I was a 5th generation Coloradoan and my Dad and Grandfathers liked the mountains where we camped and fished, but my Dad didn't hunt, so I didn't start hunting until I was in College in Ft Collins. My second year, two of my roommates were from Craig in NW Colorado, and one of them took me on my first deer hunt. He loaned me a Winchester Model 94 in .32 Spl, and I shot my first deer, a spike muley buck. I went with him again the next year and I shot my first elk, a 5x5 bull with a borrowed .30-40 Krag. That got me hooked on hunting.
Through out college I worked summers for the US Forest Service in Steamboat Spgs, CO. So the summer after my first elk hunt I bought my first centerfire rifle. Two of my bosses there had grown up hunting there, so I asked them what kind of rifle I should buy. They both said to get a bolt action .270 or .30-06. They said that only the "once a year in the woods" dudes from Denver shot canons like the .300 Win Mag. So I decided on a .30-06.
I ordered a .30-06 Model U-9 barreled action and a semi-inleted walnut stock from Herter's, and put them together that summer.
As my only centerfire rifle, I used that .30-06 for deer, elk, and antelope for the rest of the time that I lived in Colorado, and for my first few of years living in Montana.
Then, sometime in 1977 my new hunting partner here gave me a fired .30 Gibbs case. I thought that case looked so cool that I had Les Bauska, a gunsmith in Kalispell rechamber my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs. For the next 20 some years that rifle shooting 180 gr Nosler Partition bullets put an elk into my freezer almost every year along with 2 Shiras bull moose, a mountain goat, and an Alaskan caribou.
When Les rechambered my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs I also had him rechamber a .25-06 barreled action to .257 Ackley, and to make and fit a tapered octogon barrel chambered in 22-250 to a Mauser Mark X action. I then fitted those two barreled actions into Fajen Fancy walnut semi inleted stocks.
So my rifle for medium size game animals (deer and antelope) along with 3 Bighorn rams, a Dall ram, a Mountain caribou, and my 2nd best 6x6 bull elk was, and is, my .257 Ackley.
My .22-250 became my varmint rifle, along with several deer and antelope.
The only rifle that I've ever sold was a Rem 700 ADL in 7mm RM that I borrowed for my first African hunt in 2000, I later bought it and used it on a Canadian caribou and Muskox hunt. I traded/sold it for a stainless BDL, also in 7mm RM.
A case fireforming mishap in the early 2000s retired my .30 Gibbs, and in 2009, after wanting a Weatherby rifle for more that 40 years, I bought a Vanguard in .300 Wby. I stocked it in AA Fancy walnut, had a KDF muzzle brake installed on it, and it has been my favorite big game rifle ever since. Along with elk hunts with it here in Montana, I've used it on hunts in Texas, New Zealand, 3 hunts in Africa, a hunt in Azerbaijan, and for a moose in Alberta.
In 2004 I bought and re-stocked a stainless Rem Model 700 chambered in .375 RUM. With it's KDF brake it doesn't kick any harder than my 7mm RM and I've used it on 2 hunts in Africa and for a Brown bear in Alaska.
For my weekly practice shooting I have two more stainless Wby Vanguards chambered in .308 Win and .223.
All of these rifles carry similar Leupold variable scopes, they all weigh (within a few ounces) the same, and have the same length of pull.
I figure that I'm set for anything that I ever want to hunt.
