Rifle selection

[specneeds]

Very nice shooting Matt. I have that same V4 on my credmoor chassis target toy & love it but isn’t 6X too much for you at the bottom end in close?

 

[kcm2]

the trick in elk hunting is finding the elk. If you're hunting a private ranch where they go to escape the hordes, almost any rifle is fine. If you're hunting the public ground, you'll carry your rifle a lot more than you'll shoot it. Something like the Tikka or the Savage Lightweight Hunter in the 270/30-06 class will kill an elk at any reasonable range, be plenty accurate, be easy to carry and not beat you to death. Decelerators and Limbsavers are helpful additions.

 

[MightyMatt]

Very nice shooting Matt. I have that same V4 on my credmoor chassis target toy & love it but isn’t 6X too much for you at the bottom end in close?

Unfortunately 6x is not the best for a spot and stalk rifle on the low end but being inexperienced for the long range game I chose to go with the 6-24 over the 4-16. I know guys shoot out to a thousand with 10 or even 6x but I wanted to be able to place a shot more precisely. I was worried about covering too much of the target with the lower magnification. Everything is a compromise and if it were a general purpose rifle or dark timber rifle I would have gone a different route. I set these rifles up for open country long shots. We mainly moved through the country we were hunting very slowly trying to spot animals before they spotted us so we could build a solid shooting position and wait for the animal to open up the shot angle we wanted to take. Any time we came over a rise or neared a canyon we would take a couple steps and scan with the binos, expose a small bit more and repeat until we could evaluate the entire area and either make a plan for a shot or move on. Of the 4 bucks we harvested last fall only 1 of them knew we were there before the shot. The one that was aware was spooked as we were trying to make a play on a different buck. For the record there were 4 of us Michigan boys hunting so nobody jumps to conclusions about anything illegal.

 

[MightyMatt]

 

[MightyMatt]

 

[MightyMatt]

 

[MightyMatt]

 

[MightyMatt]

The last photo is my buck. One of the guys had hunted out west in the past and I picked his brain constantly. In reality it was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be as far as the hunting. Back to the topic though, I think picking up a tikka and setting it up with good glass is likely the best bang for the buck. Even with the current price of tikka rifles I don't think you will find a better shooting or lighter weight rifle without spending significantly more money and even then your likely only gaining a tiny bit more accuracy and that's not even a guarantee. I spent more than double on the scopes than I did on the rifles even with the cost of the couple updates I did. I had my rifles threaded by Pierce Engineering in Lansing Mi. They charged me $100 to thread the barrel taper the back of the brakes to the diameter of the barrel and time the brakes. Price per rifle I'm all in at $550 each for the rifles, $100 each for gunsmithing, $200 per brake, $30 for the steel recoil lug, $60 for each 20MOA rail, $10 for the trigger springs, $180 for Ziess low 30mm rings w/ bubble level, $1200 per scope. So to break it down I have $860 into each gun with gunsmithing and brake installed. And $1470 into the optics and choice of mounting hardware. I think that's a pretty good deal on what I think is a nearly perfect western hunting setup. I have plenty of thump from either setup for about anything you care to hunt in North America. A joy to carry and capable of being fired by anyone that is comfortable shooting a 6.5 Creedmoor as far as recoil. Looking at the price of some of the upper end production rifles I think $2400 for a lite weight tack driving long range hammer with excellent glass and rock solid mounts is a bargain. I would like to upgrade the stock's eventually for ergonomics and comfort shooting but in realty the stock is perfectly usable as is.

 

[specneeds]

I’m dragging around a 10 lb 300 Weatherby with the Zeiss HD5 in 3-15x50 Z800 reticle. The glass is close but not quite V4 clarity but that reticle is perfect for the Weatherby trajectory. We practice to 800 yards & the little 1’wide x 2’ tall metal silhouettes are in trouble all the way out to 800 with the reticle shooting off the pack seated. My son is saving for a Tikka/Zeiss combo like yours himself. Unless you get one of those whitetail shots you are all set.

 

[MightyMatt]

I’m dragging around a 10 lb 300 Weatherby with the Zeiss HD5 in 3-15x50 Z800 reticle. The glass is close but not quite V4 clarity but that reticle is perfect for the Weatherby trajectory. We practice to 800 yards & the little 1’wide x 2’ tall metal silhouettes are in trouble all the way out to 800 with the reticle shooting off the pack seated. My son is saving for a Tikka/Zeiss combo like yours himself. Unless you get one of those whitetail shots you are all set.

I think your son would be well suited with the combo. I thought long and hard about which scope to go with but went higher magnification in the end. If one pops up at 50 yards it will definitely not be ideal but I run a straight 6x on my 350 legend in Michigan's southern shotgun/straight wall cartridge zone and have had no trouble the last couple years. I really should have gone with the 4-16 on the second rifle just so I had options if I end up with an elk tag in the next few years.

 

[MightyMatt]

But being I don't have an elk rifle I'll need to put a scope on whichever one I pick up anyway. Everyone knows you can't hunt elk with your muledeer rifle. I'll probably snag a 4-16 to top whichever one I get. Likely another Tikka.