i would not put remington at the top of anything but a company that doesn't stand behind there products. model 597  in 17hmr recall is a joke.we will give you $200 voucher to buy another remington gun or rebarrel in 22 mag. if you send it in to there authorized service center they do not have the barrels . have been waiting on them since dec. 1

i was lookiing at the Mariln XL7 also in .270,  just never did go buy it.  heard some good reviews about it.  price being one of them.  I did however buy a remington 770 whitetail pro 30-06(cheaper version of the 700) from bass pro.  the gun has turned out to be a really good shooting rifle.  I still want a .270

Kevin,

I do not own a Mauser in .30-06.  But, I will tell you from over 30 year's experience that every gun is different - even with the same model from the same manufacturer.  There are a number of things that affect accuracy for different bullets and loads:  Rate of barrel rifling twist, chamber headspace, harmonics on the barrel, etc.  Some guns will like 150 gr, some 165s, and another 180s...and, there are even bullet designs that some rifles favor over others.  Shoot different weights and loads from different manufacturers, because the type of powders can affect this as well.  To give you an example, I've got a 7mm Mag that likes only Federal 140gr Nosler Partitions.  With those I can keep under 0.75" at 100 yards consistently.  Without them I'm 1.5"+. 

There's also the type of hunting you do.  Frankly, if all you're doing is taking native Texas game, including hogs and most exotics (Nilgai might be a possible exception), any of the bullet weights above will do very well.  I'd even throw elk in that category.  You picked your round well - .30-06 is one of the best.

The other is the range you take game.  If you're shooting within 100 yards, a 2" group at 100 yards is plenty of accuracy.  And, cartridge selection in that case becomes more preference than anything else.  But, if you take game further than that you have to be a little more particular the farther you shoot, so bullet design becomes something to think more about, because there are bullet designs that hold speed and energy much better than others.  In this case you have to balance accuracy with bullet design (i.e. what can I shoot that hits where I aim and put it down)

Hope this helps.

man there are a ton of deer and hogs around athens. the shooting does on thanksgiving wknd may change????

great video dan,i hunted with compound bow for 15yrs and this past season i switched to a recurve and love it,shooting instinctive is the best. i started picking up recurve summer 2010 with no sights. 

Looks like a death trap for shur! IMO if farmers want hog control, they need to do some controlled hunting. No offence to Hog ranches (It makes a living), Quit charging hunters trophy fees to shoot problem hogs. In N-E Texas and S-W Arkansas its hard to get permission to hunt these farm lands because its leased to hunters. I don't know how many times I've been riding farm roads and see hogs. Once  we had just left the shooting range and went to the Red river to look a some WMA land. On the way there, AR-15, Hogs, Private land, NO permission!!!! Got Hogs?

I wish I had $800 because I would buy the Ruger in a heartbeat, love those riffles, my son just got the Blackhawk for Chritmas and it's a shooting son of a gun!!!

Yes! we had many new neighbors it seemed. I was hoping the world war 3 going on next door was from them shooting hogs, but when I see 15 deer and 12 of them are yearlings i kinda got the idea the all the does where in the freezer.

I went hunting the first time when I was 7.  Walked around for a while with my Dad, saw nothing, so he let me shoot some tin cans with the .410 shotgun to give me something to do.  Dad grew up shooting pheasant and rabbit in Iowa (but not big game), and I had heard many stories from him and my Grandpa.  I wanted to go hunting in a big way.  I was ready to go after rabbit and squirrel, but I know that I couldn't have killed a deer then - they were just too pretty! 

I think any age is okay to take a kid, as long as the trip is about them going, and not them tagging along while you kill something.  Too many adults spoil it for the kid when they take them so they can get in some extra hunting during youth season, or just need the kid's deer tags.  I've seen friend's kids ready to hunt at 7, and I've seen them not be ready until 15.  Seems to me that the ones that were ready early had parents that hunted and/or fished regularly, and so it was a party of their normal life.  I'm guessing your kid is going to be chomping at the bit by age 6. :-)

I think what is being hunting is as important as when the kid first goes.  As a child I would have disliked setting in a blind for hours waiting for a trophy buck to show up.  Wouldn't have mattered how many critters I saw, just that I was having to sit quietly doing nothing.  To me, a deer would have been a deer, and I wouldn't have understood that the antlers or age was wrong.  I would want to shoot the first thing that walked out.  I needed action and quantity, not quality.  10 undersized bluegill were better than one large bass.  I wanted to shoot the gun a lot of times, so using a .22 was better than a .30-06.  Shooting multiple times at rabbit was better than shooting once at a deer or hog.  Being cold or wet would ruin the entire experience, so duck hunting would have been a bad idea.

And as an aside, I would never let a kid's first deer be a trophy.  The first couple would only be does or spikes.  Only after they had been hunting multiple times over several years, and made several kills, would I allow a trophy buck to be taken.  I firmly believe that if the first deer is a great buck, you've spoiled them for anything less.  Make the trophy be a trophy, not something they expect to happen every time.  Raise them to appreciate the animal, not the score.