30-06 Ackley 24 inch barrel 700 Rem. what do you think? Likes dislikes Any pet loads?

Its a phony, won't beat the 06 by enough to justify its existence...anybody tells you different doesn't own a chrongraph...Even Ackley said that.

I have a Rem 700 with a 24" Shilen barrel in 30-06 AI. With 180 gr. Nosler partitions and 61.5 gr. of IMR 4831 I get 2890 FPS at 60,000 psi (M43). With the standard Remington 30-06 barrel I was getting about 2825 fps with the same bullet and pressure.

Check over in the Wildcats section, there's a post on this. Realistically, depending on bullet weight, you'll see 75-150 fps improvement in most barrels. The 24" barrel will help. Whether those types of improvements mean anything to you, only you can decide. There are also the points about less bolt thrust and longer case life to consider, with the Ackley version. FWIW - Dan

It's good for reduced loads. Fire factory rounds in a fire formed chamber and it cuts the pressure and velocity too!

This will impress some at the range on how much less your gun kicks now and what the cool empties look like.

I did not impress me however.

Better to chamber it to the SS99 line of cartridges. No barrel setback is reqired and a impressive increase in volume is created. The cartridges headspace on the neck mouth for the fire forming shot.

"Improved" chamberings often derive a major portion of their velocity gains due to the willingess of enthusiastic owners to increase pressure in order to reach pre-concieved notions (hopes, dreams) of increased velocities. The actual velocity gain should be in percentage just slightly less than the increase of case capacity. In the case of the '06 Improved, that would indicate a gain of perhaps 50 fps. Anything more than that is the result of more pressure.

The .30-06 has a long-enough neck that if you are willing to move the shoulder forward (along with sharpening the shoulder angle and reducing case taper), you might achieve enough increased capacity to get you 100 fps of gain. Of course, such a chamber would no longer work with factory loads as will a true "improved" chamber.

Stonecreek

In your second paragraph you have described the .30 Gibbs.

Vigillinus

It makes about as much sense as the 300wsm and there's no shortage of people buying 300 wsm's.

You just don't gain enough to justify the hassle.

Don't bother; I did, wish I hadn't. Ream it out to 30-338, 300WM, 300 Dakota, 300 RUM etc if you want velocity gains. I'd do one of the first two with a 24" if it was me...

joecool
If you want more velocity from your 30-06, just try some of the Hornady Light Magnums, or the Federal High Energy loads. If you are doing a lot of hunting that requires more power than you standard 30-06 save you rechamber money and get a bigger gun. I agree with those that have stated that it is not worth the trouble.

What I find interesting about this subject is that there seem to be a lot of shooters who claim that the 8mm-06 AI is a real kick in the pants cartridge, yet look what we have here, 95% negative reports. And what are we talking about from that point of view? .014" bullet diameter difference, go figure...

Seems to me that we have those who strongly oppose the improved cartridges and those who blow their perks out of proportion, the truth being somewhere inbetween.

I feel that if a guy can manage to get an 06 based case to produce velocities that come within about 100 fs of magnum factory loads then he would have a real sweet, efficent shooter. A keeper! Wether or not any given rifle can manage that by going AI seems to be a crap shoot though. Id say do it if you desire and give it enough barrel to reap the rewards of the extra powder.

How many of you guys who have tried the 30-06 AI tried it with Rlr 22? I would be VERY interested in knowing what that combination will produce, especially since that powder gets nearly 2900 fs from a 180 grn bullet even without an improved chamber.

What I like about the Gibbs is it is the above mentioned keeper without the crap shoot, from a velocity standpoint that is, but it has its own draw backs.

[ 11-07-2003, 07:27: Message edited by: Wstrnhuntr ]

I did try RL 22 (63.2 gr.) and out of a 24" barrel got 2850 fps at 60,000 psi (M43). As I mentioned above, I had better luck with IMR 4831.

To me, the watermark for anything beyond the regular 30-06 is a 180 grain bullet @ 3,000 fps. The 300 WSM "just" does that. As has been mentioned, other LA 300's easliy do it. A gain of 50 to 100 fps is negligable and realistically translates into nothing in the field that could ever be discerned. I suppose handloading just bores me too much to ever consider anything AI...

Playing with a regular 30/06 case and H 4831SC, I was really surprised on what increase in velocity I got, without any problem signs of pressure on the brass.

Of course some people think you go beyond what is in the reload manual you are a fool. Working up is the key.

However I have loaded up to 66 grains of H 4831 SC with a Rem 180 grain Corelokt, Winchester Brass and CCI Large Rifle primer. Accuracy was very good and the same test cases have been loaded 5 times and the primer went in as snug the 5th time as it did the first time. I won't post the velocity, as I will get the usual critics coming out of the wood work.

As PaPa Ray said, it is not worth the effort.
Just give you a round to impress the guys who really don't understand much, but really want to be able to. Will make them think you are a real astute wildcat reloader.

Instead rechamber the old '06 for a 300 H & H and be a real traditionalist.

I thought about a magnum but did not what to mess with the bolt face I know it's just a matter of opening it up but thought the 30-06 AI would be kind of fun. I have a 300win mag 300wby mag and had a 30-378 mag. Just thought maybe the AI could get close to 2900 to 3000 fps.

that's with a 180gr bullet.

Joel, 2900 fps should be doable with the 24" barrel, without much of a problem. 3000 fps on the other hand, will probably put you over pressure. That's with a 180 gr bullet. - Dan