Weapon's Wednesday - The All Weather All Animal Rifle

In college, I got invited to go on a south Georgia whitetail hunt. Over expansive farm land. Stand hunting. My humble Marlin in .35 Remington wasn't quite up the task. Now don't get me wrong, I love the .35 Remington. I believe Frank Hamer could take down anything with a Model 8, but, out a short lever gun it leaves a little to be desired when you're looking at Bambi's dad 243 yards away through iron sights.

So I made a mental note to get a deer rifle. An honest to God deer rifle. In a suitable caliber. The 7mm Rem Mag Hawkeye being a bit overkill for, well, just about everything.

I thought off and on about my perfect rifle for about five years. Between the Army and the Boy Scouts, what little deer hunting I did was either stalking or shooting car struck deer before a bus load of Cub Scouts came by. So, 336C or Mk II territory.

In the fall of 2016, I decided I wanted an all weather Hawkeye in .30-06 Gov't. Part of that may be the old saw of "you can always find .30-06 in a panic because a man with a .30-06 doesn't panic."

Which is kind of true, it's a very common round. Every hardware store in the country carries it near enough.

My corollary to that, and why I went with the .30-06, is that "a man with a .30-06 doesn't panic, he squares his shoulders and trusts that the 220 grain Sierra solid is enough for grizzly."

And that is to say that the grand old .30 caliber Government can take everything in North America, given proper bullet and shot placement. To include both striking coal miners and West Virginia militia men.

The Ruger M77 is the brain child of Jim Sullivan and Bill Ruger. Both firearms greats. Bill Ruger famously stated that he chose the M77 designation because of the success Remington and Winchester had with the Model 700 and Model 70, respectively.

The Model 77 is a traditional, Mauser style action. It features a large claw extractor and control round feed.
It also comes standard with proprietary and patented integral Ruger scope mounts on the top of the reciever. A nifty feature.

Which of course lend themselves to Loopy glass

I aquired my rifle from Gander Mountain in the spring of 2017. It was the last all weather Hawkeye in.30-06 in the Gander Mountain inventory. I was able to get it at quite a steal, especially considering I ordered it from a store in Colorado.

The internet likes dog pictures

She's a good shooting, good handling, heavy rifle. I hope to pass it on to my children one day. That is after they out grow the Remington 700 ADL in .243 I bought for their first center fire gun. But that rifle is a story for another day.