Any time you consider buying a new rifle there are a few main things to look at to make sure you are selecting the right rifle for your needs. How you choose a rifle plays a lot into how much you truly love your rifle.
Granted you could just go out and buy one because you want it. Not to mention the ever-popular, it was a good price and I had the money. However, if are buying a rifle because you look at them as a new tool. There are some things you should consider about selecting the right rifle before just going out and buying the one that looks nice.
Purpose
How to choose a rifle starts with knowing what’s it purpose will be. If it’s your first rifle a WWII collector grade M1 Garand may not be the best idea. So consider what you plan on using the rifle for. Are you going to use it for Hunting, target practice, long-range shooting, self-defense?
You can definitely buy one rifle to handle all of these things, but it won’t be the best at any of them. You can use your hunting rifle for self-defense, but you’d want a shorter barrel and more than a 5 round capacity for self-defense. Making a bolt action, 5 round internal box magazine hunting rifle not as good as say a semi-auto carbine with a 30 round magazine for self-defense.
The same goes for trying to use your long-range precision rifle or shooting at pop cans. Sure you’ll have no problem hitting them, however, do you really want to spend that much money on match grade ammo, in a rifle used to shoot 500-1000 yard, to shoot pop cans at 50 yards? Not when a simple .22LR would do the job at a much cheaper cost.
Action
Knowing what you want to do with your rifle is the start of how to choose a rifle. However, you’ll also need to choose an action type. There are all sorts of different action types when it comes to rifles. However, there are only a few common ones.
Break Action
Break action rifles are basically the same as a break action shotgun. The barrel is hinged and opens to expose the breech allowing you to access to load or unload one cartridge into the chamber.
They are the most durable rifle you can buy. They are almost the most simple. There is almost nothing that can go wrong with them. With almost no moving parts they can be made very compact as far as the action goes. This also means they can be very lightweight.
With all this simplicity a break action leads well to a rifle with interchangeable barrels. The most common manufacturer of interchangeable barreled rifles is Thompson Center. Having multiple barrels for one rifle allows the owner to have different calibers with the same rifle.
Lever Action
A lever-action rifle uses a lever under the trigger or integrated into the trigger guard to extract and load a new round into the chamber. Many people think of these as Cowboy guns since most cowboys carried a lever action. One of the most common manufacturers of lever-action rifles is a Henry Rifle.
A Lever action rifle’s biggest disadvantage is that they are hard to operate when in a prone position. As the lever may hit the ground before it’s fully opened. The other issue is the tubular magazines they use. Since all the bullets are loaded end to end you don’t want to have pointed bullets up against the primers for another bullet. This greatly limits the type of ammunition you can safely use in it.
The advantage of a lever-action rifle is that they are quicker to operate than a bolt action. With a simple movement of your hand, you can reload the rifle. The other big advantage is they are ambidextrous. You operate the lever with your trigger hand it doesn’t have to be your right or left hand. Making a lever-action rifle good for left-handed or right-handed shooters.
Bolt Action
A bolt action rifle is one that uses the movement of a bolt and handle to extract the round reset the trigger and load a new round. All of this is done by unlocking the bolt and pulling in backward, then pushing it forward and locking the bolt again.
Bolt action rifles can potentially achieve higher muzzle velocities and better accuracy than a semi-auto rifle. This is because all the gas from the cartridge is used to push the bullet and not move the action. Not having a moving action also lends itself to better accuracy than semi-auto rifles. Along with better accuracy bolt action rifles can also be lighter and stronger, with the potential to be cheaper. Which is why many hunters. and target shooters tend to use them.
Semi-Automatic
Semi-auto rifles cycle the action ejects the spent case and chamber a new round after every trigger pull. This means every time one round is fired the casing is ejected, the next round is loaded and the trigger is reset ready to fire again right after the trigger is pulled. There is no need for the shooter to do anything between trigger pulls.
Full-automatic rifles should never be confused with a semi-auto rifle. Full-auto rifles will keep firing rounds until the trigger is let up. Whereas semi-auto only shoots one bullet per trigger pull.
The big advantage of semi-auto rifles is that the user can quickly fire another round without having to move from their position to eject and chamber another round. This means you don’t run the risk of changing your NPOA to take a follow-up shot.
Caliber
The next step when you choose a rifle is picking a caliber. Since you already know what you are going to use the rifle for, and the action type, caliber availability is narrowed down a little bit. Since many calibers aren’t readily available is certain actions nor are very good for certain types of use.
Choosing a caliber is mostly about bullet ballistics and your intended use. If you are looking for a hunting rifle you most likely are searching for a caliber that can humanely kill the game you are hunting without damaging too much of the meat. A 50 BMG is a fun round but it isn’t going to leave much if you are hunting squirrels. Likewise, .22LR is fun for plinking and small game but don’t try to shoot a bear with it. You’ll most like just piss it off.
When selecting a caliber consider the most common calibers used for what you want to do. Then look at the ballistics and see if they match the kind of shooting you are going to be doing. A round that has 10″ of drop at 200 yards when sighted in at 100 yards may not be a good round for hunting when all your shots will be over 300 yards.
The last thing to consider when selecting a caliber is cost per round and availability. If it costs you $1 every time you pull the trigger you won’t be getting a lot of practice in with your rifle. On those same lines if you can only get ammunition at 1 place online it may not be the best thing for a hunting trip where you may lose your box of ammo and thus lose out on a great trip.
Budget
Your budget may be the most important thing as to how you choose a rifle. Mainly because looking at buying the newest and greatest rifle with all the bells and whistles in the newest and greatest caliber sounds great until you realize it’s going to cost you $3000 and you can only afford $500.
As you figure out your budget for a new gun you can start looking at who makes a rifle with the action you want in the caliber you want. Most likely you’ll have narrowed your search down to only a few rifles. Although you may find you can’t buy a rifle in the price range that you want. To which you may have to compromise on caliber or action type. Either way, once you have the rifle narrowed down to a few possible choices now the fun begins.
Fit Finish and Comfort
Since you only have a few rifles left to select from you are going to need to get to a gun store and actually look at the different options. What you are looking for is how the rifle feels in your hands? Does the stock fit you? Is the trigger nice? Are you getting your money’s worth?
If the rifle doesn’t fit you then you may want to look elsewhere. Granted you can usually change the stock out for a better one, just like you can have the trigger worked on if you don’t like it. However, do you really want to customize a brand-new rifle, or would you rather buy the rifle that fits you in the first place?
Accessories and Customization
Now that you’ve figured out how to choose a rifle you want to buy. You should do a little bit of research on parts availability and accessories for it. The last thing you want to do is buy a brand new rifle and find out that you can’t buy another magazine for it, or that they are $100 for the magazine and you only spent $200 on the rifle, to begin with. Who knows maybe you want to mount a scope on the rifle and you find out that it wasn’t designed to accept a rail or scope mounts.
No matter how perfect the rifle is for you. Eventually, you’ll want to change it a little bit. Before you buy it to make sure that you can get parts and accessories easily. Otherwise, you may be looking for a new rifle sooner than you want.
Conclusion
How to choose a rifle for your next purchase can difficult. For those who already have a few rifles, it’s a matter of what you want versus what you need, and of course what you can afford. For those who don’t have a rifle yet, it’s even harder because you don’t know what you want.
If you follow a simple order you can ease the trouble of deciding on the right rifle for your next purchase. First, start by deciding what the purpose of the rifle will be. Then you can figure out what kind of action you want. Next is the caliber you want it in, and your budget. With all those decided you should have a much easier time finding a rifle that fits your needs and wants, from the millions of various rifles manufactured these days.