Western Montana Elk Rifle Weight

[LongWayAround]

I think you could carry just about anything for two or three miles a day.

If your backpack has a decent hip belt, look into the kifaru gun bearer. It beats the hell out of a sling.

 

[Physical_Wind954]

I think you could carry just about anything for two or three miles a day.

If your backpack has a decent hip belt, look into the kifaru gun bearer. It beats the hell out of a sling.

Will look into it, thank you for the suggestion!

 

[RockAndSage]

OP, this thread just popped up, thought it might be interesting: https://rokslide.com/forums/threads/best-sub-4lb-tripod-for-shooting-and-glassing.405195/

 

[TradLife406]

My kids elk rifle is a Sig Cross 16.5" 22 creed (Montana legal)
6-24 Arken epl4 with UM rings
Just under 10lb

My gun is a 22" UM tikka with a maven rs1.2 that's just under 10lb.

That 9-10lb is a good weight. Can still shoot it easily and isn't too heavy.

Kids gun might get heavy for her but that's because she has a bunch of cool rocks and books in her pack

 

[Klbeeks]

Yeah, just replaced the VX3HD with the NXS last week.

I'll look into tripods.

Santa claus optics has a couple pretty nice tripods.

 

[43.6N]

I think hunting as you are is the call.
Don’t change anything until after the season.
Take stock of what worked, what was heavy, what you liked, and what could have been better.

I am personally a fan of slings on rifles. My current backpack is an initial ascent. The carbon fiber frame has a neat hook at the level of my shoulder that grabs the sling if I choose to use it.

On a 13 mile 4k elevation change day last week, being able to off load the weight of my rifle onto my pack on the fly was very welcome.

Otherwise, looking over your rig, I think a shorter barrel would be the only place I would recommend cutting weight. 16-18” with suppressor is a nice place to be.

 

[elsb0048]

If you find yourself doing much still hunting in the timber (which I do quite a bit for elk) I'm a fan of the boonie packer safari slings.

Nice to distribute the weight across both shoulders and also not worry about the rifle slipping off of one. Rifle always safe and secure and doesn't disrupt my arms at all for getting the binos up.

They're not for everyone and may leave some to be desired as an aid for positional in the 200-300yd range. But to enable quick shots inside 100yds they're nice.

In very steep country I strap the rifle to the pack. So it bounces back and forth a little throughout the day.