What Do I Mean by a Thumper?
There’s a place for a certain kind of rifle: Short, powerful, handy, not too heavy, one that can be carried and handled in tight quarters, but that hits like a Mack truck. The gun press has traditionally called these “brush guns.” I call them thumpers.
My first rifle along these lines met most of the requirements, but with only a moderate power level: a Marlin 336 in .30 WCF (.30-30 Winchester), short, handy, not too heavy, and easy to carry and handle in tight quarters. There’s hardly a better rifle for whitetail deer in heavy timber than a level-action .30-30, be it a Marlin 336, a Henry, or the immortal Model 1894 Winchester. But while the .30-30 is good for deer, when I moved to Colorado and started going out after elk, I decided I needed a thumper with more oomph.
My first attempt was a little short of ideal. I had a 1910 98 Mauser small ring action, and I had it fitted out with a 16” light sporter barrel in .308 Winchester, and kitted it out with a lovely, slim, English-style stock in some nice American black walnut. With a 1.5-5x variable scope mounted, it weighed a little under seven pounds and was great to carry – but not too fun to shoot. That slim little English-style gun had a narrow butt, and with that lightweight rifle, what you got was a piece that kicked like a mule. It was pretty but no fun to shoot, so I traded it away.
Later, I picked up one of the first 1895G Marlin “Guide Guns” in .45-70, with a wider butt and muzzle porting that looked like it belonged on a tank cannon. This thing still packs a wallop on both ends, and that’s what I wanted; it was also easier on the shoulder than that old Mauser. I call it the Bullwhacker.
Thus began my interest in thumpers. So, let’s look at a few of the rifles that, at least for me, come to mind when talk turns to brush guns.
Some Great Brush Rifles
There are probably newer examples, including AR-15 pattern uppers for cartridges that meet the thumper criteria, but I’m going to keep it old school. Here, just to keep the list reasonable, are four, ranging in power from moderate to walloping.
The Ruger 44 Carbine. If you’re familiar with this one, you’ll have noted its resemblance to Ruger’s more famous and far more numerous model, the Ruger 10/22. But the Model 44 actually predates the 10/22, and lent some of its design to the more famous rimfire rifle. This one’s moderate in the power range for a rifle, but it was very short and very handy; a friend of mine had one and loved it for skulking about for whitetails in dense cover or ambushing them along game trails. It was not, however, a huge commercial success, being made from 1960 to 1985, with only about 250,000 built.
The 1894 Winchester/Marlin 336. We could lump in any lever-action .30-30 in this group, including replicas and the various efforts of the new Henry company. Mine’s a Marlin 336, one of the older models without the idiotic cross-bolt hammer-block safety, which strikes me as lawyerly pettifoggery. But these guns remain as they are: great close-quarters guns, and ones that regularly outperform what people expect of the relatively mid-range cartridge.
The Remington 600/660. This was a push-feed bolt gun broadly similar to the Model 700, but available only in a short-action version. It’s a little odd-looking by today’s standards, with its obvious ventilated rib; rumor has it that this was designed to be a guide rifle, but I’ve never heard that confirmed by anyone in the know. While this rifle was chambered in a range of rounds, from the .222 Remington on up, its place in brush-gun history comes when it’s paired with the bruising .350 Remington Magnum.
The Marlin 1895G/Henry H10 Explorer. This is another one I have personal experience with, as noted above. The Marlin and the Henry are tough modern lever actions made of good steel, and will handle loads far tougher than most factory loads, which are still loaded to 19th-century specs, in case they find their way into an old trapdoor Springfield or something along those lines. But any of the ammo specifically made for modern guns, or a hot handload, and these guns start moving into .458 Winchester territory. You don’t want to shoot one off the bench for a hundred rounds, but if you’re facing an angry grizzly at spitting distance, this is the gun for the job.
Some Great Brush CartridgesWe’ll start with the one I mentioned earlier, the .30-30, which is a round that frequently punches way above its weight class. Here in Alaska, many a moose has been brought down by a Winchester or Marlin in .30-30, and if I have to dispatch a critter on my own place, one of the two guns I keep handy for that task is my old Marlin 336 in that fine old round. With modern ammo, and at moderate ranges, it’s capable of dealing with some pretty big critters. I’ve heard it is said that more deer have been killed with the .30-30 than with any other rifle cartridge. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure wouldn’t surprise me.
But now that we have given the .30-30 its due respect, let’s look at the bruisers.
.45-70 Government/.444 Marlin. The original loading of the .45-70 cartridge, as adopted by the U.S. Army in 1873, was a 405-grain bullet over 70 grains of black powder, and it was a tough round then. Marlin then brought out the Model 1895, chambered in this round, and a counterpart, the Model 444, chambered in their proprietary .444 Marlin cartridge. There isn’t a lot of daylight between the two and the Model 1895 and the Model 444 are as near identical as makes no difference. Both are heavy hitters at moderate ranges, although early loads for the .444 were hampered by being loaded with too light a bullet to drive through a big, tough critter.
.358 Winchester. I’ve always thought this was one of the best short-range, heavy cover rounds available. It’s based on the .308 Winchester case necked up to take a .358 bullet; the factory loads launch a 200-grain pill at 2,500 feet per second (fps) give or take. It’s great medicine for close to medium-range shots on game up to and including elk and moose.
If I could find a way to convert an old Winchester 100 to .358 Winchester, I’d do it in a moment. That would be a great heavy cover rig for elk, moose and bear.
.350 Remington Magnum. We mentioned the Model 600 Remington above, and paired with this round, you had a world-beater that also gave your shooting shoulder a workout. It was never a sales success, and Remington stopped chambering guns for it in 1974, only nine years after its 1965 introduction. But you still find people showing it, and a short-action carbine that tosses a 250-grain bullet at 2,600 fps is pretty good medicine.
12-gauge slug. If you need something big that’s at close range, put down, and I mean now, it’s hard to hit much harder than a 12-gauge slug. Inside of a hundred yards, the old Foster-style slugs hit like a freight train, and with modern sabot rounds, the reach of a modern shotgun with a slug barrel can reach out to 200 yards and can handle any game animal on the North American continent within that range.
When You Need One, Nothing Else Will Do
Whether you are looking for whitetails in timber, elk in the dark forest benches in Colorado, or grizzlies or moose in an alder thicket in Alaska, there’s always going to be a place for the rifles I call thumpers. The four rifles and several cartridges I mention here only scratch the surface; there are plenty more short, handy rifles that hit like a freight train on a steep downhill grade. And isn’t talking about the pros and cons of guns like this one of the most fun things for shooters and gun cranks to do, after all?
Of course, if you want to go all out…
