Do not waste your time or money on shooting 500 yards, go to a local rifle range and learn to keep your shots in a 3" circle at 100 yards.
When you can do that EVERY time you shoot, you will be ready to hunt.


Good luck and good hunting.

as others have stated, there are a lot better choices of rifles over an AR platform for deer. But with that said, there are a lot of people that successfully kill deer & hogs using an AR. If you opt to stick with that rifle, just be sure to get very proficient shooting it.

Many have said you can deer hunt with an AR, but as a newbie I wouldn't suggest it to start out with. Get a good, solid bolt action rifle with good optics and get good with it first.

I second this guy above.


I think you are on the right track and thinking properly. 1.Start with the proper rifle and learn how to shoot it. Your first guns should be a bolt action and once you get used to that and learn that gun your second rifle will be an AR15 or AR10. As you learn more about guns on this forum and others you will figure out what best suits your needs. 2. start piecing together your hunting equipment little by little. Good waterproof boots camo clothing and some binoculars should get you through the first year. Buy the best stuff you can afford especially when it comes to guns. The more expensive the gun the better the resale value.

To buy a decent gun just look for one on the classifieds section here. Visit it twice a day if you need to. My personal preference for a good hunting round is just like the guy stated above. look for a bolt action rifle with a decent 3-9 scope for a cheap price and when you see the gun that you like in one of those calibers then make an offer and get it. Thats how I bought my rifle and I saved a fortune that way. I ended up with 30-06 but if my gun were offered in 270 or 308 I would have jumped on it also. Other calibers to look at are 243, 6.5 Creedmoor or 7mm-08. Once you get your gun dont worry about a bunch of fancy rests or benches. You wont be hunting off a bench so learn to go with the minimum and think that you are training yourself to shoot for hunting. Always keep that in mind at the range. Buy you 2 sand bags and go shoot. The more you shoot the better you get. Nobody can tell you how to become a better shooter you have to spend time at the range. Once or twice a month from now till november and you will be fine. Book a cheap doe or hog hunt and get after it. Nothing teaches like experience. You can also go hunt in the sam houston national forest for deer and hogs with a $48 APH permit. Lots of rules to know so you will need to study the rules to go. But thats how every body gets started including myself. You have to put in the time to be successful.

Your first year or 2 you will stumble through it and then eventually your experience level will go up and keep going if you are a true hunter that is.

good luck

In my opinion you are doing things backwards. It is almost like you are bound and determined to begin with the AR because it is what you have. Get a good, solid bolt action rifle in either .308 or 30-.06- both shoot .308 bullets and they probably have the widest range of bullet sizes for anything in North America you would conceivably hunt. Of course you change bullet sizes you will have to resight in your scope.

Thank you Russ79,

You are correct and I agree with you, and I changed my plan above after some thoughts and reading. I will equip the AR later for home defense needs and practice targeting as I stated in my last post.



Since the .308 and the 30-06 are same CALIBER (.308) they can use the same bullets. The difference is powder CAPACITY (The 30-06 has greater capacity). If you were into reloading your own ammo (which is a step that you have not taken) you would find that some loads for the 30-06 could not be applied to the .308 because the smaller case would overflow with powder and be unsafe to shoot.

I was not aware the .308 and 30-.06 can use the same caliber and a resight is required if I change the bullet size. Why is this?

Thanks

I was not aware the .308 and 30-.06 can use the same caliber and a resight is required if I change the bullet size. Why is this?

If you shoot a 30-.06, like I do, you can change bullet weights depending on game. For deer I shoot 165 grain bullets, but say you want to hunt elk or maybe Nilgi, you might want to go to 180 grain bullet or heavier. You will have a different point of impact so you will need to resight your gun in. I do reload, or rather used to quite a lot, and learned that you can play with amount of powder and bullet weights, to a certain extent, thru trial and error and come up with loads for different grain bullets that will have same point of impact. But you aren't going to get that from factory ammo.

I also work at one of the plants..... just keep talking to the guys at work.

I would probably stay away from an AR for a first/main rifle. Nothing against them but you're probably eventually going to want to hunt big game other than deer whether it be exotics or out of state for Elk, etc. So I'm big on the idea that the first rifle should be a "do it all caliber" that can do pretty much anything you'll ever want to hunt, that could be anything from one of the 6.5mms on up. Those are available in AR's but usually you can get a quality bolt gun a lot cheaper than you can an AR in one of the larger calibers. Also ammo will usually be cheaper for a .270/30-06, etc. if you're not going to reload (saw you're post above and reloading is basically where you make your own cartridges by resizing a previously fired shell case and adding new primers, powder and bullets)

As to practice shooting, practice dry firing your rifle can be an excellent tool. Make real sure its unloaded and then practice aiming and pulling the trigger at some target across the room, a thumbtack in the wall works well. Also get a decent quality pellet rifle and shoot it alot, usually they are quiet enough the neighbors aren't going to complain if you use a pellet trap to catch the pellets and while it isnt' as good as a centerfire or even a rimfire its better than nothing and you'll be able to do it more often.

Also, just get out in the woods and learn about nature, animals and stalking. You're probably within 2 hours of a couple national forests and other public land, get out there on a day off even if you're not hunting and practice moving slowly/quietly from the woods just like you're stalking something and observe what you see (what tracks are where, what can you piece together from the tracks (what's it eating/moving, etc).