The New, “Better” Deer Rifle

My first deer tumbled to a lucky shot, still sharp in memory. I don’t get lucky often.

Michigan woodlots had yet to put a deer in my sights. The last morning of the 1966 season held no better prospects. But in a sunny patch of poplars, I heard hoof ticks in the leaves. They were coming my way! Nut-brown slivers winked between the pale boles. I swung as if at a grouse. The .303 bounced in recoil. To my astonishment, the deer somersaulted and lay still.

At $30, the Short Magazine Lee Enfield had bitten deep into my savings. The Herter’s walnut I’d whittled into a crude stock cost $7.50. Williams open sights drained more cash. A “real” deer rifle, like a pal’s Winchester .30-30, retailed at $84, well beyond my reach.

Winchester lever actions evolved from the 1860 Henry. Deer hunters (East and West) adored the Model 1873 in .44-40. Marlin’s first lever rifle of note appeared in 1882. Its Model 1889, like the John Browning-designed Winchester 1886, added power, reliability. The 1893 Marlin by Lewis Hepburn, first priced at $13.35, came in .32-40-165 and .38-55-255, as did the Winchester 1894. In 1895 the smokeless .30 W.C.F. (.30-30) joined them, and Savage unveiled a hammerless lever rifle for its similar .303.

The ‘95 Savage had a durable coil mainspring. Instead of screws at the tang, a through bolt held buttstock to receiver. The Savage receiver shielded its spool magazine from blows that could dent under-barrel tubes, and rifle balance was unaffected by the cartridge count therein. The spool also permitted safe use of pointed bullets, soon to bless bolt-action rifles.

Early efforts by Winchester and Remington to develop useful bolt actions had failed. In 1873 the U.S. Army’s first cartridge rifle was the “Trapdoor” Springfield, essentially an 1865 muzzleloader with a new breech and lock by Springfield Armory mechanic Erskine S. Allen. Winchester’s 1873 and 1876 lever-action repeaters would impress William Cody and Theodore Roosevelt, while soldiers in the frontier West were issued Trapdoor single-shots! In Europe in 1872, Prussia adopted an 11mm (43-caliber) turnbolt rifle designed by Paul Mauser and his brother Wilhelm the previous year. The Mausers then partnered with a Stuttgart bank to buy the Wuerttemberg Royal Armory, which in 1874 became Mauser Bros. and Co.

Wilhelm died young in 1882. Sensing the future of infantry rifles lay in repeaters, Paul designed a nine-shot tube for the 1871’s fore-stock. The reliable, if crude, 71/84 resulted. In 1889, Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre (FN) emerged in Liege to build Mauser rifles for Belgium’s government. The Model 1889 for smokeless loads led to the 1892, whose non-rotating extractor controlled cartridge feed. Its stout claw yanked sticky hulls from dirty chambers and cleared the breech if shooters short-cycled. A year later, the 1892 got a fixed, flush magazine. As the 7.65x53 “Spanish” Mauser, it served armies worldwide.

LEFT: The .303 Savage matched the .30-30 ballistically in 1895, their debut year. The .300 Savage upstaged it in Savage’s Model 99 in 1920. RIGHT: The 1903 Springfield in .30-06 offered deer hunters an accurate bolt rifle of great power and reach.

Mid-decade tweaks yielded the 1898 Mauser, which cocked on opening. After Germany’s Army adopted it, the ’98 was exported to many countries and built in many more. Great Britain, France, Russia, and the U.S. designed their own battle rifles, but in the Mauser’s wake, they were all bolt-actions.

Generations of hunters would thus grow up in the long shadow of the turnbolt.

In 1892, the U.S. Army adopted its first smokeless, repeating bolt rifle, the Krag-Jorgensen in .30-40 Krag. The 1903 Springfield followed, in .30-06. Soon thereafter, the German Army traded its 226-grain 7.9mm round-nose bullet at 2,090 fps (a load later designated “J” or “I” for infantry) for a 154-grain 8mm spitzer (“S”) at 2,880 fps. The U.S. promptly swapped its 220-grain 30-caliber round-nose at 2,300 fps for a 150-grain pointed bullet at 2,700.

