I am lusting for a new hunting rifle. I typically hunt whitetail from a deer stand so I've used an AR-10 308 in the past to great success. Then I got a cheap beater zastava 30-06 for the same thing but so I wouldn't have to bring such a heavy and expensive rifle to deer camp. But it shoots about how you'd expect a cheap serbian rifle to shoot. So, I'm looking hard at a new hunting rifle, and I'd like to keep it somewhat lighter weight, but not crazy light.

I'm probably thinking 30-06 for caliber. Whitetail is the primary use, but i just applied for black bear points, and my wife and I are talking a lot about an elk hunt. I'd really like to hunt everything else in North America, but I have yet to make specific plans. I was kind of thinking about 6.5 creedmore, but I'm reading it might be a little light for elk. But, then again, maybe I should get 2 new rifles. A lighter 6.5, and a 300win mag just for the hypothetical elk hunt I may or may not do. I'm relatively uninterested in the more niche calibers like the prc's or 7mm. I'd like to stick to widely available and tested calibers. 30-06 should be well suited to do everything, but there are some rifles I'm looking at that are short action only. That and for elk, 30-06 is good, but 300 seems to be better. On the flip side, 30-06 is likely more than enough for 90% of what I want to do and 6.5 mught be a little better suited to everything but elk.

I also have my first suppressor in jail right now. I'm not saying I want a dedicated suppressed hunting rifle, but I'd definitely like it to be threaded and not have a crazy long barrel.

Ruger american genII looks to be available in 30-06 now, and is high on my list.

I love savage rifles. I also have a savage police rifle in 308 that shoots really well. But it is a big heavy beast with a 24" barrel. There are a ton of savages pick from, but they have gotten a little expensive lately. I'm kind of thinking there are some other rifles that I might be overlooking at that price.

I'm looking at weatherby some, but I hear somewhat mixed reviews.

I'd like to stick to American made. The exception is the sig cross in 6.5 has my attention. Lighter weight and looks like it would be cool. But, a little spendy.

So, that's a long rambling way to ask what my next hunting rifle should be?

30-06 or .308

Bang for the buck, Savage 10/110, etc.  

Rem 700, older the better.  

What I might buy if I were not set with the above is Bergara

Agreed with OP on the caliber choice for the use of said rifle.

American made, OP can consider Browning X Bolt, Winchester Model 70, older Remington 700, Howa M1500 threaded, and Ruger American.

OP can also consider Tikka T3 (threading service and/or aftermarket threaded barrel, if important), and CZ 457.

You don’t need a 300 for elk.  Trust me.  I’ve laid down 18 I think, 30-06 got the most, 308 next.
A couple with a 45/70, probably the favorite for me, so light and plenty of horsepower.  Just not ideal IF I NEEDED to make a 300 yard poke.  I’m mostly in timber killing them, so it works for me.

A couple more with a 300WM, longest shot there was just under 300.  Great round for sure, but damn it was hard to practice with much. Recoil was substantial at the range.  8-10 shots and enough for me.  Ruger M77 FWIW.  I ended up cutting and threading it and braked it.  Now easy to shoot a lot more, but why?  Elk all fell with all those calibers.  I pulled one easy 60 yard shoulder shot on a mid sized bull and got a double lung shot, he went 150 yards with the -06, would have been the same with any caliber.
Nothing wrong with a 300 for elk, as long as you can shoot it well.

It’s a beast, the only gun I’ve ever gotten scope eye from.

I went .30-06 because anything can be got with it. I went Browning X-Bolt because of detachable mags.

Take a look a the new"ish" Weatherby 307. I am looking to upgrade my western hunting rifle and I plan to get one, got to handle one in a shop the other day, great feeling rifle. Im definitely going with 7mm prc for the performance advantages and shorter barrel but they offer them in '06

Cross. Mine is a 308 which saves a little weight and length.

I have hunted a hell of a lot of big game in the US and Africa.

My #1 recommendation for 1 rifle that will do 90% of the work is an 06. I have killed more deer, elk and assorted African plains game with an 06 than all my other rifles COMBINED.

All you really get from a 300 is the ability to do what an 06 does another 100 yards or so more.

You load choice is yours. For my 06 I have 2 loads. 165 TSX for Elk and africa and the 165 BT for whitetail and smaller.

