Now ere talking single shot rifles here, Not semi auto, tactital etc.
Much heavier(maybe two - three pound)and far.far more expensive. Also many tactical rifles have adjustable trigger, down to a few ounces which is just plain dangerous for hunting purposes.
The firearm is only as good as the shooter when it comes down to the actual shot.
Oh ya, by the way: You buddies would tease the crap out of you if you hunted with a tactical sniper rifle, to the point that I could almost seeing you throwing it in the deepest part of the nearest lake....

Oh ya, you mentioned synthetic stocks too.
Synthetic ls lighter than wood and will increase the Free energy Recoil. I heard of synthetic stocks cracking and breaking in the cold but I have no personal experience with that.....

The use of tactical rifles in the U.S. hunting field has been around since the bull barrels began. Police and military snipers do not keep there triggers that light, some target shooters do and there are very few U.S. rifles on the market that are not adjustable. Weight, and barrel lenght (26 inches or longer) is normally an issue. My first sniper rifle weight was about 16 lbs. loaded with sling and bypod. It turned into a heavey hunk of metal when doing 1000 yard stalks in training. I then switched to the Rem 700 LTR (20 inch barrel) and fell in love. It's right at 10 lbs. fully loaded with sling and by-pod. It shoots like a champ and kills what ever I'm killing very effectively. I know many people who are not snipers and hunt with a tac rig. If it's what you into go for it.

been reading field n stream... a guy took his (tactical) rifle on a hunt and
left it by the wood stove. anyway i guess the synthetic stock melted and left
him w/o for the rest of the hunt. hey at least a wood stock could be traded
for some firewood

I've heard of wood stocks getting wet, swelling and causing accuracy problems. Also heard of wood stocks getting wet then freezing and cracking.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally flawed with using a tactical rifle (where legal) for hunting - a good hunting rifle does not necessarily make a good tactical rifle (as the Canadian troops in WW1 learned of their Ross rifles).

My experience with tactical rifles (C7 - Canadianized M16) is that they are not designed to place one, accurate shot into an animal. They are designed first and foremost: to be reliable under extreme conditions, to be capable of a relatively high rate fire, to be easily maintained in the field by minimally trained people (not implying troops aren't well trained in weapons, but you don't want a rifle that requires a gunsmith-level of knowledge to field clean it either), and to be mass-produced with readily interchangeable parts.

Accuracy, while important is generally traded for reliability and rate of fire. This is not to say that with practice accurate shooting with a tactical rifle isn't possible, but I'll also bet that a shooter will be more accurate with a hunting rifle than a tactical one.

Saskie summed things up pretty well.

As a former trainer of snipers, I still go through the actions of all my hunting rifles and shotguns - improving their accuracy greatly with 2 3/4 - 3 pound triggers and etc.....

While an ever-growing number of hunters are using military derived semi-autos in the field, they are usually the ones who most hunters don't want to be around due to safety concerns.

Commando wanabee's usually hunt with "spray and pray" methods, with careful shot placement / stalking being thrown out the window. While this may be the general rule of thumb, there are a select few who use their tactical background for enhanced ethical hunting.

Breath
Relax
Aim
Sight
Squeeze

Wait one minute people. Are we talking about high cap military/police machine guns or sniper type rifles. My comments were about sniper/tacitcal rifles. Saskie, if you don't think the Ross rifle was effective I sugest you read "A Rifleman Goes to War". 147 who/what/when did you train snipers? I'm currently a poilce sniper instructor thru H&K and NRA. Would love to share some stories.

The Ross was a beautiful rifle, several Bisley's were won with it. and it was very highly thought of until it was tried in combat. Apparently it wasn't up to the challenge of sustained rapid fire under field conditions and jammed up solid. My point was that a good target rifle doesn't necessarily make a good hunting rifle which doesn't neccessarily make a good tactical rifle. That's like comparing apples and oranges.