Loadouts

[Zero]

I've only had the game for 4 days and I'm enjoying it. I tried finding loadout advice by googling it and did find some lists of what different people carry on a hunt. The thing I noticed was a lot of people said they carried both the MN1890 and the 30-06.

Now I am not criticizing their choice or anything, but I'm not sure I understand why they carry both? One covers class 3-7 and the other 4-8, why take two weapons with so much class overlap instead of choosing one or the other and picking up another gun that covers higher or lower?

[Mr. Ed]

Let's say you are starting out in LL. You've got ducks, coyotes, Black and Whitetail deer, Black Bears, Moose and Elk scattered about on the map. Until recently the MN 1890 could be safely used on Coyotes and preformed significantly better than the .243 but that has changed. The MN is now too large for coyotes (you will fail the harvest check). Many hunters, myself included, are now forced back into carrying the .243 if we desire to harvest coyotes and leave the MN at home.
The 30.06 is free with the right DLC and can be safely used on CL 4-8 animals. So starting a new game on LL it's the .22 for ducks and rabbits, the .243 for Coyotes and the 30.06 for anything else that moves. This same load out will also enable you to pass the harvest check for all animals on the Hirschfeld reserve except for Bison (which are CL 9).

You can kill a Black Bear, Elk or Red Deer with the .243 but you will be spending considerably more time following blood trails than you would if you'd shot them with the 30.06 It all comes down to penetration. Both lungs good, one lung not so good. The benefit of expansion over penetration has largely been negated since how long it takes an animal to die no longer effects the score of the animal.

Last tip: Using the 30.06 on a Moose calls for a heart shot. Going for the lungs will only hit one lung no matter what. IF you can get perfectly perpendicular to the animal I'd use a soft point bullet if the shot were under 150 meters. Since you're only going to get one lung then it makes sense to make as big a hole in it as you can. Myself, I prefer to leave Moose alone until I can get the cash to buy the .338 or the .300

[Mr L]

Moose are last on my list to harvest. What Mr Ed said is spot on. And I don't feel it's worth spending the money on the 300 for Moose. The cash back on Moose are not that high. And that rifle is spendy.
At times I use the 30.06 on them with pretty good results.

[Zero]

Right now I've got the .22LR pistol for rabbits and waterfowl I might stumble across, the .243 for coyotes, blacktail, and whitetail (might as well use the free ammo I started with up), and the 30-06 for bear, elk, and moose. I'm on LL right now because it seemed like the "starter" map since it was the default reserve and I see lots of people saying to start there.

I do have another question, though. Maybe the information was old but the places I was looking for tips on loadouts said that only the .22 would give integrity on red fox but the integrity chart I have says they're a class 2 animal so should be good to use the .243?

[gabcik&kubis]

Originally posted by Mr L:

Moose are last on my list to harvest. What Mr Ed said is spot on. And I don't feel it's worth spending the money on the 300 for Moose. The cash back on Moose are not that high. And that rifle is spendy.
At times I use the 30.06 on them with pretty good results.

85 vs 95 or 59 vs 72 per shot when comparing .30-06 to .300 Mag - that is around 1-2% of what you get for Moose. Ammunition rices are most of the time fairly close with few outliers. Than comes tracking time for imperfect shots and quick kill bonus on income money. So average player may even benefit from higher power rifle (while good shooter coming close get little bit more for weaker round).

Back to original question - Garand is semiauto and gives you upper Class range, Solokhin allows you to shoot Class 3. So they are complementary - sort of - and 7,62x57R may have better effect on Class 3 animals than .243. Much depends on what you hunt - which Classes. If you do not need class 2 nor 9 or have something else for them, than more powerful round, better killing power or more bleeding. Thus this Combo makes sense.
It is also about preferences distance to animal and DLCs owned - i.e. myself I most of the time combine Drilling with another rifle

[Giliador]

My primary .243, 7mm and .300 I always have them in my inventory

[Zero]

Trying to shoot rabbits with the .22LR pistol tanked my accuracy so I switched to the .22LR rifle. Which is a shame because I was hoping to use the pistol to up my handgun score.

Still hoping to know if the .243 works on foxes since they're considered class 2.

[Viss Valdyr]

Crossbow with all bolt types, .243 and a tripod. Callers for the reserve I am currently in.

