Rifle

The Seekins Element Hunter M3 in 7 PRC weighs just 6 lbs, folds down for mountain travel, and printed a .264 MOA group with factory ammunition. After long-range steel, a 680-yard coyote, and plenty of miles in the mountains, this rifle has become exactly what I hoped an ultralight hunting rifle could be.

The Browning X-Bolt family has grown from an excellent hunting rifle into a sprawling X-Bolt 2 lineup covering lightweight mountain guns, long-range rigs, carbon-fiber builds, and almost everything between.

The $529 Glenfield Model A looks every inch like a budget hunting rifle, but our 6.5 Creedmoor test gun punched out .78-.92 inch groups with its favorite ammunition and went 120 for 120. Ruger’s revived Glenfield name may be cheap where it can be, but this rifle puts the important money in the right places.

The PTR-91 puts the HK G3’s roller-delayed Cold War muscle back in your hands, complete with hard-running reliability, excellent iron sights, flying brass, and accuracy that still earns respect at 100 yards.

“The best of AR-15 ergonomics and the combat-proven reliability of the FN SCAR.”

The Winchester Model 70 Featherweight brings wood, blued steel, controlled round feed, and old-school hunting rifle swagger into a world obsessed with carbon fiber and plastic. We tested this 6.5 Creedmoor classic to see if the Rifleman’s Rifle still deserves a spot in the deer stand.

Geissele’s King Hunter is a heavy, expensive, superbly accurate bolt gun built around Federal’s hot new 7mm Backcountry cartridge. It is not trying to be a featherweight mountain rifle, but from the bench and the field rest, this thing shoots like it knows it wears a crown.

The Ruger Mini-14 Ranch is the old-school 5.56 NATO rifle that refused to disappear. After decades of love, hate, and accurate jokes, the newer Ranch Rifle showed up ready to rewrite some history.

The Benelli Lupo Alpha looks like an Italian design team got loose with a CAD file and a bottle of Pinot Grigio, but this 5.73-pound hunting rifle flat-out performs. It is light, slick, weatherproof, and with the right load, it shoots tiny groups that make the futuristic stock a lot easier to love.