But … aint many troubles that a man cain’t fix with seven hundred dollars and his thirty ought six.

–Lindy Cooper Wisdom
Grandpa’s Wisdom

I do not usually spend years making up my mind about a deer rifle.  However, it was 2007 when I first began to contemplate what I have come to call “My Last 30-06.”  Just to set the stage for you, in 2007, I had just bagged the biggest buck of my career. I had two young sons, one had not yet taken his first deer.  The other was approaching 16, and would no longer be hunting with me as a youth. Over the winter, I started planning my next decade.  I figured I would pass on one of my rifles to Moose when he came of age and then procure a nice 30-06  bolt gun for myself.

see Briar Engineering and the Win 670

I had a Winchester 670 in 30-06, that had been my oldest active deer rifle. I had bought it in the mid-80’s at a gun show–paid $120 for it. A fellow had tapped me on the back inside Cincinnati Gardens and said that if I wanted a deer rifle on the cheap he had one in his trunk.  It had looked pretty gnarly when he pulled it out, but he swore it shot well despite the dinged-up stock.  His brothers and he had been trading it around for years.  I figured for $120 it would not be a huge risk.  I spent the winter refinishing the stock, and come spring I took it out to the range.  A fellow at the next bench offered me $400 for it, and at the time I thought hard about it as a new Remington 700 was $300 and. . . Naw.  I’d grown fond of the rifle. I decided to keep it.

That was the rifle I figured I would present to #2 son, Moose.  However, fate intervened and before Christmas that year I was offered a minty Winchester 750 in 30-06.  It had been sitting in an old man’s closet for 20 years.  I snatched it up, and this rifle became the great Moose Rifle. I kept the 670.

Then the dark clouds started to form in my life. I was laid off from my job of over a decade. I was still strapped with child support and a mortgage. Trying to start a business with a buddy failed. After the unemployment wore out I was coasting on savings and in November of 2010, I made my last mortage payment before going down to the basement to contemplate selling my guns. However, I got a phone call just before Rifle Season that led to the consulting job in Scumsuck, and although it was not much, it started my way to digging out of the hole.

All the while, I was working it over in my head: what will be my next deer rifle? I know, that is sort of a goofy question to be asking at a time like that.  However, that had been the last project I had contemplated before the bottom fell out of everything.  It kind of stuck with me. Thinking about a rifle is free, even if the rifle is not.

Since my 20’s, I had always dreamed of a Remington 700.  A BDL in 30-06 had always been my idea of cool. In fact that was what I had gone to that gun show back in the 80’s to get. The Winchester 670 had started out being sort of a consolation prize. However, I grew to like several things about the 670.  For starters, even though the 670 was a field-grade, Blue-Light Special rifle, it had a nice trigger and an it was easily my most accurate rifle. For over  decade I used it with Remington Accelerators on groundhog. I called it “The Vaporizer.”  The other thing I liked about it was the safety.  I like a 3-position safety. That center position lets you unload the rifle without fear of an accidental discharge.  The 700 did not have that.  The other thing that I grew to love about the Winchester was  the finish.  I had refinished it from the scarred remains of the factory finish.  It was a birch stock, not walnut, but I had hand rubbed it with Danish Oil and unlike the Remington, a scratch or a ding was easy to fix.  The hard Remington finish was great until it got damaged, and then it was there to stay. As I got to liking the Winchester more, I decided that when I finally got around to buying a fancy rifle, it would probably be a Winchester Featherweight over the Remington 700.

The last thing that got me out of thinking about Remington 700’s was the issue with the trigger.  I know. If I kept  the trigger mechanism immaculate, I did not have to worry about the darn thing firing as you close the bolt. For $50, I could buy a Timney Trigger and do away with the problem all together.  However, I was not inclined in those days to spend money on a nice rifle only to turn it around to a gunsmith to have it repaired. I also did not see myself dropping the trigger group out every whipstitch.  The Winchester 670 was last  field stripped and out of its stock in 1988.

Then Winchester stopped making rifles.

