Thread: As someone who is getting into hunting, what rifle should I invest more money into?

I started out hunting not far down the road from where your in-laws have their land.

My first rifle was a JW15 and the second was a Winchester M94. If I was starting from fresh today and not funding my hunting from firewood money after school I would start with a bolt action CZ in whichever configuration I like the feel of. And the centrefire would be a short accurate suppressed bolt action or single shot at the cheaper end of the scale, maybe a Howa mini in 6.5G. Or a Bergara single in .308. Preferably Stainless but even a good condition .303 would fit the bill.

The logic being that the .22 is pretty easy to look after unless you want to strap it to the front of your quad for when your working dogs inadvertently bail a pig. Something tells me that’s not you. It will loose minimum amount of value (either to you or in the retail sense).

A fair chunk of your formative hunting is probably going to be in the Western Kaimai ranges. Lots of supplejack. If you have something like a Walnut Stock CZ 550 or a Sako that is your pride and joy, it will be exhausting trying not to get it scratched or wet, you won’t be able to concentrate on stalking and consequently won’t see any deer. The experience won’t be fun and you may end up preferring to concentrate on the rabbits and your centrefire will then become what is known around here as a ‘range queen’ or ‘safe queen’. It may even end up in the Buy sell swap.

If you buy a relatively cheap centrefire rifle you can just get on with the hunting, there will or won’t come a time when you need to upgrade, in either scenario you won’t regret having started with your knock around gun which you will probably still keep partly because you shot your first deer with it and partly because it will still be a useful gun.