THE MODERN HUNTING RIFLE
No chapter of any book on guns is more fraught with peril than the final one, wherein the author (usually ill-advisedly, and almost always incorrectly) predicts what the future might hold. Some prognosticators on rifles and ballistics have been so wildly off base it makes you wonder what they were smoking. At least one sage from the 1950s predicted future routine velocities of 10,000 fps, and working pressures in the neighborhood of 120,000 psi. Even more sober folk considered 5,000 fps a foregone conclusion. Another writer suggested the primer was obsolete, and in the future all ignition systems would be electrical. Still another touted caseless ammunition as the way of the future.
No one in 1965 predicted a general takeover by synthetic stocks, or a mass migration to AR-15s as one of the dominant sporting rifles. In 1967, the 6.5 Remington Magnum was already fading into obscurity after a brief and inauspicious life. The main knock against it was that it did not deliver the promised velocity. Had anyone suggested that, fifty years later, the hottest rifle cartridge, in terms of sales, would be something called the 6.5 Creedmoor, offering slightly less in the way of ballistics than the rejected 6.5 Remington, he would have been laughed out of the saloon.
The J. P. Sauer & Sohn Model 404 Synchro XTC has a carbon-fiber stock that promises the greatest strength combined with the lightest weight. It has drawbacks, too, but it’s a matter of taste. The comb is adjustable for height.
As I am writing this in the fall of 2017, there are several trends clearly visible. One is the increasing prevalence of synthetic stocks. This subject has been covered in chapter XI, but it bears repeating. Today, even the plainest walnut stock is a luxury item, and most of those are pretty ho-hum. In an age of laser-cut checkering and the technological ability to shape a stock properly using mass-production methods, it need not be this way. There are exceptions, and we’ll get to them. As for synthetic stocks, to quote my old shooting pal Bruce Cockburn, “The trouble with normal is, it always gets worse.” How right you are, Bruce, and in the case of synthetic stocks, doubly so.
For the past decade, there has been a concerted effort on the part of individuals, companies, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and the NRA to legitimize the AR family of semi-military semiauto rifles as “modern sporting rifles.” This includes trying to have them recognized, legally in some cases but culturally everywhere, as perfectly fine rifles for hunting. By my aesthetic and technical standards, they don’t qualify on a number of grounds. It’s not because I don’t like semiautos, or object to their military look. It has to do with practical aspects, like excessive weight, poor balance, sharp edges and corners, difficulty in carrying, awkward handling in most hunting situations, noisy operation, and so on. Ergonomic they are not, nor are they smooth, silky, and seductive. In terms of Gough Thomas’s eumatics, at best they are barely adequate. I’d as soon enter the Monaco Grand Prix driving a Tiger tank.
Do I think they should be illegal? Absolutely not. If a Dall sheep hunter wants to handicap himself by carrying an AR in some semi-adequate caliber, that’s his business. All I fervently wish is that hunters who do use ARs give some serious thought to the ethics of the situation, and fairness to the game. This does not mean an AR gives you an unfair advantage. Quite the opposite. I believe they raise the chances of wounding animals simply because you can’t get a usable AR in a serious hunting caliber like .270 Winchester. The 6.5 Grendel is a neat cartridge for playing around, but that’s where it ends unless your idea of hunting is potting whitetails under a feeder at seventy-five yards.
If this sounds like relentless doom and gloom, it is not meant to be. Savage Arms, having abandoned such classics as the Savage 99, has turned its economy-priced 110 bolt-action series into an extensive line of highly accurate rifles, with an excellent trigger system. These are priced within range of the average teenager, and nothing like that was around when I was sixteen. Winchester Repeating Arms, having been saved from oblivion and folded under the protective wing of Browning Arms and its parent, FN, is making some of the best rifles in its history, if you can just get past the idea that “Made in Portugal” can be better than “Made in New Haven, Conn.” Remington and Marlin, two venerable names, don’t seem to be exactly thriving, but that’s the ebb and flow of an industrial economy.
Sturm, Ruger & Co., when last we looked, was the largest general firearms company in the US, and strictly on merit. Not bad, from a standing start of zero in the late 1940s, working from a garage. The company was built on Bill Ruger’s seemingly infallible instinct for what shooters wanted, and what they would buy even though they might not even know they wanted it, because it did not yet exist. That’s a talent you don’t acquire at MBA school, or working as somebody’s corporate lawyer. Since Ruger’s death, the company has put a foot wrong here and there, but they have also produced some stuff that is really good. As a company, Sturm, Ruger has the resilience to recover from the odd bad move and, apparently, the good sense to do so.
