Thread: As someone who is getting into hunting, what rifle should I invest more money into?

Originally Posted by Bill999

It’s an old joke that we are all sick of(only cause I just got one myself haha) that dorklanders all sip lattes and shoot 7mm08s


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Oh, that's silly. Man Buns and Latte go together.

7mm-08 is a great thing and hits near as hard as a .308.

For my money allocate more budget to the centrefire and good glass. Howa or Tikka both shoot for the money and should hold their value.

I've had Norinco and Baikal .22s that were plenty accurate for rabbits .

Originally Posted by CBH Australia

Oh, that's silly. Man Buns and Latte go together.

7mm-08 is a great thing and hits near as hard as a .308.

For my money allocate more budget to the centrefire and good glass. Howa or Tikka both shoot for the money and should hold their value.

I've had Norinco and Baikal .22s that were plenty accurate for rabbits .

Im a big fan of 243, 260, 6.5creed, 7mm08, 308 mostly due to it bieng the top end of what I can shoot comfortably with absurdly light rifles

more dosent seem to make things deader and basically I never get the chance to shoot further than 200m basically anywhere I hunt

Originally Posted by longshot

I started out hunting not far down the road from where your in-laws have their land.

My first rifle was a JW15 and the second was a Winchester M94. If I was starting from fresh today and not funding my hunting from firewood money after school I would start with a bolt action CZ in whichever configuration I like the feel of. And the centrefire would be a short accurate suppressed bolt action or single shot at the cheaper end of the scale, maybe a Howa mini in 6.5G. Or a Bergara single in .308. Preferably Stainless but even a good condition .303 would fit the bill.

The logic being that the .22 is pretty easy to look after unless you want to strap it to the front of your quad for when your working dogs inadvertently bail a pig. Something tells me that’s not you. It will loose minimum amount of value (either to you or in the retail sense).

A fair chunk of your formative hunting is probably going to be in the Western Kaimai ranges. Lots of supplejack. If you have something like a Walnut Stock CZ 550 or a Sako that is your pride and joy, it will be exhausting trying not to get it scratched or wet, you won’t be able to concentrate on stalking and consequently won’t see any deer. The experience won’t be fun and you may end up preferring to concentrate on the rabbits and your centrefire will then become what is known around here as a ‘range queen’ or ‘safe queen’. It may even end up in the Buy sell swap.

If you buy a relatively cheap centrefire rifle you can just get on with the hunting, there will or won’t come a time when you need to upgrade, in either scenario you won’t regret having started with your knock around gun which you will probably still keep partly because you shot your first deer with it and partly because it will still be a useful gun.

Thanks for this. Some good advice here. I had never planned on getting a really expensive centrefire due to the fact I anticipate doing a lot of bush bashing due to where I live. I also like the look of synthetic stocks anyways... Whats the deer population like in the Kaimais?

A 270 will cover both your varmint and deer - reloaded to 90gr is a reasonably recoiless load - and 130-150gr will knock anything over - spend on a basic good scope, no need for a fancy one.

My best rifle is a wooded Sako, bought second hand - so cheapish and I dont worry about the knocks. Funnily of all the safe queens and fancy ones - the 270 is picked up most often, followed by a 22 magnum......bug my recommendation is a .22lr

On the 22's, I would go with the wood stocked Norinco and ignore 10/22 semis and expensive bolt actions. The average distance to shoot rabbits is 35 - 50 mtrs. Hares 50 - 70 mtrs. A JW 15 will put all shots into the head at those distances and shooting skill and ability will make more difference than a rifle that shoots a 10mm tighter group. Practice stalking in close and the lessons learnt will really help for deer. Scratching a JW stock going under a fence is no big deal but scratching an Annie will ruin the week. Professional rabbit shooters use JW's
Centrefire shots tend to be further than rimfire so a better rifle is needed. I dont like the closed action types like Tikkas because it is hard to load and unload them quietly in a hunting situation and an unfired round cannot be top loaded back into the mag or the mag 'topped up' from the top after a couple of shots are fired. No big deal in open country but not good in the bush. There is no action better than an M98 for a first centrefire imo

Whatever you buy, buy decent rings, bases, optic and suppressor. That way if you have accuracy issues you don't have to second guess the bits attached to the rifle and if you upgrade the rifle you can transfer all the bits.

