Thread: First rifle

Originally Posted by Steve123

Howa's are great but just get the rifle. The package deal mounts, rings and scopes are not very good. As @ROKTOY says pretty much don't listen to the salesman, especially if he's trying to upsell you.

Howas are a little on the heavy side compared to Tikka, but both are accurate and reliable options. Both will normally shoot much better than the person buying them (This means your groups will usually be because of you not the rifle) With your budget I would suggest spending about $1000 on the rifle, and a similar amount on the scope and decent mounts etc. This leaves $500 for ammo. A lot of people spend their whole budget on the rifle and scope, then try to economise withte ammo because their budget ran out.

With the ammo, get enough that you can spend a decent amount of time at the range getting comfortable with the rifle, and learning how to shoot it accurately. Get to know it. A couple hundred rounds like this taking your time will make a huge difference to your shooting. And with the ammo, try a number of brands and type of ammo. See what works best for you in the rifle. I normally suggest a pack of 3 or four brands to start with and an extra pack of one that you would prefer to use. Use the first packet of your preferred one to sight in. Then use half a packet each of the others at targets. Dont worry if the point of impact is out a bit, at this stage you wan to know what groups the best. Then with the rest of the half packets do the same thing but use the brands in the opposite order. You wil find that your own shooting will improve (well hopefully it will) so when you get to the end of the ammo, you should have a pretty good idea on which it likes. If there is no preference between brands, or there are similar performance between a few of them, buy a heap of the easiest of those to get.

As for the calibre debate- your original options of 308 and 7mm08 will both suit most game you will find in NZ. My personal preference would be the 308, but only because I find it easier to get a wider choice of 308 ammo. Any calibre that is readily available across the shelf as ammunition from 6mm right up to 8mm will do you fine. (apart from the likes of 7.62x39 and other "short" rounds). If you think 243, 6.5x55, 7mm08, .25/06, 270. 308, 30/06, among others....you should be fine