Having said all of that I do love my 6.5. It was my only rifle in my last safari and I shot 18 animals with no complaints including Black Wildebeast and Nyala. My bullet was a 130 TSX. For hunting whitetail I use Hornaday 140 gr SST because the rifle shoots it well. The cartridge is the venerable 6.5x55 invented around 1894.

If I were going to tell someone to get a 6.5 today it would advise the Creedmore. Ballistically it is a 6.5x55 that usually can’t handle heavy bullets well.

Can you hunt elk with a 6.5? Many do. I won’t.

I have taken elk with 7x57, 275 Rigby AI, 308, 06, 8x68S, 9.3x62, 375 H&H and yes even used my 470 NE once. I have killed more elk with the 06 than all of them.

Tikka is probable one of the best thing going in factory rifles along with the Bergara. If I was just getting into a new rifle these days I would also take a very very close look at the Sauer 101 series of rifles. Every one I have seen or heard of is crazy accurate.

30-06, .308 or .270, Savage (w/accutrigger) or Remington 700, throw a Leopold or Nikon on it, get some Hornady Fusion or Winchester Supreme ammo and send it.

Awesome information. Thank you for sharing. I would still like to be able to shoot an elk at some distance. But as I'm reading, 30-06 seems to be accepted out to 300-400 yards depending on the load/shooter. So I think that'll be acceptable to my use.

How heavy of a rifle do you like? I'm seeing huge variability between off the shelf guns. Like I said, I don't want to go carbon fiber barrel or anything crazy light, but I'm mostly looking to stay lighter than an AR10.

I certainly see what all the fuss is about with tikka and bergara. I've been able to shoot a few, and they are quite nice. It's kind of a shame we are running out of "nice" made in usa rifles. Savage is creeping back to the top of my list though. If I can find a relatively inexpensive action, I'd hunor building my own. But, everything I find is $650+ for a bare 700 action, which is hard to justify when the savage is 900-1000 complete and ready to go.

Have you ever shot game at ‘some distance’?  How far we talking?  This is the important part. 30-06 or 270 is what I’d consider in your position.

This, no reason to overthink it.

I looked at the Sig, and it's neato, but not worth it IMO.

Sako 85 lightweight - 30:06

Stand hunting deer = Ruger American IMO
Close and tight, id go 308
Beanfields and needing some range id go 270

Occasional black bear do it all i’d go 30-06 and call it a day.


Then you can get a fancy pants rifle later if you still feel the need.

You wont feel bad roughing up the ruger in the stand and your game wont know the difference.

The Weatherby vanguards are awesome rifles, don’t overlook them.  I have killed bull elk out to 400 yards with mine in .270 Win.  30-06 will give similar performance.

Pretty much any modern rifle will fo the job just fine.  Ruger, Savage, Weatherby, Remington, Tikka, etc..

IMO, the more important things are the scope and bullet selection.  Bullet selection is way more important for elk than deer.  Experience has shown me that using the right bullet for elk is key to quicker kills.  Find a load using monolithic bullets, bonded bullets, or partitioned bullets that your rifle shoots well.  

Don’t cheap out on glass either.  Nothing more frustrating than not being able to see through your scope in the first light of morning or last light of the day.  These are the times when big game like elk are moving around the most(other than at night).

I personally run 50mm objective Leupold scopes for this reason.  I can still see really well through my scope a good 20min earlier/later than my hunting buddy who has a cheaper 40mm objective vortex scope.

Scope is certainly a reason I'd like 1 nice rifle for doing everything. I can justify a nice scope for 1 rifle.

Weatherby:  Don't.  First of all, its not American made.  Its a rebadged Howa.  And My experience with Weatherby was very negative.  They DONT stand behind their accuracy guarantee, and when my Weatherby Vanguard II Backcountry wouldn't feed for shit, they made all kinds of excuses.  Utter bullshit.  Every company will make a bum product once in a while.  Good companies admit their mistakes and fix them., Weatherby isn't (in my experience) one of those companies.

Dont buy a rifle for "maybe someday perhaps if Im lucky I'll go hunt elk".  You're going to use the rifle for local deer 100 times for every time you hunt elk. If you hunt elk.  When the elk hunt is actually booked, make do with the deer rifle, or better yet, buy an elk rifle.   There are lots of poor fools in the woods, lugging a 10 lb fence post 300 Win mag season after season, shooting 35 yards at deer, because maybe they might hunt elk in 2037....