Krags and Springfields soon invaded deer country—only to find the lever-action .30-30 firmly in place as “America’s deer rifle.” A bolt-action .30-06 was heavy, had needless power, and kicked hard.

However, as scopes became more reliable and available, hunters paid gunsmiths to attach them to bolt rifles—military, then sporting. Remington’s Model 30 appeared in 1920, the 30 Express in ’26. New York’s Griffin & Howe mounted a 2 -3/4x Hensoldt on Grancel Fitz’s Model 30 as he embarked on a quest to take specimens of all North American big game. In 1928, Savage chambered its new Model 40 and 45 Super Sporter in .30-06. Winchester’s 54, announced in 1925 with the debut of the .270, begat the Model 70 in ’37 for several flat-shooting cartridges. Remington’s affordable 721/722 bolt rifle followed in 1949, Savage’s Model 110 a decade later. Meanwhile, A.F. Stoeger of New York acted as Mauser’s U.S. agent. By Depression’s end, it was peddling 20 versions of the ’98 in four action lengths.

Not all bolt rifles in the golden decade of mule deer hunting following WW II wore scopes. Ross O’Neil installed a receiver sight on his trimmed 1903 Springfield. During the 1947 season in Utah’s Big Red Creek drainage, that rifle felled a buck with 30 inches of beam spread and an outside measure of 40!

Rifles and cartridges evolve together—rifles to accept new loads, cartridges to make the most of new rifles. After the Great War, stateside deer hunters had myriad lever-action cartridge options: the .30-30 and its ballistic brethren, the .32 Special and .303 Savage, then Savage’s friskier .250 and .300. In bolt rifles, Europe’s .303 British, 6.5x55, 7x57 and 8x57 joined the .30-40 Krag and .30-06.

Still, far into the 20th century, less capable loads took many deer. One writer opined that the .25-20 Winchester, introduced with smokeless powders for short-action lever rifles, “probably wounded more deer than it has killed.” But at least once, its anemic 86-grain bullet at 1,460 fps outdid itself.

That November dawn in 1914, young Jim Jordan hiked the Soo Line out of Danbury, Wisconsin. Later, tracks in the snow led him back to the rails, where an approaching train flushed several deer. Three shots failed to drop the buck. Trailing it, Jordan killed it with his last .25-20 bullet. Mysteriously, its great antlers vanished for decades. Scored by the Boone and Crockett Club in 1966, that rack would top the list of typical whitetails until 1993. Two months before Jim Jordan was listed as the hunter in 1978, he died.

Edmund Broder’s buck of 1926 fell to the more powerful .32 Special. With a couple of pals, he’d motored 100 miles from Edmonton to Chip Lake, Alberta, in a 1914 Model T and a ’24 McLaughlin. At a saw camp, they hired a team and a sleigh, reaching camp in a foot of snow. Broder took a deer track into the forest, coming upon the animal at dusk and claiming it with one shot. After Ed died in 1968, siblings squabbled over the antlers. Scored by B&C in 1995, they’re still the best of any mule deer on record.

In 1953, Winchester presented its two-millionth Model 94 to President Eisenhower. Marlin bored its Model 336 to .35 Remington; Savage chambered its 99 for the new, potent .308. The lever-action was still America’s deer rifle! But like the advent of smokeless powder in the 1890s and the Depression-era rise of the .270 in bolt-action sporters, the mid-‘50s marked a shift in deer rifle sales. The .308, developed by the U.S. Army, was adopted by our armed forces in 1954. But Winchester snatched it up as a sporting cartridge in 1952 and promptly offered it in the new Model 70 Featherweight rifle. Ballistically, the .308 almost matched the .30-06, but it fit short actions. It sold well in lever rifles: Savage’s 99, Winchester’s hammerless 88 (1955), and Sako’s Finnwolf (1962).

LEFT: Swedish Mausers in 6.5x55 were ahead of their time. For deer hunting, the aperture sight here excels. RIGHT: Unlike Winchester’s Model 94, the side-ejecting Marlin 336, introduced in 1948 in .30-30, .32 Special and .35 Remington, welcomed scopes. But many hunters, as here, fitted the 336 with an aperture sight.

