Picking Out the Perfect Deer Hunting Rifle

Selecting your deer hunting rifle

is one of the most significant hunting decisions you can make.

Selecting a firearm which has the ballistics, design, action, sighting and size to accommodate your hunting area and personal capability is the basis of achieving your goal once your prey is hunted and located. Whether or not you make the kill is largely reliant on whether or not your deer hunting rifle matches up best with the criteria above.

The Significance of the Location You will Hunt

The two main types of deer hunting environments are the deep woods/dense brush and open range country. You may be hunting in an area that has a mixture of both these environment types. You need different rifles and styles of shooting for each kind of terrain.

Deer Hunting Rifles for Deep Woods or Dense Brush

Deer hunting rifles that work best in the woods are rifles made for medium or short range shooting. Typically, you’ll be shooting anything from 25 to 200 yards at deer in this environment, so this range is important. It is to your advantage that your deep woods deer hunting rifle be relatively light (less than nine pounds with the scope), and be relatively short in length with a barrel length of twenty two inches or shorter. Maneuverability is important when hunting in dense brush. Get a deer hunting rifle that offers fast reload - automatics or lever action would be best; you might have to do a quick follow shot when you’re deer hunting in rough terrain. Heavy bulleted cartridges to penetrate brush are required, I recommend .270 or larger caliber and at least a 120 grain bullet. Calibers or cartridges which exceed 2200 feet per second velocity are not suggested as bullet deflection by the brush must be at a minimum. If your hunting terrain only allows shots to be taken within 50 yards or less of the intended target, you may want to consider using an open sight. If not, I would recommend a scope with four power, or a variable scope that can get down to 3X. You may want to conduct a few experiments at your local rifle range to figure out whether or not open site shooting suits your hunting style.

Deer Hunting Rifles for the Open Range

Deer Hunting Rifles that work well in open areas are optimized for longer range shooting, up to three hundred yards (or farther!). You won’t have to worry as much about the rifle being light so much as it being accurate; go ahead and get a heavier one if it means better accuracy. The best calibers and cartridges for open range deer hunting, are flat shooting, and high velocity. Calibers in the 6MM (.243) range or higher will be satisfactory and bullets from 100 grain up will perform well. If you have a bigger caliber, you need a heavier bullet to stay accurate. Typically, you’ll need at least a 6×9 variable power scope in order to shoot accurately.

Personal Choices

When you start looking for the best deer hunting rifle for you, you want to make sure that you keep the above considerations in mind. Make sure that you are comfortable with the way that you’re shooting, and how you shoot when using a high caliber or magnum caliber rifle. Do you really want to have almost twelve pounds of rifle to carry around when hunting?

You can feel out varying models and sizes of deer hunting rifles to see which one will feel best for you at your local gun shop. Get advice from hunters who have a lot of experience in your chosen hunting area when finding the best rifle. If you’re really interested in learning about their firearms, you could ask your friends to let you hold and handle their rifles, and ask if there are any things that they don’t like about them

If you want to know about what deer hunting rifle to use, and what deer hunting tips can help you, check out Deer-HuntingTips.com/DeerHuntingRifle

If you want to learn how to harvest true trophy bucks you are welcome to find our free resources here: deer hunting tips and secrets.

To your Success!!!

John Eaglesmith

Deer-HuntingTips.com