Take a look here and now at how you actually hunt.  What range do you actually shoot deer?  Under what conditions?  Buy the best tool for that job...  

I hunt moose, and caribou, and coyote and deer.  Deer hunting outstrips all the rest abut 30 to 1. And 95% of my deer shots are under 125 yards.  I've had a couple out at the 170-180 yard mark.    While a 400 yard deer rifle for a western hunt is a nice idea, I've hunted 30 straight years in the northern woods of the Adirondacks.  Laid out somewhere around 3 dozen deer.  Only one moose, and three caribou.  Never hunted mule deer yet.  

Under my conditions, my Remington Model Seven in 308 is very nearly ideal.  Its VERY effective as a 100-180 yard deer gun in Adirondack woods and broken farm land.  It was not the ideal caribou gun, but its was entire effective on the three caribou I killed.  

Buy the gun according to how to use it, not how you dream of using it.

Your idea of buying in a caliber that fits your needs for 99% of the time is correct. Don’t try to get the perfect rifle to fit all scenarios, get the one that fits your realistic, near term uses. You could always buy a magnum elk rifle for a few hundred bucks in a few years if need be. You’re really better served by picking a cartridge tailored to your common hunting, and getting a specialty rifle for special hunting. 30-06 can do both, however.

I prefer short action cartridges like .308, 7mm-08 and 6.5 Creedmoor. Since you like long actions, 30-06 makes perfect sense, along with .270 and even .338-06 or .35 Whelen if you reload.

The reason I like short action is that I shoot better and enjoy shooting more when I have less recoil. You could achieve the same with a caliber smaller than 30-06 or by loading lighter for caliber for deer hunting. Select a good bullet and you’ll knock deer dead no matter what caliber.

I’d skip the Sig Cross because I’ve read too many examples of soso performance, which sucks because it’s sexy and crazy light. The Ruger American is a fine entry choice, as well as Tikka (any model) and Bergara too. Howa also makes a fine, light rifle. Your budget should probably be oriented towards getting your right scope and buying the best rifle available with your leftover funds.

Last to think of is aftermarket. Going Ruger or Bergara means you can buy fantastic aftermarket triggers, stocks, scope mounts, etc… IMO this DOES matter if you intend to keep your rifle for a long time. Tikka has decent aftermarket, and Howa is ok. However all their base products are really nice.

Well said on bullet and optic selection. I would add get something with an illuminated reticle. It can really make a difference in bad light as well.

A good mono metal or bonded bullet choice could arguably be more important that choosing between a 270, 7mm mag, 308, 30-06 for anything in North America excluding the big bears. I’ve been very happy with 180gr bonded bullets out of a 30-06 on deer, elk and Nilgai but am interested to try some mono metal bullets this season.

I have been very impressed with Nosler partition bullets in my .270.  Not new, fancy, or super high BC, but performance on game has been awesome.  

Lightweight Finnish rifles can be had for $600 (Tikka). Buy two.

Very neglectful on my part not to include the partition, swift a frame etc. For what it’s worth, I have never shot an animal far enough away that a high BC bullet would really give much of an advantage.

Me either.  350 yards is about my max.  

With the prefit barrels these days I'd buy once/cry once and buy a nice action, get a great barrel chambered and profiled to your specs, stick them together, and put it in the stock or chassis system of your choosing. Add some good glass on top and you're set for anything. VX-6 is a great hunting scope, or Swarovski, Zeiss, etc.

All depends how much money you want to spend. Another option would be to find an old classic thst is lonely in the rack and breathe new life into it.

As previously mentioned, the Weatherby Vanguard is a rebranded Howa. Not American made. You'd be better off cutting out the middleman and going straight to a Howa barreled action then dropping it into a nice stock. Or move up to the Mark V. I'd pass on Weatherby entirely, personally.

The Ruger American is decent but not outstanding. The Winchester model 70 is currently made in Portugal. Bergara makes some higher end stuff in the US now. SIG anything these days is an instant pass IMHO.

Nice US made rifles are mostly custom or semi custom and you can do the same thing by putting it together yourself.

Op,

30.06 is just a long action 308.

False, the old '06 still has an advantage.

Christensen is out of UT and make great rifles

Tikka T3X Lite is 6.5 lbs
$750
you can upgrade up their line as far as you'd like

You are correct.

The 308 really tops out with 165 gr before performance begins to fall off. After 180 gr you are basically done.

The 06 goes chugging right along up to 220 gr (depending on twist).