Still, the .308 and its .243 progeny owe their great longevity to bolt actions. By the early 1950s, Leupold had developed a fog-free scope, and turnbolts were routinely drilled and tapped at the factory for scope mounts. Remington 721s and 722s were less expensive than popular lever-actions, a price gap that would grow. Lever-rifle production begged more hand-work than did bolt-action manufacture. Computer-controlled machining and hands-free bedding of one-piece stocks would trim turnbolt costs, while bumps in the price of skilled labor burdened makers of traditional lever rifles.

The arrival of short belted magnums in the 1950s and early ‘60s hiked sales of bolt-actions. Most of these cartridges appealed to hunters with bigger game than deer in mind. The first—Winchester’s .458 and .338—stopped dangerous beasts. The 7mm Remington and .300 Winchester Magnums caught the eye of deer/elk hunters in the West, per Weatherby’s .270 and 7mm of the 1940s. Only Winchester’s .264 was advertised as a deer cartridge, but it offered little that Winchester’s 34-year-old .270 didn’t.

During the Vietnam era, bolt-action buffs got other new cartridges, too. Remington announced its .280 in 1957, later renamed its ailing .244 the 6mm, then adopted the .25-06, a popular wildcat since the 1920s. Winchester announced its .284, a cartridge that also served Winchester’s 88 and Savage’s 99 lever rifles. The 7mm-08 Remington appeared in 1980. The subsequent .260 Remington was almost identical to the .260 Redding’s Richard Beebe had cooked up for me years before.

Century’s end brought tides of full-length, then short-action magnums. Based mainly on the .404 Jeffery of 1910, they crowded a field once defined by belted magnums. Remington’s stubby 6.5mm and .350 belted magnums of the ‘60s had faded, to the dismay of deer hunters who found their bizarre Models 600 and 660 bolt rifles handy, affordable, and accurate. Many frothier cartridges aired from 1987 to 2007 are now on life support.

In 2009, the 6.5 Creedmoor changed the deer rifle as markedly as had smokeless powder, the fast-stepping .270 in bolt-actions, and the flood of post-war magnums. Named after New York’s famous long-range shooting venue, the 6.5 Cm was the brainchild of Hornady ballistician Dave Emary and competitive marksman Dennis DeMille, who craved a 1,000-yard cartridge with light recoil. Emary necked Hornady’s .30 T/C hull to .264 and set its shoulder back. Result: a short-action cartridge that accepts Pinnochio-nose match bullets and whose 129-grain spitzers clock 2,950 fps, within 100 fps of 130s from the .270. At long range, the 6.5 Cm trumps the .270. Todd Seyfert of Magnum Research introduced me to this champ with a super-accurate Remington 700. It had a GreyBull stock, a GreyBull/Leupold 4.5-14x scope. Its carbon-fiber barrel with Krieger core helped me take the first elk claimed by the 6.5 Cm.

I’ve since used the Creedmoor to take several deer. Once, at a trailhead in the pre-dawn darkness, I found to my chagrin I’d pocketed the wrong ammo for my lever-action carbine. Shaking his head, my pal pulled a spare Savage in 6.5 Cm from behind the pickup seat. Its left-side bolt was no handicap when my first shot with that rifle downed a fine buck.

Predictably, the Creedmoor has inspired peppier options. Not all are as versatile. Some bullets for Hornady’s 6.5, 7mm, and .300 PRC and Winchester’s 6.8 Western are long enough to demand faster-than-standard rifling twist. The 6.5 PRC and 6.8 Western are ballistic heroes for clobbering deer beyond 400 yards, but having stretched .270-class loads that far, I see no need for faster, meaner bullets. What justifies a first shot when a buck is so distant that a follow-up shot or recovery is in doubt?

Besides, close shots are memorable. I hunted deer in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for decades, mostly with a Winchester 70 under a 3x or 4x scope. From a ridgeline, I often spied deer far off. But shots could be close. Once, in weather-stunted pines on a tall rim, I turned to check behind. Sunlight glinted on an eye. A .270 bullet took that buck at 12 yards.

