Deer rifle

[mathews4life]

Which is best free floating and best caliber rifle for deer hunting

[44magleo]

Free floating a barrel often improves accuracy. Won't have much effect on cartridge selection.
As far as a good cartridge for deer hunting, it depends as much on you as anything. Are you a good hunter? A good shot? Can you handle heavy recoil? Will you hunt close heavy cover or open fields?
In my opinion a cartridge that can shoot at least a 115 gr bullet to at least 2800 fps second is a good place to start.
Heavier bullets or higher velocity makes longer shots easier.
Leo

[Aimhigh]

Depends on what part of the country you are in and the size of the deer. Are you taking shots at 75yds through heavy brush or 200yd shots across open plains? Are we talking about small Southerern whitetails or big Western mulies?

Welcome to the forum. Hopefully someone smarter than me will be able to give you a better answer.

EDIT: sorry "44" I was still typing while you were posting. We'er saying the same thing.

[stangfish]

Any savage you buy is free floating from my experience and the 270 or 30-06 is proven although I use a 7mm08 for the smallish dear around here..

[squirrelsniper]

Which model to buy is mostly personal preference and budget constraints. If you know what kind of budget you're working with and what kind of features you want (or more importantly, don't want), you can usually narrow it down to just two or three models based just on those criteria. If you're willing to post more about what kind of budget you're working with and what kind of features you consider to be "must haves" I'm sure some more people can help you narrow it down.

As for caliber, that always has been and likely always will be a big debate. There's one thing most people will agree on though, just a plain old 270 Win or a 30-06 will handle the majority of deer hunting duties that anyone is likely to encounter.

[ragsflh]

308 will do or 243

[peterf225]

My 7mm-08 with hand loaded 140 gr SGK bullets has taken 3 deer so far this year.

[dc3085]

I use a model 11 .243. I've taken california coastal deer as far out as 300 yards with it (from a bipod), as well as having fun at the target range. One big reason I like the .243 is that factory ammo to plink with or shoot yotes doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I live in an expensive area and its still only $25/box of 20 lead bullets.

With the cheaper models the barrel fit can be pretty horrible on wooden stocks. When I first got mine (inherited it new in the box) the wooden stock was pushing on one side of the barrel. I used a dremel to get the stock off the barrel and shot it that way a couple seasons. I recently bedded the action but unless you have a set of calipers on hand the accuracy improvement isn't too noticeable, out hunting I don't think it would matter at all. Even the cheaper savages shoot good right out of the box.

Edit: I should add its really up to your personal preference. I grew up out in the sticks raised by rednecks and we had depredation tags for our hay fields. I've killed as many deer with a ruger 10/22 as I have with any other rifle I own. Any legal caliber is going to do the job if you get the right shot.

[jim_k]

If you go to buy ammo during an ammo shortage, there will probably still be a selection of .30-'06. If you reload, there is plenty of Lake City brass, which is excellent stuff. And you can load a 125 grain bullet at maybe 1600 fps with Trail Boss (for no-recoil trigger time), a 150 gr. bullet at 2400 fps with a 75% load of H4895 (for deer out to 300 yds), or a 180 gr bullet going plenty fast to take elk/whatever. And the mil surp ammo is cheap plinking so long as it is available.

[44magleo]

If you can't afford much, the local Gander Mountain has Mosin Nangent Rifles for sale at $179. These are chambered in the 7.62 Russian. This is about the same power as a 30-40 Krag, which isn't too far below the 30-06.
Not a pretty rifle but the Russians very successfully used it from 1890 something into the 1950's.
When the Norwegians where building and using them, they tested them for accuracy with there standard military round, if the rifles wouldn't shoot 1 1/2 inches or less at 100 meters they sent it back and figured out why, they wouldn't issue a rifle that wouldn't shoot well.
Leo