John W
For long term road trips, this is what I did.
Thursday, July 23, 2026, 08:25

In the past when I had the entire summer off, I'd go on a western road trip/varmint hunt.

Since I wanted to minimize the amount of things on a trip I settled on the following:

1. One good big bore sixgun like a Ruger Redhawk in 44 magnum.
2. TC Contender with two barrels. One would be a Super 14 in 223 and the other a Super 14 in 22 WRM. Both with variable scopes.
3. A Ruger Single Six 22/22WRM convertible revolver.
4. A Ruger SP 101 snub nose 357 for days when I needed to carry concealed.

Now. In the future I plan to do a kind of long term camping and hunt trip.

1. Glock M40 in 10mm( I know some are wailing and grinding teeth at that statement)
2. Ruger Mk4 Lite with five spare magazines.
3. TC Encore with a 15 inch 3006 factory barrel and a Leupold variable handgun scope mounted on it. This would be the main hunting gun. I would take my 20 gauge barrel and stock set up so I could do some upland bird hunting. A lot of people do not realize that the western states have some great bird hunting with matching scenery.
4.TC Contender with two barrels. Super 14 in 22 WRM which is going to get trimmed to 12 inches and threaded for a Sig suppressor. A Super 14 .410 barrel for some fun small game hunting like blue grouse.
5. Sig Sauer P365 for CCW.

I could see another Encore barrel but the 3006 is pretty versatile. I can use it for antelope and deer sized game as well as hunting large varmints like coyote and wolf( Wyoming lists the introduced wolves outside of the NW portion of the state as a varmint like the common coyote) .

Just my honest opinion and what I have done in the past.