orangediablo

Kind of doubt it....this post is over 11 years old.

Any of the above works, '06, 243, 308, 270, and 6.5 creed. They will all kill. Depending how much you are going to shoot, walk around, look at what ammo is offered for what you want to do. (target, deer...). You will see a wide range of prices between and within cartridges. If you aren't shooting more than 300 yards, my choices would be creed or 243. Everyone makes these, can find ammo anywhere, little/no recoil and kill deer as well as anything. Also, don't buy a gun from F&S, support your local gun store. Most treat you well and will have you coming back for more guns...you can't just have one.....

I have been happy enough with my Blacks to not switch from them. When we fish for eyes, I set them at 1.5-2lbs, when getting back to Lake O, we set them back to 4-5lbs and adjust from there depending what we are pulling behind them. Both seem to be good starting points for us.

I'll play devils advocate and ask at which angle do you guys sharpen your salmon knives? Obviously for something doing the skinning (like walleye, perch, etc) it may be something like 17º, but what about the blades you use (like the OP) for cruising through a bunch of slammon?

I use this guy before it gets too dull. Works great on a ton of blades. I you look, you should be able to find it for like $35 https://lansky.com/index.php/products/masters-edge/ for a quick work, i'll use what bout time posted

We need more cameras......

Be careful with the Vortex scopes. IIRC, about a year ago, they moved most of their manufacturing/assembly from Japan to China (except for their higher end scopes?). If you're dead set on Vortex, look for a used one made in Japan. I'm a fan of Leupold, especially if you sight in in once and don't touch it. If you are going to be a turret turner, get something different. If you don't know what you want, head to a store and look through as many as you can, outside if they let you under natural light. Your eyes will tell you what none of us can. For example, to my eyes, my VX3i was MUCH clearer (and better in low light, 1" tube, 40mm objective, than my Vortex PST with 30mm tube and 50mm objective). As for rifles, I'm a HUGE Tikka guy. Accurate, simple, action is smooth as a baby's ass and the best factory trigger hands down. A REALLY good guy to deal with is Doug at Cameraland. www.cameralandny.com