The Blaser R8 straight-pull rifle, with its interchangeable barrels, removable trigger groups, lightning-fast operation, and superb accuracy is the ultimate in versatility in a hunting rifle, available in (at last count) forty-three different cartridges ranging from the .204 Ruger and .222 Remington up to the .338 Lapua and .500 Jeffery.
One really bright area of both innovation and quality is the European connection—Blaser, J. P. Sauer, and Mauser in Germany, Steyr in Austria, and CZ in the Czech Republic. Mauser has just reintroduced the Mauser 98 with “Original Mauser” engraved on the barrel in the old Mauser banner, and it is a superb rifle, if an expensive one. J. P. Sauer’s modern turnbolt designs, and Blaser’s straight-pull rifles, set a standard of quality that everyone else aspires to.
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What are some specific modern rifles that, in my opinion, qualify as potentially great hunting rifles? There are several, actually, and each of them just barely missed making the cut for this book.
To start with Ruger, it has a small on-again, off-again line of Model 77 bolt-action derivatives, chambered for such cartridges as the .44 Magnum and .357 Magnum. These are built on a very short action, and employ a detachable rotary magazine. Of the various iterations, the Model 77/44 and 77/357 are the only ones that really qualify as big-game rifles. They are light, handy, agile, and quick to shoot. Feeding and ejection are very smooth and reliable. They are not the fastest to reload, since you have to position the rimmed cartridges carefully to press them down into the spool, but with four or five shots available, this is not a huge issue. Putting a scope on is unnecessary, to my mind, and would considerably reduce their value as stalking or still-hunting rifles, since a scope would only make them awkward to carry. If there were a readily available receiver sight, like the old Lyman 48, to replace or augment the standard open sights, it would improve them, but they work very well with the open sights they come with.
The Ruger Model 77/44, one of a class of rifles based on the venerable Model 77 bolt action, but employing a rotary magazine. The synthetic stock is surprisingly good, and the rifle functions well. It is an excellent stalking rifle for deer and similar game at shorter ranges. Although it is equipped for scope mounting, that would detract from its carrying qualities and quick handling.
The actions and barrels are of stainless steel, so the bolt always has that feel of galling slightly. It can never be silky slick, but that’s purely aesthetics. Functionally, they step up every time, and that’s what’s really important.
One great point about these rifles is their synthetic stock. It is so good it would almost make a convert of me, were I not so irascible and set in my ways. They have the general shape of American classic. There is “checkering” moulded in, but it’s sharp, with large diamonds, and gives a really good grip. The forend and wrist are slim. Walnut stocks are supposedly available on some models, as are (or were) laminates, but they never seem to be in stock, and the .44 Magnum is available with blued steel. With this model, however, one can never tell what’s in production and what isn’t from one month to the next. For the practical ranges at which one might use a .44 Magnum or .357 Magnum for big-game hunting, this rifle fits right in with others in this book, like the Winchester 92, Savage 99, and even the Mannlicher-Schönauer.
This Ruger 77/357 is not only a model of restrained good taste, it is a deadly little deer and pig rifle at shorter ranges.
A rotary magazine has been a high-class feature on bolt actions for more than a century, and only fell into disuse because it was expensive and required precision manufacture. Ruger’s version is very good, and in some ways better than either the old Schönauer or Savage 99. For one thing, it can be removed while still holding its cartridges, so in theory you could carry a full spare. The rifle’s trigger is good, and the three-position safety is even better than the Model 70’s.
Another notable Ruger is a new version of the Model 77 Hawkeye, called the FTW Hunter. The one I’ve used is chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, is fitted with a synthetic stock and detachable muzzle brake, and is both quick to operate and highly accurate. Unfortunately, it has no iron sights. Why anyone needs a muzzle brake on a pussycat like the 6.5 Creedmoor is beyond me, but the sniper types insist they need every assistance to make those nine-hundred-yard shots. Since I don’t attempt nine-hundred-yard shots, unless it’s a steel plate and there’s nothing at stake, the muzzle brake comes off and stays off. The rifle was configured by Ruger with advice from the staff at the FTW Ranch in Texas, home of a noted rifle-shooting school. The people at FTW certainly know their stuff, and if I was condemned to using just one rifle henceforth, and it was this one, I would not weep for too long. It’s certainly a pleasure to shoot, but the 6.5 Creedmoor is not really my idea of a serious big-game cartridge.