Tue 308 has its place in the hunting battery but it can’t supersede the 308.

I've heard really spotty things about christiansen. I'd really like one, but some people seem to get poor shooters.

Given, not exactly unbiased, but I have a friend who writes articles based on his hunting adventures and he’s sponsored by Christensen. He gets rifles from them regularly and he’s never had a bad shooter. I’ve heard people say exactly what you did, but I’ve never encountered someone who has first hand experience experience with a bad one. I do know a ton of people with first hand experience who all say they’re great guns.

I just got one myself, a Ridgeline in 270 WSM. I haven’t shot it yet but hope to here in the next few days

That's encouraging to hear. A local shop is a big christensen dealer, and my wife wants one real bad. Maybe I'll take another look.

I'd love a lighter weight chassis rifle.

I have heard the same.  Enough to scare me out of one.

I primarily hunt Nebraska for White tail and Mulies.

I have killed them with 7m08, 300 Ultra Mag, and 270.  The last 5 years or so
I have settled on the 270, and picked up an Xbolt Hells canyon, with a VX-6HD 3-18x44 CDS-ZL2 on it.

Shooting factory loads Hornady Precision hunter 145 gr ELDX.

I couldn't be more happy.  Longest shot on a whitetail 375 yards, DRT.

Are you planning to run suppressed?

Not exclusively, but a fair bit for sure. Threading is a must.

Christensen:    Regarding the spotty qc....    

I've got a theory.  That theory is this:  When someone buys a rifle and is unhappy with it, it gets traded away.  I do think this applies to higher end rifles...    There's a couple gazillion Win 94's on the market, so simply numbers say youre going to see a lot of them in pawn shops or on the used rack at the local gun store.  This now applies to Ruger Americans and other really really common guns.

However, Christensens aren't super common.  They aren't generally purchased by Bubba at Walmart.  When people spend $1500+ on a rifle I think its safe to say the customer is a "gun person". And gun people, by and large, dont dispose of really expensive guns that work really well.  We hang on to them...  

I've noticed something:  A large eastern seaboard gun dealer does a lot of business in used firearms.  As expected, there are a lot of turn over on Ruger Americans and the like, but thats a function of how many of these thinks are on the market.  I see a suspiciously high number of Christensens. These are rifles that are relatively new, haven't been made for decades, aren't all that many on the market, yet they are often seen traded in.  And some of the reviews I've read have mentioned disappointing accuracy.  I have no direct proof , but these data points tend to suggest Christensen isn't quite delivering on the promise....

I’ll have better angles in future shorts and my full first look, but I’m very impressed with the Diligent Defense Enticer S Ti on the Cross .308. Makes for about the perfect length package in my opinion.

I’d pick a Bergara Premeir, B14², or B14 Wilderness Series … those are all geared towards actual hunting with lighter weight stocks.

I know Bergara makes a couple of their rifles in 7mm-08 … a cool cartridge that delivers a bit more thump than 6.5CM and slightly better range than .308/.30-06.  They also carry all the PRCs and traditional cartridges too.

Coming back around to this...
Action: Kelbly, Defiance, Zermatt, Terminus, etc...pick a good one that you like.
Barrel: call Bartlein, Brux, Lilja, etc etc....there are a ton of great barrel makers.
Stock: decide if you want a chassis or traditional stock. If traditional, carbon fiber or fiberglass.
Glass: don't cheap out, repeatable clicks and long range accuracy are paramount for a forever rifle. I'll repeat the Leupy VX-5 or VX-6, CDS if it is meant for just this rifle and you reload and have a chrono to take meticulous data.

FWIW I automatically assume that anyone wanting a very accurate rifle is willing/able to handload. If you aren't, it is worth considering. If you're not, guard your expectations and wallet. You will not maximize the performance of any long range rifle without handloads.

What groups are you getting out of the Zastava?  What's the trigger pull like?  Have you free floated the barrel?  Have you bedded the action?

Like 4 MOA with basic remington cor lokt. I am currently working on free floating the barrel, but one of the action screws is buggered. I plan to bed the action, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Trigger isn't aweful, but it isn't good either. But, now that you say it, i will look to see if I can get an aftermarket. Work in progress.

I have done just a little handloading. I'm willing to do more, but I haven't seen a real good reason to. So far my experience is it's more time than it's worth.

The action screw won't come loose, or the threading in the action is stripped?