Quote Originally Posted by Andrew Leigh View Post
@ the OP.

Reading between the lines I am assuming that the recoil on the 300 was not too pleasant? As a 30-06 owner as well, I would also strongly recommend this caliber, but for the fact that it known, as you go up in caliber that the 30-06 is probably the first caliber that will expose any recoil intolerance. So if you are a little recoil intolerant then you would want to shoot one if it comes into the decision matrix.

On the CZ550's, and I have 2. I intensely dislike the dropped comb on the Mannlicher style stock as I need to add cheek risers to the stock in order to get a decent cheek weld. If the ones you are looking at have a straight stock, you are better off.

Desperatezulu makes excellent point regarding reloading vs. ammo choice. This would influence any decision I may make about caliber choice.

I am unsure of your primary hunting terrain, but dragging a rifle with silencer through heavy bush is not my cup of tea. I have a .375 that came with silencer, the silencer does not get used. I hear people speak of farms requiring silencers but have never encountered such a farm. You can always add this later if an issue. If you are trying to mitigate recoil through a silencer then that is another matter, perhaps a 6.5x55mm Swede would be more appropriate from a recoil perspective.

You have not stated the size animal you intend on hunting but if you are a biltong hunter you would be hard pressed to find fault with a .308 for many reasons. The 7mm is a firm favourite as well. Tough choice that will probably come down to which one you want.

I would buy the .308.

Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons. Why do you want a Mauser Action? I think that on the calibers of which we speak that there are no benefits to a Mauser action. They are a harder to work due to the additional components in the bolt. I was also fascinated by the Mauser thing hence my two CZ's. If I could wind the clock back, I would buy normal actions but would not discount a Mauser action if a real bargain presented.
Thanks for the comprehensive replies Andrew & Desperatezulu. I tend to agree that calibre choice is my main driving factor. I don’t want to get 5 years down the line and end up struggling to find ammo.

In terms of the 300WM. I tend to do more bush hunting than open plains hunting and I found that the 300WM was just damaging everything (I tested at a number of different gr but to no avail, and to much meat wastage). I also found that the rifle was too expensive to shoot if I felt like going down to the range and hitting a few targets. I’ve noticed that the 7x57 ammo at the shops in Pretoria tends to be a bit cheaper than the 308.

Recoil wasn’t a major consideration (having only hunted with a 300WM, and 30-06 so far and having been successful), I would like something that I can pass over to younger family members and woman in the family to use too.

To an extent I also don’t want to go and do what I did when I got the SM, spend a large amount of money upfront and not like the rifle that much (although I do still miss it). The 7x57s I’m finding look like they are cheaper in general for what I’m looking for vs the 308s. I’ll look for a few non-Mauser type actions though and see what I can find.

I hadn’t considered the 6.5x55 swede, I’ll look around for this. Main concern here would be ammo availability.

Thanks again!