Ruger Model 77 Hawkeye FTW Hunter, chambered for the 6.5 Creedmoor, and fitted with a Swarovski Z6i 2.5-15x44 P HD scope. Of the new crop of synthetic-stocked stainless rifles, this is the best “hunting” rifle I have seen.
How can I write that when one of the early rifles in this book is a Mannlicher-Schönauer Model 1903, in 6.5x54 M-S? That is simply because, if I had to climb an Alp in pursuit of a chamois, I would take the Mannlicher over the Ruger. The Mannlicher is a silky, eumatic pleasure to use, and the Ruger is not. Also, I probably would not attempt a shot with the Mannlicher beyond 250 yards at the absolute most, while everything about the FTW Hunter is designed for ranges far beyond that. And once you get beyond 250 yards, I would like a .270 Winchester, at least.
Winchester, now safely under FN’s protective wing, seems to have rediscovered its soul, and I believe the Model 70 now being manufactured is, overall, the best that venerable rifle has ever been. New-production 70s are ergonomic, well made of the best materials, and highly accurate with a superb trigger. Aesthetically, they are examples of restrained elegance in the old, old New Haven style. The Super Grade is very nice, but the Featherweight is a gem, especially in calibers like .270 Winchester, if you like to walk a lot, carrying your rifle.
Since 2000, the Mauser brand has been part of Michael Lüke’s consortium of companies that includes Blaser and J. P. Sauer & Sohn. After a few hesitant starts, Mauser is once again manufacturing its best-known rifle, the 98, in both standard and magnum actions. The workmanship is beautiful and the quality superb, but the price pretty high for the average hunter. Well, there have always been wonderful hunting rifles I could not afford, so this is nothing new. It is offered in two grades of walnut: beautiful and expensive, and more beautiful and more expensive.
For their part, Mauser’s sister companies in the Lüke stable, J. P. Sauer and Blaser, are pursuing two different paths in bolt actions. The Blaser R8 is a straight-pull design with a unique lock-up system that appears, to my skeptical and suspicious eye, foolproof. It caters to the European love of combination and takedown rifles, and it’s possible to switch barrels, magazines, bolts, and riflescopes, thereby turning one basic action into three, four, or ten different rifles. The R8 is certainly a mechanical marvel, but the concept of assembling different parts as the situation requires does not fit my criteria for a great hunting rifle. Too many things to go wrong or get lost, and too many possible configurations that might be anything but great.
J. P. Sauer & Sohn has always been a turnbolt company, and still is. It’s the second-oldest gunmaking company in the world (after Beretta), in business since 1751. Sauer is renowned for its superb metalwork and the smoothness of its bolts. From 1958 until the mid-1970s, Sauer produced the Weatherby Mark V, and those actions were beautifully smooth. Over the past decade, Sauer has offered various turnbolt designs of its own, but it seems to pursue modern, other-worldly patterns more than I personally like. Mechanically, however, in terms of quality materials and workmanship, it’s impossible to fault them. They are also extremely accurate, with excellent triggers.
J. P. Sauer’s futuristic Model 404 Synchro XTC, with its rather reptilian carbon-fiber stock, is a little far out, but it shoots like a dream. This one is a .270 Winchester, fitted with a Schmidt & Bender Summit 2.5-10x40 scope.
Steyr, ancient home of the Mannlicher-Schönauer, is still in business and still making rifles. They are slick, fast, and chambered for some very powerful cartridges. Like the Sauers, there is absolutely nothing to fault in either materials or workmanship, and Steyr barrels are renowned.
Looking at all of these rifles, it’s apparent that rifle companies have learned from some of the mistakes of the past, and are paying attention to the finer details that make a good hunting rifle a great hunting rifle. Not every factory product is the ideal stalking rifle, but then they never were, and at least we have several very fine ones from which to choose.
The old German company Gebruder Merkel, of Suhl, is now owned by Steyr-Mannlicher. This is the new Merkel RX Helix straight-pull rifle. The bolt is completely contained within the solid receiver.
As for prognostications for the future, I believe the primer is here to stay, brass-cased ammunition will be the standard for the foreseeable future, we will never see routine velocities above 4,000 fps, and 60,000 psi was and is about as high as rifle pressures should go. Optics will continue to progress toward the totally unusable, and computers, the internet, satellites, and digital technology will try to play bigger and bigger roles, with the eventual goal of turning hunting into something akin to a video game.
