We lived in Utah but my Dad ran a cattle ranch in Wyoming with his brother. Anytime my Dad felt like going up to work on the ranch he'd take my brother and I. He'd give us a brick of 500 rounds for the day and tell us to meet him back at the barns at 6 for dinner.

We'd roam the ranch and usually burn through all of the ammo by dinner time on ground squirrels. We could set up at a good spot on a fence post and shoot 20-30 squirrels in an hour, then move a few hundred yards and repeat. It's a tack driver - but it's for sentimentality reasons I'll never sell it. Here's a pic of the same make/model.



But, my favorite rifle is my Weatherby Vanguard in 243 win. I bought it back when I was working at a gun shop in Utah. Weatherby made two versions of the rifle, one in stainless with a black stock, and one with a blued finish and a tan stock. We had the tan version in the store, but I wanted the stainless version. I looked high and low for one, I searched online, I searched locally, I even checked all our distributors and suppliers and COULD NOT find it. So I "settled" on the tan one we had in the store.

Tan stock with blued barrel version:


Stainless and black version here:


I kid you not, a WEEK later I found one in stainless. Being the nice guy I am I told my cousin/main hunting buddy about it and he bought it.

He still has his, I still have mine. I've killed coyotes and lots of small varmints with it, as well as 8 antelope and 4 deer. This year I killed my first whitetail buck with it, and my HCBW used it to kill her first big game animal. It's a perfect fit and feel for me, one I'll never sell.