Saddle rifle, full size or carbine?

[brydan]

When hunting with a rifle I'm curious to know if people typically hunt with a standard length rifles, say a bolt action 24"/26" barrel or go more with short lightweight rifles?

With saddles/climbers I'm pretty much always using a pistol or short single shot rifle (T/C Contender, Roger #1, CVA Scout, etc) because they seem easier to handle in the stand. Growing up western hunting I liked full size rifles because the additional weight/length made them a little more stable for longer shots. With that in mind I've been kicking around the idea of trying something a little longer/heavier than I've typically used from a saddle. Thoughts?

 

[Iron_llama]

This year I used a H&R .444 carbine. I quite like it, it's short, light, and handy. That said I'm probably going to scope my Marlin lever rifle, which will be a bit more barrel and action to handle in the saddle. Other option is, I finally build my 16" .357 AR MAX rifle, and use that.

I generally hunt close cover and rarely, if ever, have opportunities to reach out past 200 yards. Most of my shots are within 30 yards; 60 is a pretty far poke for me. Under these conditions, an efficient cartridge like .308 or 6.5CM is wasted potential while a big-bore thumper shines. With a thumper like this, a longer barrel isn't really an advantage unless you're doing long range silhouette matches; a Marlin Trapper in .44MAG or .45-70 would be an excellent saddle carbine IMHO.

The thought occurs to me that the more my tree is swinging in the breeze, the less I'm interested in reaching out past, say, 75 yards.

That said if you might still-hunt in addition to saddle hunting, or might set up in a bit of cover between bedding and a meadow, maybe you'd want the ability to reach out a little farther.

 

[Focused on 10+]

I used a normal size rifle and did t have too much trouble. It will take some practice

 

[mtsrunner]

Short carbine for me. T/C Encore with 22” Bullberry custom .260 barrel and Leupold compact 3x9. It’s ugly as sin, but I don’t care. Rifle is currently staring at me in disgust because I’m a wuss and not feeling the desire to walk out the door while it’s cold and raining.

I’m actually seriously considering switching to a red dot next season. In 33 years of deer hunting, I have taken exactly two shots over 100 yards at deer. Way more times than that, I have had to pass opportunities on deer because of various scope issues (filed of view, fogging, too dark, too slow to acquire target, etc). Red dot would solve most of my issues and still be great for my normal shot of less than 50 yards.

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[shmelton]

My Saddle gun is a 357 lever action with open sights, and a 16” barrel. Works like a champ for saddle hunting conditions.


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