re: Best All Around Rifle

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This whole Long range hunting thing was concocted as a way to sell $3500 rifles, bigger scopes, and give guides another excuse besides wolves when they they cant get you closer than 500 yds to an elk...

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True. I'd also like to know what the percentage is of trophy kills, and just for simplicity, I'll limit it to elk, taken in the United States over 600 yards. I bet it's under 10%. If we were talking about whitetail, I'd bet it's under 5%. Probably around 2 or 3 percent.

But, hey, like I said, I'm more of a gear geek than active hunter. There might be millions of cats out there with:

1. Sub-MOA barrels
2. High dollar scopes and rings
3. Match triggers
4. Match ammo
5. Thousands of rounds of trigger time
6. Eyesight and reflexes good enough to,

take whitetail at 800 yards and elk at 1200 yards all the time.

Maybe I just missed all of that.

Reading through the replies and you get the sense of the varied opinions. I am going to answer your question based on caliber more so than manufacturer.

Foe Deer pretty much any caliber above a .243 or so would work. Depending on where you hunt elk there could be a regulation for your caliber having to be .270 or above.

For Elk you DO NOT need a .300 Win Mag like someone suggested. Does it work? Yes, is it a tough shooter and too much gun for most situations? Yes.

This past elk season (2nd rifle, Colorado) I brought two different rifles and carried one or the other depending on the day. They were a 7mm Remington Magnum and a 30.06. The 7 was an older Finnish Sako that has been in our family for a long time (40+ years). The 30.06 is a Winchester Feather light that was made in 1988. The 7mm I hand loaded two different loads for a 160g Nosler partition with 67g of H4831 powder and a 162g Hornady ELD-x bullet pushed by 65g of IMR4831 powder. Both of those loads shoot really well through that gun (5 shots all touching at 250 yds).

They other three guys I was hunting with carried .300 win mags (2 of them did) and a 30.30 (1). Every rifle on the mountain with us could have killed an elk. Some better than others depending on the situation.

What I love about my 30.06 is it can fire bullets from 110g to 220g that is a broad range. Now there is a lot of drop on the 220g ad I wouldn't carry it for much other than grizzly.

The 7mm doesn't chamber quite as many weights as the 30.06 but chambered in the 160g bullet it can kill any elk and will perform almost the same as a .300 win mag in the 180g bullet.The energy drops a little faster out past 350 yards but both carry plenty of energy out to 500 yards to kill an elk.

There is a relatively new round on the market that is my next gun a 6.5 PRC. Right now they are only being made by the high end boys. I am looking at a Christensen Arms version that costs about $2,500 before optics. It looks like a super sweet round.

If I were going to have one rifle round for all NA big game and had to carry only the one I would still go with the 30.06. I am not in that situation so I keep buying new rifles to replace the ones I loose in my boating accidents.

Pick a chamber then buy the best made rifle you can. The Browning X-bolt is a good one of those you listed. I would also suggest spending as much or more on the glass as the rifle.