking through scopes for a couple days to find a steal, and I've gotten a few hundred dollar Barska's that have moved me into getting rid of all of my $1000+ scopes.
 
Barska seems to have some quality control problems, some of their glass is the best stuff you can get for under 4 figures in about $300, some of it is trash.
Click to expand...

I'll admit to not knowing anything about Barska scopes. But why take a chance on a company with quality control problems? Buy the best scope that you can afford from Leupold, Bushnell, Zeiss, Burris, or another manufacturer (that does not have quality control problems and/or that does not produce trash). Spend the money, take the hit on it, and never have to worry about it again.
 
Interesting

Barska seems to have some quality control problems, some of their glass is the best stuff you can get for under 4 figures in about $300, some of it is trash.
Click to expand...
Gale McMillan once told me that all scopes are virtually the same, with nuance differences of coatings. The difference, he claimed, was in the manufacturer's willingness to up the reject rate. This comment squares with Gale's claim.
Rich
 
There's a couple of other considerations in scopes beyond clarity, light-gathering, and accuracy, too. Some years back, I outfitted a couple of rifles with Simmons scopes, as I was impressed with how much scope I got with so little money. The clarity was good, the light-gathering was good, and I got decent to excellent accuracy in them.

The problem was, they weren't repeatable (6 marks down, shoot, and 6 marks up did NOT equal the same spot, nor anything close to the same spot), and they weren't tough. One required the rings to be set extremely wide to keep the tube from flexing, and the other one broke under the recoil of simply shooting the rifle on the bench.

While I'd be fine with putting a Simmons on a cheap pawn shop rifle for play, I wouldn't put on on a serious hunting rifle that I depended on to make my hunting trip a success. Unfortunately, I've had to find out that you sometimes only get what you pay for. ;)

Good luck on the hunt for a great rifle. I personally couldn't disagree with any of the suggestions here.
 
It is hard to argue against another .260 since you already have one, but if you guys are each just itching for another rifle the .308 and the 7mm-08 (as mentioned above) are both great choices.

I'd tend to lean towards the .308, the variety of rounds available from a 150grn ballistic tip (great whitetail round) to the 180grn nosler partition (should cleanly take down any animal in the continental 48) give it a little bit of an edge in my book. One scope/rifle combo you can become very good with and take any game from coast to coast.
 
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