For a while there, I was really in a quandary.  Something like a simple bolt-action 30-06 should not be that hard to acquire.  I thought about Savages.  In fact, I bought a nice one for KYHillChick in 2006. However, I just could not see myself with the Savage.  Don’t get me wrong. It may be the best shooting rifle for the money that is out there.  I just could not quite wrap my arms around one.

Then the Ruger Hawkeye came out.  It took me a while to catch on that this rifle did not have the tang safety like the Savages or the earlier Ruger MK II.  It had the 3 position safety like the Winchesters.  It had a fair trigger.  It was undoubtedly Minute-of-Whitetail in accuracy.  It was cheaper than the Remingtons, not much more than a Savage, and MUCH cheaper than the newly reconstituted Winchesters.  What’s not to like?

Ooops.  I forgot something.  It’s more like I blocked it from my memory.  It is a painful episode in my life.  Back in Spring 2010 we had a 5 day rain. Luckily (?) I was unemployed and could stay home and take care of the problems.  The basement flooded.  I emptied the shamanic underground firearms repository and brought everything up to the ground floor, but it took until summer for the house to dry out.  Three firearms fell victim to rust. One was the Winchester 670.  By now, the search for the shamans dream ’06 had become a vision quest.  As I removed the rust from the barrel of the 670, I swore my dream deer rifle would be stainless. When I circled back to the project again, I realized the Hawkeye only came in wood/blue or plastic/stainless. I am not a fan of synthetic stocks.

I was undeterred.  When I finally dug myself out of the financial hole, it was Spring of 2013.  I had been saving Speedway Points and I was about ready realize my dream of a deer rifle.  By now, Angus, #3 son, was approaching 16, and I wanted to gift him the Winchester 670 and get myself a Hawkeye to replace it.  To solve the problem of getting a wood/stainless Hawkeye, I scored a nice factory stock on the cheap.  It all seemed like things were falling into place. Fate again intervened.

O.T. has been a buddy for over a decade. He ran the mower shop over on the next ridge at deer camp. As the lawn at camp ate my mowers, I would bring them to him to salvage.  Over the years, I saw him go down hill.  In 2013 he said he was giving up.  He was in his mid 80’s.  He was slowly suffocating from bad lungs, his eyes were shot.  He gave up his hunting dog, and I offered to buy his deer rifle.  It is an awesome rifle, a custom Mauser in 25-06. I knew O.T. needed the money, but that blew the budget for the Hawkeye.

O.T’s  25-06 is a perfect example of why a wood stock has a better vibe to it. For one thing, it tells you where its been. For over 30 years of deer hunting, he carried this rifle. You can see he preferred to steady it on the right side of cedar trees. You can see the marks of every one of them. My Dad’s Model 12 has a mark on it from the first time I went turkey hunting. That might sound like a lot  glurge to a lot of you, but there is a practical side to it as well. When I’m out with a wood stock, I know my grand kids are going to see everything on the stock. I carry it accordingly, because I don’t want one of them pointing at some gouge or ding and I have to say, “Grandpa was being a dumbass.” On the other hand, a fiberglass stock that is completely mute will never let you know that, for instance, that last tumble you took might have been bad enough to knock the scope off kilter.

Now I come to how this 30-06 became “My Last 30-06.”   Look, I’m 55 as I write this. I’ll be 56 by the time the Opener roles around. I am north of 300 lbs, so recoil is not a big problem for me.  However, I watched O.T. go by inches and after a long bit of careful consideration, I realized 35 Whelen is probably going to be my high-water mark in the recoil department.  Some time over the next 30 years, I will start wanting to shed myself of the higher recoil rifles.  O.T.’s 25-06 is a dream to shoot, and O.T. spent 30 years with it, killing a lot of nice bucks in our end of the county.  I could have just let it go at that, but I could not let this quest for my dream rifle go– not with the stock for it already on my rack.

It was therefore with a lot careful thought that I went into Hibberd’s Armory in Cleves last weekend and told John at the counter to acquire a Ruger Hawkeye All-Weather variant in 30-06. I have resolved that this will be my last 30-06, at least for now. I pray that the next 30-some years will see many happy days afield.

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