I usually hunt crossbow only. .243 for the occasional, "meh, I try it anyway" shot.

[DanthemanBoone]

Scoped Crossbow with all ammo types. Scoped 12 gauge pump action shotgun with all ammo types. Then a rifle that covers the animals I am targeting on that reserve. Mostly use the crossbow unless the target is likely to end up diamond or better, in which case I slam them with the rifle.

[McSqurl Nugget]

Originally posted by Zero:

I do have another question, though. Maybe the information was old but the places I was looking for tips on loadouts said that only the .22 would give integrity on red fox but the integrity chart I have says they're a class 2 animal so should be good to use the .243?

.22 might give integrity on red fox, but good luck with that, unless you get a front heart shot you won't drop them and they'll run away until the stop bleeding, at least from what i've seen.

use the .243, and upgrade to the poly tips when you can. .243 is great for classes 2-4 but kinda sucks on class 5 and really sucks on class 6. same with most weapons, they're not very good for the top 2 classes they're rated for, much better (and less tracking) to switch up to the next weapon for that class.

my load out for LL is
.22 rifle (used to be the pistol but the sight bug issue made me shelf it)
.243
.30-06 or .50 cal muzzleloader w/minnie balls
.300 for moose

.300 is from the Yukon map, but totally worth the map cost and the 75k in game cost.

[Zero]

I bought the 2019 collection so I have all the current DLC.

I haven't switched to the poly tips for my .243 yet, but I've mainly only used it on coyotes. I was using it on deer but they weren't going down fast enough for my liking. The 30-06 drops them quick with a decent shot. I thought the .243 made more sense for the fox, and I'm guessing that those posts were old and outdated information.

[furious_corpse]

7mm, .243 and Compound bow with all 3 bolts...Can kill everything with the bow alone but the 7mm and .243 are great all round rifles.

[gabcik&kubis]

If you can shoot with it and get close enough I'd say bow or crossbow for possible diamond is weapon of choice. I haven't used it that much but within suggested range it always penetrated thus no flesh wound instead of the lungs (ruining your trophy check).

* You have many option to support your crossbow - 30-30 + Drilling would be probably my choice.
* Or you can take several revolvers -even 3 of them are weight of the bigger rifle.
* Muzzleloader gives you Class 3-4 range and to my experience is great rifle. Minie did great job even on Class 8 while weapons sometimes struggle when shooting at upper class limit.
* .45-70 at shorter range is also great.

I think that the most problematic are Class 1 and 2 as there are very few weapons with wider Class range including these ones and decent range.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Keep in mind that some of those recommendations, guides and videos are done before they revamped the whole scoring system and weapon classes.
MN 1890 used to be far more versatile and useful under old class system.

[McSqurl Nugget]

Originally posted by furious_corpse:

7mm, .243 and Compound bow with all 3 bolts...Can kill everything with the bow alone but the 7mm and .243 are great all round rifles.

7mm sucks. it's basically useless over class 7, 30-06 does a better job dropping animals in the same classes, and you get more rounds with the 30-06 for a follow up if you need it, or a 2nd and 3rd doe if you're grinding cash/xp. then swap to the .300 for classes 7-9.

Hell the .50 cal muzzleloader with minnie ball does a better job dropping animals than the 7mm if you really wan the challenge of a single shot.

[eagle74]

Originally posted by McSqurl Nugget:

Originally posted by furious_corpse:

7mm, .243 and Compound bow with all 3 bolts...Can kill everything with the bow alone but the 7mm and .243 are great all round rifles.

7mm sucks. it's basically useless over class 7, 30-06 does a better job dropping animals in the same classes, and you get more rounds with the 30-06 for a follow up if you need it, or a 2nd and 3rd doe if you're grinding cash/xp. then swap to the .300 for classes 7-9.

Hell the .50 cal muzzleloader with minnie ball does a better job dropping animals than the 7mm if you really wan the challenge of a single shot.

IMO the 7 mm drops elk & moose quicker than the 30-06 (M1). You won't get QK on them with either rifle, but they do not run as far when shot with the 7 mm. The reasons I tend to carry the M1 is that you get 5 rounds, it weighs less, & the performance drop off (vs the 7 mm) isn't that big.

The 50 CL outperforms either of these rifles hands down, agreed.