Best Deer Drive Firearm?

Shotgun was king back in the day

quote:

---

(it also gives me an excuse to buy something new)

---

speaking of excuses, you'll need to make sure to practice yours.

"Them dogs can't read maps"
"I shot it over there, I'm just recovering it over here"
"I just saw brown and thought it was a deer"

Whatever you've already got. I've dragged a 26" barreled 3-15x scoped bazooka through some very thick and nasty shite many times and it wasn't a problem.

quote:

---

gives me an excuse to buy something new

---

Oh, well in that case, Marlin 336 was always the standard rifle for us back in the day, mostly .30-30's with some .35's mixed in. Remington 7600 was also very popular but difficult to find these days and overpriced when you do. I always liked my .30-30 for driving dogs since I would be walking a few miles and it carries so nice.

Buckshot can be a good choice. It's definitely safer than a rifle when there are a lot of people in the woods, but if there's stuff going on that seems maybe a little unsafe I wouldn't be hunting with those people anyway. Federal flite control buckshot shoots incredibly well. I know someone who killed a deer over 100 yards away with buckshot once but it's best to limit yourself to 40 yards with it. A rifle, any rifle, really is better.

If you don't already have a single shot .35 whelen, now's a good time to get one. I shot a lot of deer more than once just because I could but they were all going to die very near where the first shot was anyway. I've only shot one that was running the first shot, and it was more trotting than running, not fast at all. The deer are never really running very fast and the need to be able to shoot quickly is largely imaginary. I never killed any of the deer I killed on a dog hunt because I had a repeating rifle. I would have killed zero fewer deer with a single shot rifle. If you can't hit it well on the first shot, you certainly aren't going to be able to hit it well on the subsequent ones. If you're going to miss, just don't shoot.

What makes a good dog hunting rifle is the scope. With the new excellent LPVO's out there now (1-4x and 1-6x), that's absolutely what I would get. At 1x they are just a red dot sight, and 4x is plenty enough for shooting deer to 200 or 300 yards. They're extremely versatile. Peep sights can be very good too, but they are only as good as your eyeballs. I always used a 2-7x scope because that's what I had but if I had to start over today, I'd get a 1-4x trijicon accupoint.

My family did it for as long as anybody knows, and nobody knows of a single accident.

Like all things involving guns, it is only dangerous if there are stupid people involved.

AR chambered in 350 legend.

quote:

---

Marlin 336 was always the standard rifle for us back in the day, mostly .30-30's

---

Agreed. 30-30 lever action with iron sites should do the trick

As a lad I started with a 20ga with a slug (bear ball as pow pow called it) in the chamber then two 00's coming hot afterwards. Then it was a Win 30.30 lever action. Then my favorite, a M1 .30 carbine. Pops ended up trading it on a jam-o-matic Rem Woodsmaster 742 .06. That thing was a colossal piece of shite that i cussed for a few years. Then suddenly the dog hunting days came to a halt and I was relegated to sitting on a ladder stand, or a stump, with no hounds to listen to and nothing to make the deer run by me. Which in comparison is an awful way to hunt. #teamwalkerdog

I always used a marlin 30-30 with open sights. we had an 8pt or > rule. the bucks would slip off from the herd and were usually walking when I was able to get a shot

Tell your friends to keep their dogs off my property!!

quote:

---

Tell your friends to keep their dogs off my property!!

---

The old OB wouldn't even bother making a statement about keeping the dogs off their property.