In this age of advanced technology, it seems we have but one throwback to the days of the old left. The deer rifle.
Now in every hunting camp, the parking lot filled with pickup trucks and mud-stained BDUs, and every church parking lot in the South and Midwest after Sunday services, this topic is debated.
What’s the best deer rifle?
I know guys like my buddy Joe Miles—travelers of the world chasing the big game and shooting Marco Polo sheep across the border from the Taliban—who swear by the lightest and most efficient carbon stock, carbon-weave barrel, and biggest Swarovski scope you can pack.
Then there are people like me.
Normally I’m carrying a wood-stocked, early manufacture Ruger M77 in 7x57 Mauser with a Leupold or Vortex 3-9 X 40-millimeter scope.
That’s two sides of very different coins right there.
However, both are valid and good options.
Both are grounded in our experiences and expectations. Joe wants light and compact; I want my granddaddy’s rifle and a story to tell my kids.
In the glory days of gun writers and shootists, we had Jack O’Connor and Elmer Keith arguing the virtues of the 30-06 and 270. We had Skeeter Skelton and Bill Jordan writing about revolvers.
Today our magazines and blogs are filled with the latest 6-mm (like that’s something new), or the greatest sporting rifle (AR variant) to arrive on the scene. Someone is inevitably extolling the virtues of never cleaning a Glock and putting optics on 1911.
I miss the old days. A gun with wood and blued steel just has a soul. The soul of the woods and those who carry guns and love them.
To me, the deer rifle is a deeply personal and intimate selection.
Like choosing a wife, a good one will bring you happiness and love all the days of your life. But a bad one will frankly lead to misery and losing half your stuff.
I mentioned my gun, and here’s why I love it so much. It was my grandfather’s. I admired him greatly and wanted to be just like him in the woods. He walked quietly, sat for hours under big oaks on ridgelines, and he carried that rifle under the crook of his arm like it was a part of him. I’ll never forget him giving me that rifle a few years after he stopped hunting. It was a very emotional moment.
Truly a handing down of history.
That rifle has gone with me from the swamps of the low country to the plains of Nebraska and everywhere in between.
I once shot a deer at 10 paces over on Murder Creek in Putnam County, and then the next week killed a buck at over 375 yards standing on a plateau above a cattle tank in Nebraska. Same gun, same scope, the same type of bullet. I remember the first time my son got to shoot that rifle and the sense of pride he had in it. Just like I did back in the day.
For me, there is nothing like the classic American deer rifle. Whether it’s a Winchester 94, a Model 70, Remington 700, or a Ruger 77, they are all like the classic American muscle car. I will leave it to you to decide what’s best, but deep down we all know it’s a Ruger M77 in 7x57 with my grandaddy’s care rubbed into it over the decades.