Hi,
I've been looking around at the old threads for a while, lots of good stuff. I'm moving to northern Washington soon and I'd like to set up a new deer rifle for mule deer and maybe blacktail. I'm thinking about getting a stainless Handi in .270 and putting an Elite 4200 2.5-10x40 on it. Does that sound like a good set up for the wet country? I've been shooting for a couple of years, but I've never hunted. I thought a .270 would be a good compromise between accuracy, power, and not too much recoil for a new hunter, and there seems to be a lot more factory loads available for it than the smaller calibers (I'm not a handloader). It would only be for deer, nothing bigger. I've been reading all the books and magazines I can get my hands on, taken the hunter safety course, but I don't have any friends that are into guns or hunting. And I can't afford guided hunts, so I'll have to hunt solo and learn on my own. That's why I'm doing so much reading. I have a fair idea of the basics, but no real experience. I won't have time to hunt this coming season with moving and finding a new job, so I'll have plenty of time to get familiar with the rifle for next year.
I know I'll have to do some tweaking to improve it a bit, but what kind of out-of-the-box accuracy can I expect from a .270 Handi? Does it have the correct twist to stabilize heavier bullets, like 150 grains? Also, I heard about a factory trigger job, but there's no mention of that in the current catalog. What are the details about this? Thanks.