I still reckon it's hard to go past the Howa's for value for money new rifles. I picked up a used .308 Howa Lightweight for $599 last year from the local sports shop. The original owner had bought it specifically to see whether he liked Howa's before buying a 6.5CM chassis for a specialised long range rig. He knew that if he didn't like it he could easily sell the .308. Was a helluva bargain as it was as new condition. So bargains are out there....

If you buy used, either take someone experienced with you to check the rifle out, or buy one/ask for one to buy, from one of the good buggers here

22 shooting is less demanding than centrefire so you can get by with more basic gear. And the market isn't inflated.
A JW15 will be good for at least 10 years till you could benefit from something better. I'm guessing from just applying for FAL that you're young and will have more income in a decade than now (hopefully ...) Scope requirements are not nearly so demanding in ruggedness and waterproofness. A Leupold 2-7 would be good but Tasco, Hawke and Nikko Stirling will be fine. The main thing you might want to look at is closer focus as a lot of centrefire scopes are fixed at about 100m or even more so a bit blurry up close. You fix that by having "parallax adjustment" but its another gizmo feature and difficult to do well in a budget scope. I'd be inclined to leave that for a future upgrade.

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

I still reckon it's hard to go past the Howa's for value for money new rifles. I picked up a used .308 Howa Lightweight for $599 last year from the local sports shop. The original owner had bought it specifically to see whether he liked Howa's before buying a 6.5CM chassis for a specialised long range rig. He knew that if he didn't like it he could easily sell the .308. Was a helluva bargain as it was as new condition. So bargains are out there....

If you buy used, either take someone experienced with you to check the rifle out, or buy one/ask for one to buy, from one of the good buggers here

I have been looking at the Howa 1500's. I have heard great things about them and am tempted to get one of those when I have my license...

Just going sideways, one thing to plan is getting ammo.

22 is fine. Get a brick of 500 subsonic hollowpoint eg CCI to start with. Supersonic is quite a bit more effective for hunting specially rabbits due to its flatter trajectory and slightly better killing power.

For Centrefire, you should get 100 rounds of the same batch of a good ammo. That way you won't have to sight in so often and will end up with a useful supply of brass. You can reload yourself in future or pay someone to do it. Good brands are Sako and Norma (try for the ones with nosler ballistic tip bullets) and I think Nosler custom would be OK too but haven't used it myself. Others here will be able to recommend if they know of another brand. Some factory ammo like Hornady, Federal, Winchester and PPU is basically suitable to be fired and ejected into the bushes. People will have opinions on that statement too ... So, it can take some detective work and patience ringing round to locate ammo to start on. Try the good online shops like Hunting and Outdoors, perhaps Serious Shooters and Gunworks and they may even direct you to the importer. Some small local shops like the guy at Taihape can be very good too. However in the end your best bet is the big chains Shun City and Humping and Fishting who can get supplies in from other parts of the country.

So, you're up for about $250 for 1000 22LR and $500 for 100 centrefire.

OK, I know you didn't ask this, but lets get it straight about cartridges.

The 270 and 3006 are superb deer cartridges, specially if you're over 80kg.
The 308, not so much. It's satisfactory but every other cartridge is superior in some way (all different ways) and if it was put on the market today it would be a commercial loser. Its only merits are that it was the NATO cartridge and there are a huge amount of them around with all sorts of bullet types and weights and usually a good supply of ammo.

The lighter weights are the the 7mm08 (Lattes) and 6.5 Creedmore (Man Buns). If you shoot a Creedmore you're expected to place the bullet exactly. These are the cartridges to use if you want a light rifle.

Originally Posted by Bagheera

Just going sideways, one thing to plan is getting ammo.

