So for 40 years of hunting I've been on the search fir the perfect hunting combination in a rifle.
I've always wanted power to dispatch the animal quickly and cleanly.
I've used various calibers starting my hunting career with a marlin 30/30 which I killed several deer with.
It was effective but was a short range weapon at best and at the time was all I needed hunting thick old clear cuts.
The rifle was handy quick into action and accuracy was fine for the purposes at hand.
At about my 5th or 6th year I found land that presented much greater distances to hunt.
On a gas line we're shots could be 300 yards.
I picked up a single shot 308 and put a big scope on it. I ran 168gn nossler balistic tips at 2650 it was effecient at dispatching whitetsils with good broadside shots .At the time a good milling or moa reticle scope was far out of reach for my budget so a simple cross hair scope zeroed at 200 yards had to do. I took truck loads of deer with this combo feeding 7 kids along the way. It was a necessity rather than a past time.
They were a hungry lot and consumed the protein source gladly.
As time progressed and my situation in life improved I tried various calibers.
270/ 300win mag 338 win mag 30/06 and finally a custom 30/06 AI I thought I had found the perfect combo with a NF 5 to 20 nxs scope on board the gun weighed in at 14 pnds.
I was young and fit so the weight didn't bother me.
Using a tripod hunting sticks or stand rails made it easy enough.
I hunted for 10 to 12 years with this combo and took more truck loads of deer.
The barnes 168gn ttsx did a great job when I did my part. I could take a deer from any angle with confidence the rounds would pass thru completely.
The lilja #5 contour barrel shot tight little groups from the k98 action.
The controlled round feeding made for a very reliable package.
At year 30 I'd aged a bit and time had taken its tole the old reliable started to become a chore to lug to the stand.
So I started the quest to build a light weight version .
I tried a graphite wrapped barrel to start on a defiance action in a manners stock.
I cut a few pounds and used a lesser lighter scope NF SHV 4 to 14 x50 bringing the gun into the 10 pnd range.
Again in the 30/06AI caliber.
It was OK but injury and age dictated I do more
Fast forward a lighter cartridge and a lighter gun was in order.
The shv didn't work for me ither the reticle was not usable on anything but full power so I built a 6.5 cm on a savage 10 action with a much lighter graphite wrapped barrel and a NF NXS in a shillen stock. This got me back to that 10 pnd rifle with a much lighter recoil
Impulse.
My shoulders thanked me and the deer were just as dead the barnes 127 lrx were exstreamly accurate.
Taking a couple great deer that were bang flops and 1 deer that ran a ways.
I think the 6.5 is a fine round but I needed a compromise between the power of the 30/06AI and the light weight of the 6.5 cm
I fell for the savages and built a 6.5 on an axis action as this was an experiment I looked to keep the costs down so I used a varix freedom 6 to 18 scope.
It worked great but had second thoughts.
On the power of the cartridge and remembered my experiences with the 308 and the power of the 30/06AI
How could I get the best of both in a 8 pnd rifle.
The answer was sitting in the safe for 5 years
A savage axis in 308 had been there all this time.
I did my reaserch and found a load for the barnes 150gn ttsx that was only 100 ft sec behind the AI 168 bullet of the same make.
So parts were ordered to build the rifle.
But what scope ????
My reaserch kept bringing me to ARKEN 4 to 16x44 EPL with the hunter reticle .
I'd used a ep5 on a recent built and was very
impressed with the performance and
features. If it could hold up to a 45 caliber
smokeless muzzleloader with a 300gn bullet
at 2600 ft sec surely it could handle a 308.
I ordered the EPL and got the rifle together
Savage axis 308 barreled action timmney trigger boyds stock bolt lift kit glades armory
Bolt handle monstrum rail arken rings epl scope throw lever monstrum level flip it caps
The works.
The goal was a 300 plus yard rifle.
Everything together the gun weighed in at 8.5 pnds
And pleasure to shoot. .5 moa groups were the norm and cold bore shots were perfectly zeroed at 100 yards.
The scope is the star of the show.
It tracks perfect the reticle is crisp and very usable. The illumination sttings are perfectly balanced
Shots cold bore are right on to 515 yards using the sig bdx ballistics binoculars.
I'm planning to stretch the range to 600 yards but I believe limiting to 300 yards is ethical.
In closing I have found my perfect rig light powerful and economical to put together.
This is my first season with this combimation and I'm very impressed the first deer a good 8 point was taken at 212 yards with a heart shot bang flop.
The second deer a doe at 70 yards thru the
neck was an impressive display of dead right
there she kicked twice and was done.
The third deer a 6 point big body freezer
king at 92 yards was another heart shot he
made a rearing motion at the shot took 3
bounds and nosed down 12 yards from the
shot.
The 308 has exceeded my exspepectstions and is the gun I grab when head afield.
30/06 Ai deer
6.5 CM deer
308 deer
Thanks for the write up!