Lighter calibre hunting rifle??

Dear Sir,

I have been reading this forum for quite a while now trying to find a suitable calibre for long range hunting. Now, so far I see a lot of them are 7mm Rem Mag and above. There are good calibre but I am not prepared to put anymore money into my dentist's pocket while practising/target shooting before I confront the real hunting. I quite like the idea of 6.5x284 using 140 grains bullet. Any advice as to gun/bullet/optic combination will be most grateful. Range not past 1000m. Rifle cannot be too heavy as there will be fair bit of walking, mostly up hill. Cheers!

[sewwhat89]

I guess it depends on what game you are after too. What is your intended quarry? You may want to look at the 6.5x47 Lapua. It will top 6mmBR ballistics, and come close to matching 260 Rem velocities in a more compact package. If you are looking at bigger game, consider a 7 WSM with a muzzle break if recoil sensitive. That will easily get you to 1000m using 162 gr Hornady up to 180 gr Bergers.

[Mysticplayer]

How about a 270 and 150gr SST at 2950fps? That'll work.

Jerry