My Dad wasn't a hunter so I didn't start hunting until my second year of college at Colorado State back in 1965, when one of my roommates invited me to go deer hunting with him near his home town of Craig, CO. He lent me a Winchester model 94 chambered in .32 Win Special, and I shot my first deer.
The next year he invited me back to hunt with him, and because we had seen some elk the year before, I bought an elk tag and that year I borrowed a sporterized .30-40 Krag rifle from my Uncle, and shot my first elk, a 5x5 bull.
The following summer I bought a .30-06 barreled action and a semi-inleted walnut stock from Herter's and put together my first centerfire rifle.
Eight years later I moved to Montana and although my .30-06 continued to keep my freezer full of deer, elk, and antelope meat, my next door neighbor who had become my new hunting partner, showed me a .30 Gibbs case. I thought that case looked so cool that I carried it around in my pocket for several months, and finally I had a local gunsmith re-chamber my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs.
With a stiff load of H 4831 behind 180 grain Nosler Partition bullets, that rifle put 21 elk in my freezer along with an Alaskan caribou, 2 Montana Shiras moose, and a mountain goat.
Along with having that gunsmith chamber my .30 Gibbs, I had him rechamber a .25-06 to .257 Ackley Improved and had him make a tapered octogon barrel and put it on a Mauser Mark X action. I then put both of those rifles in Fancy walnut Fajun stock blanks.
The .22-250 became my dedicated varmint rifle, although I have also shot a few deer and antelope with it.
I made the .257 Ackley mainly as a deer and antelope rifle, but I also used it to shoot 4 bighorn rams in Montana's Unlimited Units; a Dall ram, a mountain caribou, and a wolverine in Canada's Mackenzie mountains; and my 2nd largest 6x6 bull elk in a early wilderness season just north of Yellowstone NP. This .257 Ackley is still my go to deer and antelope rifle.
