Call me a girly man then, big boy! I love my M&P-10 but XD50, DVR, 10 round mag walking around doing some spot and stalk... it gets heavy! It's even heavier now that I picked up a .223 AR that weighs almost nothing. Wouldn't trade it for anything though.

That was a new kind of hunt for me, too. I thought maybe y'all knew something we didn't.

With the ways things are at the border these days better safe than sorry

That was a new kind of hunt for me, too. I thought maybe y'all knew something we didn't.

It wasn't till I bought an AR that I figured out what was wrong with ARs. And it wasn't a mag poking me in the back for the 100 yard walk to the blind.
The AR hunters I had were dressed in military camos, had a pistol strapped to their leg and looked like Inspector Gadget Goes to War. They talked stories of running head shots at 200 yards that was unbelievable. "If 20 pigs come, none will leave" drove me nuts, and "where the red dot points, the bullet goes" were heard more than once. But they couldn't hit a broadside hog at 75 yards in broad daylight with their SBR.
After I had an AR and several kills, it was clear... it was the hunter with a problem, not the gun.
I have had a few really good AR hunters that have really impressed me. It took a while for the stereotype to wear thin.
I still prefer my bolt guns, personal preference.

I see an AR as more of a tool than the rest of my guns. It isn't pretty to begin with, and it's much tougher, anyway. Nasty conditions would give me all the more reason to take it over my other rifles.

If a man takes a Browning BAR to the woods, by God, he's a deer hunter. Take away the wood and add more capacity to the magazine, and we've got a problem. Now he's using an "assault weapon." Suddenly, the deer have no chance. Sportsmanship is a foregone conclusion. What would Teddy think, you homegrown terrorist?!

It's no wonder at all that gun grabbers have gained as much traction as they have. People, even well-intentioned conservatives, by and large, think with the wrong side of their brain. This is a black and white, common sense kind of issue. Leave emotion and personal preference out of it, except when deciding on a weapon for yourself. Let others shoot what they want. It's their right....for now.

Here's my opinion and why:

Sport hunting has been around for about 130 years.
Weapons of war in a rifle platform have been around even longer.

Millions of soldiers have been exposed to battle rifles through that time. Only two platforms were immediately adopted as sport hunting rifles: the lever action and the bolt rifle. Once the bolt rifle came along (first with the .30-40 Krag and then shortly thereafter with the 1903 Springfield) the platform was immediately adopted for hunting and remains the dominant hunting platform to this day.

Battle rifles like the Garand, the M1 carbine, and the AR were used by American soldiers all over the world, but the preferred hunting rifle platform remained the bolt action. This was no accident. It was simply because it was and is the best platform for the task - all things considered. The market spoke.

The AR was around 50 years before it began to be used for hunting. What drove its initial popularity was not for hunting use, but for fun shooting purposes - the tacticool crowd. Its popularity for hunting grew out of its popularity for that purpose. This explosion of popularity has certainly led to many improvements to better adapt the platform to hunting, but IMO this is still basically an attempt to fit a square peg in a round hole. ARs are not ergonomic (in a word, they are unwieldy), they are heavy, and the platform is not as inherently accurate. Except for hog sounders, IMO an objective view would have to favor a bolt rifle over an AR for hunting in every application.

Their popularity grew out of the tacticool shooting crowd, and (like it or not) they will always be associated with that crowd. Many unskilled hunters think of them as a starting place because that's what they grew up with and are drawn to - and this further fosters the perception problem.

If they come up with a better hunting platform than the bolt rifle, I will gladly use it. But it isn't the AR.

I would be a very boring world if we all liked the same thing. I like my bolt, or single shot classic rifles. I have no interest what so ever in an AR. As has been said many times, it's not the gun, its the hunters that I have a problem with. Not all of course, maybe only 10% of those who shoot an AR. I have personally when on a hog hunt heard 10 shots and going over to help them load up the hogs only to find out they did not hit a one. I have never been the one to "throw enough lead and maybe your hit something," mentality. I much prefer the one shot, one kill every time. Heck, we even have a THF member who uses an AR with a night vision scope during the day and wants us to provide him with insight on the videos of the hunts he films. And believe me, he throws lead at targets he not even sure of. It's that 10% that and their rifles that I have a problem with.

Sure they can be accurate, but as a general rule bolt rifles are more accurate. Certainly they are accurate enough, so I won't argue that point.

Other than for hogs, I don't think capacity or rate of fire should be anywhere near the top of anyone's list for hunting. Those are battle requirements, not hunting needs. The first shot is always the most important shot. Always. 2-3 more available for (hopefully unneeded) follow-ups should be all anyone needs. Going in with thoughts of capacity or rate of fire for anything but a sounder of hogs is a poor hunting mindset IMO.

Were you a boy scout? Something about always being prepared comes to mind...

I had three instances just this year where rate-of-fire mattered to me. First, I had a coyote chasing a fawn, and the LO wants all coyotes shot. The coyote was in some tall grass at the edge of a field. He was facing me when I took the first shot and sprinted into the field. Although shot #1 would likely have been lethal after some amount of time he didn't go down. Shots 2-4 were all spaced extremely close together. 2 missed, 3 connected, 4 finished him. I couldn't have done that with a bolt gun.

Another weekend we were trying to get more than one deer in order to make a big batch of sausage. I had two desirable deer at my stand, both at about 80 yards, but about 75 degrees apart. I shot one, rotated to the other, aimed, and immediately squeezed off shot two. I could have done that with a bolt but I'd have had to cycle it in between, adding time for the second deer to get nervous or run.

On an MLD doe hunt, we found a group of three does and I took all three with three shots before any could run.

That's cool.

My take on the 3 scenarios:

1)Coyote: a good first shot would have done away with the need for the rest. Maybe a more ergonomic/comfortable rifle like a bolt rifle would have made that first shot easier. I consider every shot beyond the first one needed to be a failure on my part. I have certainly failed on occasion. The last 3 being "close together" likely explains why the second one was a miss. Maybe you were thinking quantity instead of quality? In any case, taking 4 shots (3 hits) to anchor a coyote is not ideal and doesn't speak well of the platform used.

2)The two deer: almost certainly a bolt gun would have done as well.

3)That's some quick shooting unless those were extremely dumb deer. I have hunted over 40 years and never seen or heard or even read of anyone taking 3 deer with 3 quick shots. So yours is a first for me. My thoughts: a)such scenarios are extremely rare in deer hunting and b)either you are truly an expert shot or were fortunate.