The Swedish Mauser 6.5x55 is one of my favorites too. I have a custom 96 Mauser and a Sako Finn Lite in that caliber. Ya either love it or hate it but with a fixed power 8X scope it sings and puts meat in the pot.
Tell yer buddy that if he gets a ruger get the stainless version of whatever caliber he chooses. As he'll confirm ...weather up there is harsh on blued firearms and especially RUGER blue steel. I had a Winchester , Ruger and a Sako when I was stationed up there and could watch rust form on the Ruger while the other two if properly maintained were just fine. Rugers blue jobs just won't hold up to such as I experienced it. My stainless Number 1 was treated badly during some recent mud bogging and wheeling where it rode in a rack that allowed it to get plenty of exposure to dirt mud and such. I really didn't even get to detail clean it for about a week so all I could do was just wash it off with a hose and run a patch and some WD-40 that I had in the tool box over it. It was left in the rain and such and when I got home had to fly off to work for 30 days in different state.
Came home, opened the safe to go to the range and saw the little 45-70 and remembered it's rough duty.....and no bath.
Worked the action, smooth as expected from a number 1 and then took it to the range with me. Got home and detail stripped it and was really expecting some surface rust on something....anything..... but nothing. Not one spot.
I can not recommend highly enough the new ruger stainless number 1 in 45-70 to meet/meat all of a hunters needs in the lower 48 or Alaska. One other rig I have seen used up there is the Tar-Hunt series of modified 12 gauge pumps and their own boltgun designs that use 12 gauge ammo. Saw a show on the killin channel last week where thats all one hunter used was the Tar-Hunt modified Remington 870 pump. He took Bear , Moose and Caribou with it using lightfield slugs. Was impressive to watch and see.........
I like the 45-70 caliber because of it's wide assortment of possible uses as I do the 30 caliber. I recently came across a Remington 300 Ultra Mag Sendero SF deal that was too good to pass up. A buddy was getting a divorce and was dumping his guns before the wifes lawyers got em. I normally stick with 30-06 or 300 Win mag for 30 calibers but am playing around with loads for this now. It seems to prefer the 180 Nosler Partition Commercial loads to I'm tweeking that data to see how much accuracy I can milk from it. Very nice out of the box rifle....Albeit a push feed.
Oh Well gotta go fix stuff for my favorite sibling so I'm off to the Big City for a few hours.....
Stay Safe !