In light of that, it’s difficult to be optimistic, but impossible to be totally pessimistic, either. History shows us that things tend to go in cycles. Just when it seemed that the march of ever bigger, ever louder cartridges was unstoppable, shooters rediscovered the joys of amiable rounds like the .300 Blackout, and suddenly the 6.5 Creedmoor was the hottest cartridge extant—a cartridge with a shape like the old wildcat 6.5-250 Savage Improved, and ballistics not much different than the 6.5x55. If ever there was a cartridge of demur demeanor and outsized capabilities, the 6.5x55 is it.
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Big-game rifles have always been shaped by the hunting itself. Hunting in America today is vastly different than it was even fifty years ago, much less one hundred, and is changing all the time. It has always been fashionable for American writers to sneer at the way things are done in Europe, especially if they are done by the upper classes. It doesn’t really matter whether the “upper classes” were hereditary princes, like the Prince of Wales or the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, or the commissars of Communist Eastern Europe. Nothing gets you a chorus of approval from American hunters like denigrating the gentry and their “fancy rifles.”
Yet here’s the odd thing. Hunting in America is becoming more and more like hunting in Scotland, Poland, or the Austrian Alps. As populations increase and country becomes more settled, this is inevitable. Hunting in Europe is the way it is today because, over the centuries, a few wealthy and dedicated individuals or classes have gone to great lengths to preserve habitat, manage game populations, and combat poaching. If it costs a great deal to preserve game—and it does—then logically it will cost a great deal to hunt.
The Archduke was the most dedicated big-game hunter of his day. Reportedly, he killed more than five thousand red stags in his life, but obviously he did not rack up such an astonishing total by stalking, as they do in Scotland, or still-hunting like Theodore van Dyke. In Europe, red stag are hunted two ways: either from a stand, or by driving. Often, shooting from a hochsitz, the stags emerge near or even after dark. Rifle weight hardly matters in a stand, and scopes need to be huge to work in low light. But look at how most whitetails are hunted in the US today: from stands, at dawn and dusk. And what scopes are most popular? The big European glass. There are farms and preserves where whitetails are raised like pedigreed beef cattle, with herd sires and offspring limited to this paddock or that, and the chance to shoot one of the offspring marketed like a stud book, with prices to match. And the celebrated “beanfield” hunting of the deep South, made famous in the 1980s by Kenny Jarrett and his rifles? It could as easily be in the sprawling farmlands of Silesia as in South Carolina.
Realistically, as the years go by, there will be more such hunting, not less. As for traditional means, such as the venerated Rocky Mountain pack trip on horseback, that is disappearing fast. With horseback hunting no longer a major market, how many riflemakers are going to pay much attention to what works in a saddle scabbard and what doesn’t? That used to be a major consideration. Now, where can you even buy traditional saddle scabbards?
One of the inevitable results of mass production, albeit unintentional, is the transformation of objects from prized possessions, to be handed down from one generation to the next, to mere commodities to be bought, used, then thrown away if they break down or something newer comes along. Whether hunting rifles will ever reach a stage of disposability like cell phones or laptop computers is a question no one can really answer. However, the signs are not promising.
Much so-called “custom” riflemaking today consists of merely bolting together a collection of manufactured parts, like plastic stocks, different barrels, or interchangeable scopes. What happens when a particular part is no longer available? A Holland & Holland double rifle can be kept shooting as long as there is one man with knowledge of metallurgy and skill with a file. But what about the Ruger 77/357 mentioned above? Suppose you lose the detachable magazine, and can’t find a replacement? It combines steel alloy and polymer parts that would be almost impossible to make. A polymer magazine may be virtually unbreakable, but it can still be lost or stolen, and then what do you do? Similarly, I would hate to ask even the most skilled gunmaker to try to make a replacement part for a Blaser R8.
Finally, there is the question of demand. Many observers today point to the habits of teenagers and decry the future of everything from printed magazines to tailor-made suits to fine shotguns. Fortunately for us all, nothing in the world was based on my own preferences as a teenager, most of which I grew out of. Like reading great literature, listening to classical music, and wearing tailored suits, shooting a fine shotgun is something you grow into.
Just as we have to hope that at least a minimal percentage of teenagers will develop a love of reading and appreciation for the feel of a tailored suit, we also have to hope they will develop a sense of hunting ethics, a regard for game animals, and esteem for fine traditional hunting rifles.
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If the Ruger Model 77 Hawkeye FTW Hunter is the mainstream way of the future for hunting rifles, things are not looking too bad.