LEFT: The 1894 and 1896 Swedish Mausers fired the versatile 6.5x55. The .260 Remington on the .308 case matched it ballistically in 2001. The 6.5 Creedmoor permitted use of long bullets in 2009. RIGHT: Whatever your deer rifle, pre-season handling and firing from field positions make it more effective!

Another time, struggling up a steep face, I heard a twig snap in brush short yards ahead. Five deer burst from the thicket and nearly ran me over in their dash to forest below. The thicket, hard against dead-end rock, was surely empty now. But on the off chance…. A scramble around a boulder brought me nose-to-nose with a big buck. He had stayed still, betting I’d follow his mates. He fell to my .30-06.

“Whatcha got there?” It was a bolt-action, but not like most I’d used. Its carbon-fiber stock was lighter than walnut, its metal sheathed in eye-catching Cerakote. At cheek, though, that rifle lost some of its shine. Its grip put my trigger hand too far forward and was too steep to let it slide back. The forend was angular in cross-section. Instead of swivel studs for a shooting sling, the stock had snap-in recesses for a side-mounted strap. A bipod added 14 ounces, a suppressor six inches. The rifle was too long to point fast, but its .300 Weatherby loads were throttled by the 22-inch barrel. While the 30mm scope was optically superior to my old Lymans, it also sat higher and weighed three times as much.

The bolt slid smoothly; the striker fell cleanly to a light tug. “Slick action, great trigger,” I smiled.

That .300 has downed many deer, some with big antlers, some at long range. A rifle for our time.

Meanwhile, lever rifles have enjoyed a revival. Deer hunters line up to snare Ruger’s handsome renditions of Marlin Models 336 and 1895. Winchester’s Miroku-built “Classic” lever guns sell out. Doug Turnbull’s company is busy gussying up lever-actions, vintage and current.

Part of the appeal of traditional lever actions is surely their slender waists, easy to wrap in your palm for one-hand carry and wand-like handling. Recently, I taped the circumference of seven lever rifles, old and new, from Winchester, Marlin, and Henry, in chamberings from .30-30 to .45-70. They averaged 5.6 inches at the balance point. Seven bolt rifles, by Blaser, Mauser, Remington, Ruger, and Winchester, .308 to .458, averaged 7.2 inches. Taped around the action and a 1-inch scope in low rings, four of those bolt guns averaged 9.8 inches—without protruding magazines!

Sweet on both lever actions and “classic” turnbolts, I like rifles that are easy to cradle and quick to point, rifles with fixed magazines, and slim, carnivorous profiles. Stocks that feel right have open grips, slim forends, and straight combs that align my eye naturally with metallic sights or low, slender scopes.

Among the most enchanting deer rifles in my memory was a borrowed Savage 1899. Still-hunting whitetails on a gray day, I earned an offhand shot with the aperture sight at a buck quartering off. The .25-35 bullet “flew to the bead” but didn’t reach the far shoulder. The animal ran. Sparse blood sign on patchy snow led me into a swamp, where I spied a tail fringe in timber. Two more careful shots downed the deer.

On another hunt, cold wind had almost driven me from deep snow at timberline when a last look with my 7x35 B&L revealed an antler. My approach failed on an icy pitch. Retreating, I spied the animal quartering off. A fast offhand shot landed well, but the deer lunged through deep snow down into forest, where I killed it. My Remington 700 with its 4x Redfield differed in many ways from the old Savage, but it pointed as fast, and the heavy .35 Whelen bullet threaded the 300-pound buck mid-rib to nape.

While my tastes have grown expensive over time, I’ve come to appreciate a broad range of deer rifles and cartridges—most of which weren’t around when a whitetail tumbled to my SMLE. Days ago at this writing, I was cradling a borrowed Benelli rifle of futuristic profile and features unimagined in 1966. But it cheeked fast when a whitetail buck jetted from a brushy swale. The bullet, from a cartridge new as driverless automobiles, struck as he paused 80 yards off.

America’s deer rifles have changed more than my hunting habit: poking through promising cover, new perspectives at each step, knowing each could send deer off and humiliate me again.