Public Correspondence...the One Rifle

Time to answer the mail again. I've received a variation of this one fairly regularly over the years so here goes. "Hodgeman- if a person could only have one rifle to hunt Alaska, which do you recommend?" For starters- I recommend you ask a better question. If I asked Tiger Woods if he could play 18 holes of golf with a single club, which would he choose, I wouldn't expect an answer that made sense. Golf doesn't work like that and neither does hunting. While I have talked about "generalist rifles" a great deal, we need to realize there are limits. Alaska is a big place and the animals that inhabit it are widely varied from the small Sitka deer to moose, bison and the great bears. While Sitka deer are readily taken with a 22-250 or a .243 Winchester those rounds are hardly appropriate for moose hunters or to pursue grizzly. Likewise, the wonderful .375 H&H is a convincing "all around" big game rifle around the world but to press it into service shooting foxes or lynx called in close is more than a little egregious. So while picking a .300 Winchester or a .30-06 as a primary hunting rifle is often a good move- there are plenty of situations that call for something different.