Definition: "Meat-in-the-pot Rifle" - a rifle you shoot accurately, has your full trust afield, and never seems to miss.
Every hunter mulls over the possibility of a perfect rifle caliber. There isn't one. Calibers are as different and as niche as people are. I lean towards the .284 (7mm) offering in any caliber base. I'm too experienced to shoot a 6.5 and too good a shot to need a fatter caliber. Those are both jokes for those who couldn't hear the sarcasm in my voice. (Insert smiley face here).
I grew up with a family pet rifle chambered in the mighty 7mm-08. Before my teenage years, Dad found this stainless Remington model 7, fit with a black plastic stock, and acquired it. We carried the little gun all over creation and harvested a pile of memories with it. A true meat-in-the-pot gun.
Before my 1st deer season, a buddy took us alligator hunting. It was a depredation hunt on a large ranch to thin out the large lizard numbers. What gun makes sense for a 12-year-old to use in a humid swamp? A stainless 7-08 bolt gun! Making ponds in the flat Florida earth, ranchers dig the shell dirt into a hill, leaving the depression it created. Dad and I climbed up on top of one such hill and peered over into the pond. The sought gator was near the far edge of the water. The distance between its eyes looked wider than most we had seen and doomed the reptile. I slid the rifle over the top of the hill, fixed the crosshairs in the middle of the cold eyes, and squeezed. Blammo!
Years later, we were on the caribou hunt in Quebec, where I fell and smashed the Leupold scope on a rock. With some readjustments to the sighting knobs, the rifle was back on at 30 yards and harvested a cow caribou the next day at 260 yards. One shot, one kill, again.
Dad had two antelope doe licenses to my one. The herd was just over 300 yards out. Dad said, "watch this." He shot, and two antelope fell. He has been at this game a long and knows his rifle and bullet performance. They ran out a little farther, and he told me to hold just over the does back. I put a 120gr Barnes bullet through her heart with the perfect little 7-08 rifle. She fell over backward and lay still.
For four years of my youth, there didn't seem to be a hunt that didn't have that little beauty in it. It was the perfect caliber for everything I was hunting in my teens. Dad shot a gorgeous 6-foot cinnamon brown/black bear with the rifle. I shot a buffalo and then a black bear that ran from dad as he stalked it with his bow. Other family members and friends used this rifle in their hunting success. It is one of those guns that just flat works, and it seems you have to try if you're going to miss it. I have had a few meat-in-the-pot guns since, a Winchester Model 70 in 7mm Remington Magnum, a 27 Nosler, and a custom 6mm Remington Ackley. These are the dependable rifles that come to mind. I refuse to sell these rifles. Like a good wife, you keep them!
Since I was in high school, I have been on a quest for a 7mm-08 Remington rifle. One day, I was talking to Zach at Nosler and asked if I could get my hands on their model 48 bolt action pistol. He listed a few available calibers. I didn't hear much after he mentioned the 7mm-08. Perfection. Enough terminal performance without unmanageable recoil.
Mike Lake of Nosler designed the M48 Independence pistol. As head engineer and an avid handgun shooter, Mike's prototypes and production pistols were accurate enough to catch the market's attention. The moment I unboxed this 7-08 pistol, it captivated me. At 6.3 lbs, it is solid in the aircraft-grade aluminum stock but slings up under my arm, and I forget it is there. This rigid stock is a big part of the gun's inherent accuracy, crisp trigger, and 15-inch Shilen stainless fluted barrel. It came with a 3-port muzzle brake, reducing the shot to more noise than the kick. I wouldn't be afraid to put my 10-year-old son behind it for a shot. I love that I can throw together an arbitrary load for it, and it shoots the bullets in tight groups. Nosler sent 140gr ballistic tip bullets, and boy, are those red-headed loads pretty!
Burris scopes have been one of my go-to optics. I searched for an appropriate high-magnification scope and came up with the Burris 3-12x handgun scope. At 10 inches and 1lb, this scope balances nicely atop the M48 Independence. I shoot this pistol to 500 yards, and the magnification brings the target much closer for accurate shot placement. The downside to a 12x power pistol scope is the dynamics of eye relief. It is tricky to see through this scope at its highest magnification. The Ballistic Plex reticle is perfect for most mainstream calibers and their trajectory if you understand it. Simple hash marks for those of us who aren't so great at holdover guesstimating.
On my 1st day hunting with this gun, I was charged by a marmot that didn't survive the encounter. He ran up my pant leg; I was jumping around screaming like a large rodent was clawing around my pants when blammo! Okay, that isn't true. He was over 100 yards when I took the shot. We help ranchers and farmers out whenever we can with these hole-digging pests. I do admire their yellow and black mottled beauty, though!
I took this 7-08 pistol to the family farm this winter and hunted the grasslands for whitetails. With antlers possibly stunted by a dry year, finding a decent-looking buck wasn't proving easy. One day, the wind was howling, and I knew the deer would hide in every sheltered spot during mid-day. I crept slowly along. Peering over a small hill, I spotted a little buck. I melted into the grass and dropped my gear. Belly crawling, I wiggled up to the top of the hill next to a yucca plant and peered through the edge of it. There were multiple deer, a mere 30 yards, in the thicket. Stark white tines were weaving through the limbs as my buck walked around checking on his does before laying back down. I laid there, there, and - you get the point. I don't know how long I was there, but it had to be close to 3 hours. The brush where the buck hid was so thick there was no shot.
The small herd got out of their beds 20 minutes before dark and headed out the far side of the brush. Crud! I gathered my gear from the grass and quietly headed through the brush after them. They were 200+ yards and getting farther out as I propped my pack up in the wheat stubble, slid the 7-08 over the pack, and ranged the buck. He was about to hit 350 yards. I held the appropriate marks above and below his chest and squeezed the trigger. He faltered, jumped, spun, and ran for the fence. Failing to jump, he crashed into the fence and fell to the ground. That was it. The little 7mm cartridge did it again — a quick kill on a beautiful animal. Time will tell if this pistol will be another meat-in-the-pot gun as it has just begun its trials. If I do my part, she will do just fine.