My first hunting rifle…

by Otony, Wednesday, November 24, 2021, 09:18 (1095 days ago) @ AaronB

…other than a .30-30 Model 94, was a P17 that had the full custom work over. Weatherby style stock out of some unbelievable Cloud Birdseye maple with rosewood grip cap and forend tip and the obligatory inlays in the butt. It had a high gloss blue 24” (26?] barrel, peep removed, floor plate straightened. The action had been color case hardened in beautiful blues and reds. I don’t recall the scope, but it was likely a Bushnell offering. I want to say the work had been done by Flaigs, but that rifle has been gone over 45 years now. Still, I’m fairly certain it was Flaigs.

That rifle had been made for my brother-in-law in the early ‘60s when the .25-06 was still a wildcat, but he gave it to me a year or so after Remington had legitimized the round in 1969. That was fortunate, because I had yet to begin reloading in ‘70 or ‘71, and also because Remington factory fodder proved to be supremely accurate in that rifle. The only complaint I could have had was that like most custom rifles of that era, it was heavy. Being built on a P17 action didn’t help.

I used it for hunting deer in California, but around 1975 he asked for it back (it had been a long term loan) and not too long after that I got a LH Remington 700 in .270 which was okay, but never quite the same.

That cartridge, especially in the long barrel, was my first taste of a flat-shooting rifle. I always felt that it should be considered a magnum class round in terms of speed and flat trajectory but of course it doesn’t quite meet the criteria. Very close though.

Somewhere along the line I got involved with a couple of .257 Roberts and felt that they did all I needed, still do actually but much of that may be because they’ve both been lighter rifles. In truth, the .25-06 is a better cartridge, and you CANNOT go wrong with it.

Otony