22 is fine. Get a brick of 500 subsonic hollowpoint eg CCI to start with. Supersonic is quite a bit more effective for hunting specially rabbits due to its flatter trajectory and slightly better killing power.

For Centrefire, you should get 100 rounds of the same batch of a good ammo. That way you won't have to sight in so often and will end up with a useful supply of brass. You can reload yourself in future or pay someone to do it. Good brands are Sako and Norma (try for the ones with nosler ballistic tip bullets) and I think Nosler custom would be OK too but haven't used it myself. Others here will be able to recommend if they know of another brand. Some factory ammo like Hornady, Federal, Winchester and PPU is basically suitable to be fired and ejected into the bushes. People will have opinions on that statement too ... So, it can take some detective work and patience ringing round to locate ammo to start on. Try the good online shops like Hunting and Outdoors, perhaps Serious Shooters and Gunworks and they may even direct you to the importer. Some small local shops like the guy at Taihape can be very good too. However in the end your best bet is the big chains Shun City and Humping and Fishting who can get supplies in from other parts of the country.

So, you're up for about $250 for 1000 22LR and $500 for 100 centrefire.

Yeah I will need to factor in the type of ammo and how much to purchase as well. I live pretty damn close to 3 gun stores (Gun City, Serious Shooters and Reloaders) so will have to go in one day for a chat

Originally Posted by Bagheera

OK, I know you didn't ask this, but lets get it straight about cartridges.

The 270 and 3006 are superb deer cartridges, specially if you're over 80kg.
The 308, not so much. It's satisfactory but every other cartridge is superior in some way (all different ways) and if it was put on the market today it would be a commercial loser. Its only merits are that it was the NATO cartridge and there are a huge amount of them around with all sorts of bullet types and weights and usually a good supply of ammo.

The lighter weights are the the 7mm08 (Lattes) and 6.5 Creedmore (Man Buns). If you shoot a Creedmore you're expected to place the bullet exactly. These are the cartridges to use if you want a light rifle.

Of the research I have done, .270 would be my first pick if I were to choose one. Granted, I haven't fired anything larger than a 22LR but from everything I have read online, a 270 would be my preference when it comes to a centrefire rifle. Mainly due to price and availability of ammo, flat shooting, generally pretty good as a "do it all" round etc.

Originally Posted by Tall kiwi

Thanks for this. Some good advice here. I had never planned on getting a really expensive centrefire due to the fact I anticipate doing a lot of bush bashing due to where I live. I also like the look of synthetic stocks anyways... Whats the deer population like in the Kaimais?

Can’t speak to how many deer in the Kaimai nowadays, it’s been a few haircuts since I frequented that bit of bush.

Looking at your last post I would suggest for you, .308 over the .270. You get a bit more availability of ammo and variety, you can run it in a short barrel and if you can down load it for subs or buy factory subs too.
The general rule of thumb is .308 for NI and .270 for SI.

I read the words of those saying for every purpose there is a caliber that is more suitable than the .308, this is correct but in most real world hunting scenarios the extent of advantage is academic. But if you still want to pursue that discussion, realise that while many cartridges can do one thing better then the .308, there isn’t much out there that can do two things better and nothing that can do three things better.

A hunting buddy of mine has a Tikka .270, I can make first shot hits more often and more consistently in the field with my .308 than he can with the .270 when we shoot together. This doesn’t prove any advantage about one cartridge vs the other, it proves that the one who is behind the rifle is the main factor.

True words Longshot but the 7mm08 is also recommended for the North Island.
I wouldn't choose a calibre just because it can be shortend to a bushpig.

"There are no deer in the Kaimais".
But if you must go then a short rifle is good. Some like the 44mag. Does one thing better than the 308.

For the Kaimanawas, its also mostly short range but has some river flats and for the Kawekas and Ruahines, a long rifle (22" barrel) is fine and you will appreciate the extra reach. Certainly for the South Island that is the case but with some preparation the 7mm08 and 308 can be used quite effectively. Can't say I've ever seen a Creedmore in the hills, have you ?

270 country in the Kaimais


16" 308 country in the Kaimais


Some nicer bush


No deer ...