These are my caliber arsenal, been using my mid-break single shot CVA Optima Stalker in 7MM-08 with Bergara barrel the last few years but feeling I should break out some of the other Boyz next year for more variety and capacity if not anything. The other 3 are all bolt action rifles with 4 in magazine and 1 in chamber. Starting to see more hogs and varmints the last few years. Hunt both SW Young and Throckmorton counties for reference; shots tend to be 100-200 yards with occasional longer, deer weights on bucks avg. around 160-170 live weight and hogs in the 200 LB. range. Bullet grains are 100gr. for .25-.06, 139gr. for 7MM-08 and 150 gr. for .308 and .30-.06. Shoot all pretty equally well. What say THF, variety or stick to a favorite??

Beware the man with one gun.

Sell em all and get you a bolt action 7mm-08.

It does everything well.

It’s nice to have options. Sometimes you might be in the mood for a handy single shot, other times maybe you want to shoot as many as you can as fast as possible. Single shot 7-08 for a deer stalker and a fast flat shooting repeater for killing the varmints as fast as you can before they hide.

Hard to argue with this.

At those distances, 308. You won’t be disappointed.

I love my 25-06.

JR

all those are great calibers for what you describe ... variety, like ice cream but I understand we all have our favorite go-to.

They’ll all do the job if you do yours and use a reliable bullet. Reliable being the key word.
Me personally I have no issues getting off several accurate shots with a bolt action.

My pick, pending on the make and model, would be the 25/06 but bump up a few grains in bullet weight.
Then the 30/06

I like variety. It is not unusual for me to tote multiple guns in one weekend. Sure they all work just fine for deer and pigs, but as they say, variety is the spice of life.

Have to agree. Bolt action 7mm-08 is going to be very hard to beat.

I consolidated away from .308 and .243 three years ago into one caliber 6.5cm. Call me a fanboy if you want but I have taken everything from smaller whitetail to Red Stag and it performs so I’m in the camp of pick your favorite and roll with it

This right here. I like variety anywhere else, but unless you put in lots of practice with whatever new firearm you choose, I'd go with what you know. Unfamiliarity with a weapon will miss you more shots than the caliber of the weapon ever will.

Any of the higher calibers out there are going to be more than enough for 100-200 yards in terms of ballistic impact for any of the game listed here. So then it comes down to non-ballistic questions, like ammo availability, recoil, etc.

7mm 08 , 308

I clearly prefer the 308, but all of those are great calibers. 308 is by far the cheapest to shoot (even if you reload).

Several years ago I put my 30-06 in the safe and have been hunting with my 25-06 with 120gr bullets for deer. 762x39 AR with 154gr SP for hogs....

I really like my 6.8 SPC AR15 for a lot of my hunting. I’ve cleanly harvested deer to 190 yards with it and killed four pigs one morning about as fast as one can shoot. But if 200+ yds is on the menu, I pull out the CTR in 6.5cm. I’ve taken at least 8 deer with it between 240 and 360 yards and feel pretty comfortable to 500+. But I also have .223, .243, .308, and .300WM if I want.

2nd on the 6.8-covers a lot of scenarios up to 200 yards…very handy

^^^^This…

Get rid of them all and put together one non garbage gun with good glass in a short action handy rig

Go right in the middle of all of those and buy a .270.

This.

I have a safe full of calibers that I never shoot. When hunting time comes I either pick up my old Win 30-30 or my butchered Eddystone 30/06. All depends on distance.

I think your scenario is more common than not.

And many in your situation say they can't afford ______. Pertaining to really great optics, rifles and ammunition.

Gold bars sitting in the safe, taking up space.

This thread could've ended right here.

My Bergara 7-08 is the rifle I use the most. It's easy to wield and the 150 Berger Classic Hunters I use do a great job.

7-08 or 308 would be my picks. Personally, I'd up the grain in 308 to 165 to 168. Gold dots are beastly on terminal performance.

I usually hunt 308. It’s a catch all. Load up or down depending on what your Gun likes . I have that one in bolt actions and ARs. I like all of them. But the one caliber you have I am looking to purchase which is the 25-06. My grandads gun was a 25-06 and I shot a lot of deer with it when I was growing up. It was amazing how much damage it did to the deer for a quarter bore . If I pick one up I will probably get a lot of practice with it and start using it all the time. The recoil is minimal .

I have been shooting .308 for the last 20 years. Ammo has been (for the most part) widely available in a variety of off the shelf bullet weights. I also like the shorter action versus the longer -06 actions. Elk, antelope, pigs, axis, and whitetail all fallen to my .308 Tikka - and heaven forbid most of them with a [GASP] Big Green Remmy Core-Lokt bullet. Of course that was prior to getting 168-gr Dallas Custom Reloads from Chad - the Tikka REALLY like-a them.

They’re all good and adequate for anything you’re hunting

Added a camo cerakote .270 CVA Cascade to arsenal today, on clearance at Cabela's , $599 down from $699, plus 5% military discount and $20 off for registering for a Cabela's charge card. After a $5 donation to hunting youth programs, out the door for a total of $602. Plan to feed it Core Lokt, 130gr. for TX Whitetail and hogs; do any other .270 shooters recommend something differently?

Liking the look of this brand new rig, my first one with a camo finish.

Well, it depends on what your rifle likes first and foremost, but I’ve had great results with Hornady Precision Hunter 145gr ELD-X in my .270. YMMV.

For the described parameters it would be hard to beat any of them period. Dead is dead. My nephews dropped two mature 180 lb south texas bucks in the last week with a 243 and 100 grain NP’s at 3000 fps.

Red, have we heard about the second one?
Hard to compliment all the kills so yall fell free to start an individual thread about your kills.

Not yet

My Tikka 7mm-08 is my go to.

I have different rigs for different situations.

- .308 Bergara HMR for range days, cheap ammo and fun to shoot.
- Tikka 7mm-08 for hunting. Weighs about 9 pounds scoped and with a suppressor.
- Tikka .243 for a youth rifle. My daughter and niece shoot it.

I have the same problem at times. have safe full of various cal. rifles. I just scratch the biggest itch at the time for me. I do make sure they're tuned and ready before I make the decision to scratch.

Great lookkng gun. I have shot a 270 most of my life. 130 gr core lokt are absolute jackhammers on shoulder shots. I've yet to have a single deer or hog take single step when shot in the center shoulder. I shot a 300 WM for a few years in my bigger is better phase. That was when I learned what jacket/core separation is. The core lokt would not hold together on bone impact sub 100 yd. I switched to nosler partition and immediately jackhammered them again with full pass thru everything.

A few years ago I switched back to 270. I decided to stay with partition in case of close shots and is is flawless. My take is be careful with 270 and 25.06 on close shots with non bonded cup and core bullets above 2800 fps. You almost never have that issue with 7.08 or 308 because velocity is lower. However, in 30 + deer, I never had a core lokt fail in 270 like it did in the 300

All that being said, they are all awesome choices for that size game.