Hunting Carry?

[Steve]

I have QD swivels on three rifles and two shotguns, but only three slings. There's only so much I can carry at one time :-) .

When choosing guns I did make an effort to get something light and powerful, this often equates to "painful to shoot" but not always. For example, I have a Beretta semi-auto 12g that has a recoil reduction system built in, so even though it will work fine with anything up to 3.5" cartridges it is still easy to shoot. My .308 does kick a bit, but it's an effective deer calibre so a rapid second shot is less likely to be needed than with some smaller weapons. Lastly, I have an 17HMR with plastic stock and slim barrel, it's positively featherweight and the ammo is too.

I have suffered a few scope knocks over the years, but none have caused me a problem. Bushnell make some good value kit, the "Legend" series are great value. I also looked at a lot of "Red Dot" type scopes, trying to find one that didn't have awful parallax problems, eventually found one by NCStar ( as mentioned by Mort ) that works really well.

I confess to having a bit of a scope addiction, I love buying top quality scopes second hand, the clarity and low-light performance make using them a pleasure. If I was buying a "survival" scope I would go for something simple, a fixed power 6x40 or 6x50 by a top manufacturer.