By Jeff Johnston, FE Hunting & Shooting Editor
Steyr’s Pro Hunter III is likely the best do-all hunting rifle you can buy for around a grand. If you’re not familiar with the rifle, or Steyr, let me briefly spin you up.
Steyr is an Austrian company from an Austrian town of the same name. It’s been making firearms since 1864; before that it was making swords and armor for knights in the middle ages. In 1887 a dude by the name Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher signed on to work there, and much of the rest is interesting, world-influencing history that you can read here. Today the company makes bolt-action rifles for hunters, tactical rifles for militaries, striker-fired handguns, and its most recognizable product, the still-futuristic-looking AUG. Every Steyr I’ve ever fired over the years has been a model of European quality and craftsmanship.
Though the term “quality” is tough to describe and evidently even tougher to produce, we all know it when we feel it, like when you slam the door of a Mercedes for the first time. Some of these traits might be described as tight—the opposite of jiggly—solid and precise in manufacture and assembly. Generally speaking, when a rifle has these traits, there’s a good chance it’s going to be accurate.
In my view the Pro Hunter, now in its third rendition, is the new rifleman’s rifle. It’s got everything hunters need with no unnecessary aesthetics, plastic parts, or gimmicks. It’s of proper weight—-not too heavy to carry yet not too light to shoot well—and it’s among the most inherently safe rifles ever made thanks to its fire-control system.
Specifically, some of those features include a stock that was smartly designed. It features an aluminum bedding chassis that provides the platform for the rifle’s accuracy. Externally it’s my idea of the perfect hunting stock with its rubberized grip panels that are quiet and easy to hold on to. I like that its forearm is squared so that it can be rested easily, yet it tapers all the way to the end so it isn’t obnoxious. If I could add one thing to it, it would be an adjustable comb because scopes have become so large and tend to sit higher in relation to the bore these days. The rifle would do well with a comb to match.
The .308 I most recently tested wore a 20-inch cold-hammer forged barrel. This type of manufacturing process is generally regarded as the best (with all things being equal) because less honing is needed to smooth out imperfections left by button rifling, but it’s also very expensive. I like the subtle hammer-spiral finish that adds some class and uniqueness. It’s threaded for a suppressor and comes with a thread protector. Most importantly, it shoots.
The Pro Hunter is magazine-fed from a detachable, four-round box. I like the fact that two tabs on either side of the magazine must be depressed to remove it (this mitigates the chance of it popping out inadvertently) and that it can be loaded by pushing it straight up rather than rocking it in. It features a stop to allow hand-feeding directly into the chamber while keeping the magazine in the well. It is much higher quality than dozens of detachable box mag rifles on the market at the moment, and you can feel it.
Its trigger is a thing of beauty, breaking at under three pounds. You won’t find a better trigger for the money. And while its safety and Safe Bolt System (SBS) is worthy of a separate story that you can read here, I’ll say that it’s probably the best of any rifle available in terms of user satisfaction (quick, quiet, intuitive) and inherent safeness. Rolled all the way back, the gun is on safe and the bolt is locked closed. Rolled one stop forward, the gun is on safe but the bolt can be worked. All the way forward is fire. What’s more, with the safety all the way back, if the bolt is pushed down fully the firing pin rotates, thereby making it incapable of striking the primer of a loaded round. It’s got some other safety features including a bolt head with multiple failsafes against catastrophic failure, but I’ll spare you those and get right into its real-world performance.
I pulled my test rifle from the box, mounted a Steiner Predator scope and a Silencerco Harvester Evo suppressor and boresighted it at 25 yards. I only tried one type of ammo, Black Hills 152-grain Dual Purpose load, because after shooting a half-inch group with my first three shots at 100 yards, I didn’t need to try other loads. I quickly walked it out to 300, shooting sub-moa groups the whole way. It is just one of those guns that’s easy to shoot with minimal recoil, and easy to shoot well, even as the barrel heats up.
The only concern I found was in mounting a scope; Because the bolt’s handle is curved and because the eyepieces of many of today’s top-end, 30mm scopes are very thick, I had to try a few scopes before I found one that allowed the bolt room to work properly without being mounted silly high. (I like my scopes mounted as low on the bore as possible.) So just be aware of this before buying a new scope and rings for it.
All in all however, if a buddy says he has about $1,000 to spend on a new rifle, I recommend the Pro Hunter III every time.
Cost: $1,000
Pros: perfect hunting rifle in size and weight; accurate; detachable box magazine; very safe; great trigger; grippy stock
Cons: wish it had an adjustable comb
