Thread: Advice for first centrefire rifle

I would always suggest the following.
223 goats and fallow which are both common in the taranaki Wanganui areas. My sons both got their first deer down that way with a 223.
They just spent Saturday out at their old college with a teacher doing some pest control and nailing clays out to 250 mtr with a steyr 223.

I sort of lean towards something in the 308 family, 243, 260, or 7m08. as noted above a light weight 308 can induce flinching if your technique is not good.
But hard to argue against anything in the 6, 6.5 or 7mm family of short/medium length cartridges provided it is one that's going to be stocked commonly around the country.
Not such a fan of the longer action or magnum calibers unless you really want to get into shooting past 4-500 meters. then that's a whole new set of kit, range finder, scope, stock, hand loading etc.