Has the 30-06 died along with the .308 ???

I think that the 30-06 is about the biggest cartridge the "average" shooter can handle in an off-the-shelf rifle of standard weight, and it will handily knock down anything he's likely to shoot with it on this continent. The long history as a military round ( just like the 308 ) is another thing it has going for it, and the availability of military surplus ammo used to be a big selling point. The guy who only shoots two boxes of cartridges per year can afford to feed it and still have enough cash for a case of beer to take to camp that weekend. There's a ton of casual shooters/hunters out there, and it works well - even with ordinary bullets.

I grew up in the era of the one-rifle hunter, and darn near everybody was shooting 30-caliber in those days. The story was that if you ever go west to hunt elk, or north for moose, the '06 is big enough - and it will certainly kill our skinny little whitetails handily enough. I think that everybody understood that it was way more horsepower than needed for deer, but there was always that "all-around rifle" concept being discussed around the hunting camp card table. I don't know anybody who didn't dream of hunting bigger animals in some far-away place some day, and this is what I think fueled the popularity of these cartridges. Having Grampa's 30-06 handed down to Junior didn't hurt its popularity any, either.
WELL STATED. Where I grew up in the hills/mountains of Southern Oregon - back in the day - we had 300 pound Mulies - graded by weight for the freezer - not racks. :)
My trust .32 Winchester Special would handle them (170 grain soft nosed Silvertips at a pedestrian 2,200 fps) while dad carried the Sporterized Springfield - 30.06 - for long shots - uncommon though in our thick timber.
 
WELL STATED. Where I grew up in the hills/mountains of Southern Oregon - back in the day - we had 300 pound Mulies - graded by weight for the freezer - not racks. :)
My trust .32 Winchester Special would handle them (170 grain soft nosed Silvertips at a pedestrian 2,200 fps) while dad carried the Sporterized Springfield - 30.06 - for long shots - uncommon though in our thick timber.
And you're right about only using a couple of boxes of shells a year. We would sight in the rifles in the fall - then hunt - and for the rest of the ear - I kept my marksmanship skills sharp with my ole Benjamin pump pellet gun. :) Sparrows - beware. !!!
 
The 30-06 is still plenty popular, but . . .

Now-a-days, with modern powders and modern bullets, it is pretty much never the best choice. You want an all-around cartridge? - 7mm-08, 270Win, 308Win, etc., are better choices. These all get the same job done with less recoil, and/or comes in a smaller package, that will, again, get the same job done.

Most people are hunting whitetail deer, mule deer, and antelope, with their rifles. The 30-06 is way more bullet than needed for any of these creatures. Why do folks insist on beating themselves up just to blast their 120lb whitetail into the next county with a 30-06?

Step up to elk-size game and/or longer ranges, and there are still much better choices than the 30-06. The 300WSM and 7mmWSM are just two of many examples where you get sufficient killing power with flatter trajectory and handier rifles.

The *only* reason why the 30-06 is still around has nothing to do with its ballistics. It is simply because it was adopted by the U.S. military, and so there are legions of cheap rifles chambered in it, and legions of ex-service members who love the nostalgia of the cartridge.

JMHO

Or you can load 125's at 2500-2600 ft/sec for whitetails and load 200's at 2700 ft/sec. Both of these are available in off the shelf loads at that. Versatility is why the 06 will never die. That and it hits hard and flies flat with modern bullets 😁😁
 
WELL STATED. Where I grew up in the hills/mountains of Southern Oregon - back in the day - we had 300 pound Mulies - graded by weight for the freezer - not racks. :)
My trust .32 Winchester Special would handle them (170 grain soft nosed Silvertips at a pedestrian 2,200 fps) while dad carried the Sporterized Springfield - 30.06 - for long shots - uncommon though in our thick timber.

Tom,

I have hunted in southern Oregon for a couple of decades, but over on the west side where the blacktails live. Heavily forested there, too. A big one there is a full 100 pounds smaller than what you're describing, and I have shot a lot of them, mostly with the 30-06. I've also shot some big mulies elsewhere like your 300-pounders with the same rifle, and while it's un-necessarily powerful, it sure got the job done - near and far. A 243 or 257 would have been plenty of medicine for all of them, but I was so attached to my elk rifle that I used it for everything with hooves.

Most of the blacktails I shot with that rifle would have been just as handily shot with my old 30-30, and I did shoot a few with the muzzleloader - all at close range. One even met his maker about 30 yards off the end of my slug gun, which I have used to shoot dozens of Minnesota whitetails with. ( Some of those were Nimitz-class animals, like your mulies. We weighed two of them at a taxidermist's shop, and their field-dressed weights were in the mid-240's.) That particular buck was an unusually large specimen, and we all suspected that it was part mulie - what they call a bench-leg buck in that region. ( Its facial markings were pure blacktail, as was his tail. He didn't have mule deer ears, either, but he was really big and built like a pony.) He was shot on the edge of town, where he was busy chasing the does that were camped out between the houses adjacent to the pear orchards.

