Bolt-Action Rifles

We hunters, especially those of you – who like me – enjoy carrying a bolt-action rifle for big game, owe a helluva lot to a German gentleman named Mauser. Peter Paul von Mauser, to be specific. A brilliant designer, Herr Mauser gave us not only the 7×57 and 8×57 cartridges, but the Gewehr 98 rifle, which would set the standard for bolt-action rifle reliability that stands to this day. The Mauser name – synonymous in the firearms world with the reputation that German engineering has secured – is one that hunters have come to rely on for a century and a quarter.

The mere mention of the word obtains my undivided attention; it is the concept of a hunting adventure in the wild places of Africa, and is undoubtedly my happy thought. The word safari is taken from the KiSwahili dialect of East Africa, and it simply means ‘journey.’ It represents the challenge of shooting a big-bore rifle and being in an environment where there are animals large enough to take your life with ease. The CZ 550 rifle is, in and of itself, a journey, in that it has its roots in the Czechoslovakian Brno ZKK 602 rifle, and has come a long way to get to the current inception. That ZKK 602 is still revered among those who enjoy the big bore bolt-action rifles; the action is considered as rock-solid and reliable as a Mauser 98.

The whitetail deer has to be our most popular big game animal in the Continental Forty-Eight, yet the settings in which we hunt them, and the means with which we hunt them has got to be the most diverse ever.  Entire volumes have been written on what makes up the consummate deer gun, and while I’m not going to attempt to define that within this article, I would like to talk about some ideas to optimize your existing deer rifle, or perhaps to choose a different rifle in order to try a different means of deer hunting.

Traveling to hunt is something I feel everyone should do at least once; it represents an adventure that can quickly make a hunter feel years, if not decades, younger. An unseen valley, an exotic species, perhaps the need for a different rifle or cartridge, it all adds a flair to the sport we love so much. Now, depending on where you call home, the destinations I’m about to list may or may not seem like an exotic place to hunt, but here are ten places that I’ve either fallen in love with or plan to in the near future.

Precision Rifle Shooting (PRS) has been gaining a lot of ground in recent and with that an increasing interest in precision rifle competitions.  I started shooting precision rifle competitions about 12 years ago and back then, the competitive landscape was different. There weren’t as many matches around as I was getting into it and there certainly weren’t any standardized rules about what was and wasn’t allowed. 

The active pursuit of dangerous game is far and away my favorite style of hunting. The gear required for hunting dangerous game — specifically the rifle — must be rock solid, as with failure comes the potential for loss of life.

Things have changed at Winchester since the mid-19th century, the New Haven, Connecticut plant is no more, and ownership of the company has changed as well. One thing has remained though: Winchester rifles are synonymous with reliability. There have been many different models, and many variations on a particular model. Herein, I’m tackling the Winchester XPR rifle, a modern bolt-action designed to handle it all, at a price that won’t see you sleeping on the couch.

The Steyr firm can trace its roots back to the mid-1860s, in Steyr, Austria, and they’ve always prided themselves on producing rifles that have been on the cutting edge of technology. Their Pro Hunter is no exception, being a reliable, if futuristic-looking, bolt-action repeater that is designed to take the worst the elements can throw at it.

In the United States, Bergara isn’t exactly a household name, but the fact of the matter is that this Spanish-based company is a large OEM provider of barrels to some of the best-known brands in the business. Bergara has started to offer a line of rifles that can be found under their Bergara Premier line, and for review we have their LRP rifle chambered in .308 Winchester in hand for testing.