5 Best Hunting Rifles on the Planet

Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Here is the best of the best. 

First produced in 1935, the Model 70 borrowed the elements from Mauser’s bolt action rifle design, particularly the claw extractor and controlled round feed. A lightweight rifle with a handsome walnut stock and diamond checkering, the Model 70’s popularity exploded after World War II, when a booming economy fueled a resurgent interest in the shooting sports. In the past eighty years, Winchester has offered the Model 70 in virtually every rifle caliber ever made, introducing the new 6.5mm Creedmoor caliber for 2018.

Hunting, more than other countries in the Western world, lingers in America’s DNA. While the number of hunters in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world has declined with the rise of cities, hunting is still a major sport in the United States. Hunting is particularly popular in rural and suburban areas and large, stable populations of game, including deer, moose, and wild pigs are liberally distributed across North America.

For many in rural areas hunting rifles are tools not only for sport but for procuring a supply of meat. The best hunting rifles are a combination of firepower, portability and affordability. Hunting rifles must be as reliable as possible to ensure they’re ready when a fleeting opportunity for a shot arises, and to put down dangerous game such as pigs that will readily turn and attack hunters.

Weatherby Vanguard

The Weatherby Company was founded in 1945 by Roy Weatherby, and quickly came to be known as the West Coast purveyor of bolt action hunting rifles. In the 1960s, Weatherby partnered with Howa Machinery Company Limited of Aichi, Japan for the production of the new Weatherby Vanguard rifle. The Vanguard was meant to be a more affordable alternative to Weatherby’s Mark V series rifle, which the company marketed as an exclusive, high-end rifle. The less expensive Vanguards thus became more ingrained with mainstream hunting America than the rest of Weatherby’s product line.

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