As for your dad's sporterized Springfield, I couldn't tell you how many of those passed though our old Pennsylvania hunting camp. He and his rifle would have fit right in there. So would you with your 32 Special. Lots of us used Winchester & Marlin lever-action 30-30's. Several guys carried 99 Savages - one in 303; the rest were 300 Savages. Most of the guys favored the heavier bullets for those cartridges, and we rarely shot further than 100 yards. Occasionally somebody would get a longer shot down a power line right-of-way, but mostly it was close shooting in heavy timber & brush. My old uncle had an Enfield '06, which was the first full-sized rifle I ever shot as a kid. It was so heavy that the recoil wasn't a problem, even for a skinny little 96-pounder like I was at the time. My current '06 is also pretty heavy - it's built on an Argentine Mauser action, and scales a bit over nine pounds field-ready. I have been using a Dakota single shot lately, since it is a couple of pounds lighter to carry. It's a 280, much like shooting a 30-06 with lighter bullets. Once I got used to the 30-06 trajectory, I've found it hard to switch and learn a new set of numbers. I guess I'm a little set in my ways, or maybe laziness is setting in as I grow older ………...

Nick
 
sounds like you are comfortable not lazy or set in your ways to much and there is nothing more deadly than a man comfortable with his rifle
 
sounds like you are comfortable not lazy or set in your ways to much and there is nothing more deadly than a man comfortable with his rifle

I'm not yet as comfortable with the new 280 as I am with the old '06, but I'm warming up to it pretty quickly. It carries a lot more easily, and it's a good shooter. Recoil is about the same, even though the bullets are 40 grains lighter. This is due to the lighter overall weight of the rifle, I'm sure. It's a comfortable level of recoil, so I'm happy with that. The rifle has a different feel to it - more like a good-fitting bird gun as it comes to the shoulder. I think the shortness of the action ( relative to a bolt-action ) is the reason for that. The 280's trajectory is a little flatter than the 30-06, but not enough to make me have to re-figure everything I've ever learned. I have also not missed having extra rounds waiting in the magazine, but I may one day appreciate the handiness of a repeater. Most of the time, the first round is the one that puts the bambi-burgers in the freezer.
 
Aye Corona! If someone had told me the 30-06 was dead, I wouldn't have wasted my money on this new Sauer 100. And not only that but Federal doesn't make these 180 GameKings anymore, so now what am I going to do with this outdated chambered gun once I run out of this box of GameKings?
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Aye Corona! If someone had told me the 30-06 was dead, I wouldn't have wasted my money on this new Sauer 100. And not only that but Federal doesn't make these 180 GameKings anymore, so now what am I going to do with this outdated chambered gun once I run out of this box of GameKings?
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You'll think of something, I'm sure. I think that your "out-dated" 30-06 may still be a useful chambering. Maybe there is still a useful load available for this cartridge. I started shooting the Superformance GMX load from Hornady ( 165-grain ) when I ran out of the old Federal High Energy loads, and they are top-notch performers - fast, accurate, excellent terminal performance. Let us know if you find anything we might want to know about. Good luck !!!
 
I have heard good things about the sraball6.5 in the 30-06 I have not tried it and probably will not but if you have some it may be worth looking at
 
I for one am absolutely elated that I went with an '06 last year for my first centerfire.

I can practice shooting 3x as often using the hunting bullets I use because they're cheap. I don't have to buy the expensive $0.70 bullets! They wouldn't work out of a 300wm or similar because they would explode on the skin of an elk. But at '06 speeds, it sounds like they work extremely well on elk, and of course deer.
 
I have heard good things about the sraball6.5 in the 30-06 I have not tried it and probably will not but if you have some it may be worth looking at

I've used several pounds of it with 150gr bullets. I found a couple of great groups with it. But I think the speeds were better when using a magnum primer and being near max charge. It is also very very dirty.

I think it would be great in an '06 with 180-200gr bullets.
 
The "outdated 30-06" view landed me this deal. A 1951 National Match M70 rebarreled for what I can presume was Palma since it's 1-13 twist. $550 and minor elbow grease. Shoots 4064 and Staball6.5 well with hornady 155s. 4 shots with Staball 155s at 500 with the redfield sights.
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The older I get the more I wish I would have just stuck with the 06 from my teens. Still have it,still love it but have been through who knows how many other guns since then. I can only imagine how much better I d shoot it if all my shooting had been with it! Yep couldn't do much shooting last year so come deer season I grabbed it and when I saw the deer i was after boom,deer down. -- hate to admit it but the old 06 failed me! Deer jumped back up and was gone. Range was a guestimated 300 yards. Heard it hit watched deer drop. One little bit of blood and two drops after that. Yep it failed me for sure! Went home shot it and it was dead on at 100----not my normal 250 zero! I had changed scopes and forgot to put it where it should be. Broke the front leg from low impact. Well ok maybe it didn't fail me,guess I failed it!
 
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