This is probably an age based thing, far outside the realm of the modern sporting rifle or even the modern bolt action rifles of the last half of the previous century.
I have a couple of favorite cartridges and rifles that are hold overs from two centuries back.
RandyT has put his 30-40 Krag up for discussion and we even had a talk about the 1894 Winchester recently. It brought to mind the assortment of rifles I have bought on the cheap over the years and really fell in love with, even though they do not have the "performance capabilities" of a "modern" cartridge.
It was while some of us were in our teens and twenties when many of these rifles were shipped to the U.S. by the thousands and sold as cheap surplus at prices we will never see again.
I bought my first Mauser for $18.95 out of a wooden barrel at a discount store. No paperwork existed in those days and if you were taller than the rifle you could buy one! Enfields were $25, Italian Carcanos were $10-$12, you could not give away a Mosin.
Cheap enough for a hard working young father to buy without taking food off the table, with the promise of actually putting more food on the table than it cost. The first hundred pounds of deer meat paid for the rifle, even when hamburger was $0.39 a pound.
My favorites are still the 7x57 on the small ring Mauser frame and the Lee Enfield in .303. Got one of those as my avatar.
Yea I shoot a lot of 7.62x54 out of the Mosins, but they are not my favorites. They were just there, and cheap at the time.
