I managed to get my hands on Seekins’ new Havak Element in 6.5 PRC soon after it was announced, and immediately put it through the hardest tests that I could think of: I brought it with me on several hunts including Idaho mule deer and whitetail deer.
Ruger has decided to enter the light-weight, long-range hunting rifle game with their appropriately named Hawkeye Long-Range Hunter Bolt Action Rifle. This gun is designed to be accurate, lightweight, user adjustable and tough. The light profile, stainless steel barrel contributes most to this rifle’s low weight and comes chambered in the most popular 6.5 calibers.
After looking the rifle over, I was very impressed with what I saw and felt. The rifle was hefty… and I mean really hefty. The bull barrel that this gun comes with adds a lot to it, but the advantage is that you can shoot all day and not see a change in accuracy. The stock felt good to me out of the box, but with the option to change the cheek riser and length of pull (LOP from here on out) I rearranged the stock so that it fit me perfectly.
Familiarizing yourself with your weapon system components and personal marksmanship ability is the best investment that you can make to notch that tag during hunting season.
Let’s face it, in the AR-15 world it’s easy to get lost in the vanilla black-rifle weeds. We reached a saturation point of sorts with semi-auto gas-operated systems quite a while ago, especially in terms of plain black rigs offered by “manufacturers” who simply assemble branded components provided by true third-party bulk-producers. Even so, some not-so-vanilla iterations have certainly risen above the others and deserve to be called out. The Brenton USA Ranger Carbon Hunter is one of them.