Steve Hawley wrote:
I gather that was 'tongue in cheek' ? In the business of hunting men who can shoot back no one here seeks to give them a 'sporting chance.' We're interested in as decidedly a unfair advantage as we can achieve. I've hunted elk up in the Collegiate Peaks area above Buena Vista and Leadville. It's tough terrain and the flatlanders are huffing and puffing.
OP: 30-06 will 'get er done' just fine although the caliber is dated and others have pointed you towards some newer cartridges that offer superior ballistics. A often overlooked rifle on the cheapish side that is really a bargain is Savage's 110 series rifle. It's strong, light, cheap and surprisingly accurate right out of the box. You're probably not gonna shoot MOA with one but it will be easy on the pocket book, save you some $$ for good glass, and be easier to carry at altitude relative to some of its more spendy cousins
/r
i try not to lay my trip on anyone else. i have my own sensibilities and while i'm always interested in how others think, i don't think my way is the way. just, when i read about the scope, and about how far you can be from the beast and still kill him, and while my sense of the rightness of it all is mine alone, it seems less than sporting to me.
years ago i lived in the sierra nevadas and there was a particular place where i knew i was likely to see mule deer. so, i'd see one, and the thing about mule deer, they aren't like old west bank robbers, where they decide to split up if getting chased. they do the opposite. they run to the herd. so, 1 became 6, became 20, but it might take me running over 3 mountains and 45 minutes to get to a herd of 60 or 70. i could get to within, say, 30 or 40 feet of them. and then they'd take off, and where they ended up in 30 seconds would take me 15 minutes to get to.
and at that point i'd turn around and head back and that was my long run. but, getting that close, i earned it, and it was cool, a sense of accomplishment, and getting that close to those magnificent animals in the wild. earning it in that way resonates with me. so, were i king of the world, i'd probably makes you all hunt with bullets that self destructed after a hundred yards. but i'm not the king of the world and thank god for the world that i'm not.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman