by Dave Hurteau

So far this tourney has been like hanging with Gomer Pile: “Surpise”—the Kimber 84M gets booted in the first round. “Surprise”—the Ruger No. 1 makes the Final Four. “Surprise”—the Remington 700 obliterates the great Savage 99. I expected the 700 to win the last matchup, but not by such a wide margin?

Anyway, with the 700 and 70 predictably moving on, the Savage squeaking past the Weatherby, and the No. 1 upsetting the X7, our Final Four is set. So let’s tip it off. As usual, check out the bracket (you can click here to print out a copy if you want to fill it out by hand). Then vote for your preferred all-purpose whitetail rifle in each matchup below to begin the Final Four round and see which two guns will go head-to-head for the F&S All-Pourpose Whitetail Rifle Championship.

by Dave Hurteau

VOTE FOR DIVISION II AND SEE THE RESULTS OF DIVISION 1 HERE

Basketball? What basketball? All I know is that March means the Sweet Sixteen of Deer Guns and Ammo. Two years ago, the .30-06 won the title of Whitetail Cartridge Champ. Last year, the venerable Marlin 336 won the title of Whitetail Brush Rifle Champ. This year, it’s the all-arounders. That is, whitetail rifles that are light enough for the mountain, quick enough for the woods, tough enough for the swamp, accurate enough for the prairie, and not too hard on the wallet.

It’s a tough category because there are so many good general-purpose rifles today. So as usual, to cover my butt and get in on the fun of complaining about the rankings, I let someone else choose them. This year, F&S Contributing Editor Lawrence Pyne picked our players, with instructions from me to go with: [1] the latest version of any still-produced model, [2] only widely available discontinued models, and [3] non-custom, affordable models (read under $2,000).

And so, with those caveats, below are his seeded selections (which I encourage you to take issue with).

by Dave Hurteau

Actually I got a winter restoration project—a Savage Model 24 in .22LR/.410 with good bores and solid wood but a very rough exterior. As far as I’m concerned, the Model 24 in this configuration is the perfect squirrel gun.

By the way, did you know that squirrel hunting makes excellent practice for hunting whitetail deer, the species about which this blog is solely dedicated?

As I was saying, it’s a fantastic squirrel gun, particularly for small woodlots close to populated areas, because you can use the .22 when your backdrop will stop a bullet and the .410 when it won’t. Plus it’s just a damned cool gun that I’ve always wanted to own.

by Dave Hurteau

You may remember that I arrowed a forkhorn buck last October and posted a picture of it in this space accompanied by the obligatory (these days) explanation of why I shouldn’t have to apologize for shooting a small buck, which is almost like an apology itself—but isn’t one exactly, I insist. Yesterday morning I shot a jake turkey. So here’s my non-apology:

I don’t get the whole pass-a-jake thing. I admit it’s probably arbitrary. I love turkey hunting, but for whatever reason the gobbler-as-trophy idea has never resonated with me. I’ve killed a number of toms but have never saved a single beard or fan or spur. On the other hand, I’ve passed lots of bucks in the hope of shooting one with bigger antlers, and I have racks on display in every corner of my office. Go figure. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Stone Age artists painted animals with exaggerated antlers—not so much outsized beards and spurs. Maybe not.