I'm one of those Eastern hunters who hunts a lot of deer in shotgun-only zones. But I also wanted a rifle for the rifle zones. I ended up with a .30-06. I already had a .223 for woodchucks across open fields (not open plains, just fields). And I had a 6mm for the same sort of thing, but sold it when I needed money a while back, afterall it didn't really do anything for me the .223 would do for less. The 6 could have been a deer rifle, but it was big heavy beautiful 700 BDL with 26 inch bull barrel, not great for taking in the woods and stomping around. So, for a good deer rifle, with B-day approaching, I told the wife either a .308 or .30-06. Didn't matter much which. I knew the 06 would be better if I ever wanted moose but otherwise, and the .308 was noted for slightly less recoil, but otherwise no big difference. She came home with a Savage bolt-action 06 and I was happy as pie.

First shot it at the range, while sitting at a bench, and I thought crap it kicks like a mule. But standing up and shooting off-hand, it only kicks like a puppy dog. Same as with a 12 guage slug gun, I guess. Overall, I think the 06 kicks less, especially off-hand. But it sure ain't like a .223 when bench resting.

As for deer hunting, I opted for the 165 grain Winchester PP. Turns out, it drops deer like they're nothing. I can't imagine a deer hunting rifle being any better.

And no, contrary to another ignorant opinion that was voiced here on this subject, complete penetration and delivered energy are two entirely different aspects of killing power. They are not co-dependent. Complete penetration can be achieved, for example, with a bullet fired from a .30-30 on an elk at even 200 yards (I've seen it first-hand), yet a bullet from, let's say, a .308 Norma will likely deliver the same sort of penetration (or better), yet deliver a far harder, more decisive blow, simply because of increased velocity, and thus energy (bullet placement being equal). The rule of thumb is, double a bullet's weight and you double its energy, but double its velocity and you QUADRUPLE its energy. Physics in motion...

But let's get down to the nut-cuttin': If flatter trajectory and greater energy deliver are not important aspects of terminal performance, then why in the world would don't all .30-06 shooters everywhere dump that cartridge and simply carry a .30-30 in its stead? I'm not sure what's at play here - hypocrisy or ignorance?

That theoretical comment about 7mm magnum and .300 magnum shooters preferring such cartridges because they can't handle the recoil of a .338 is laughable. Before you indulge in generalizations you'd better know the players.... I've been a fan and user of the .338 Win. Mag. longer than I have the .300 Win. Mag., and I also have various .375s, .416s, and .458s in the safe, which I have no fear of shooting or hunting with anywhere in the world. My preference of the .300 Winchester over the .338 Winchester for general use has to do with the slightly flatter trajectory it provides with equal killing power - nothing more and nothing less.

Evidently a lot of other hunters feel the same way. All of those globe-trotting Weatherby Award winners are .300 magnum shooters almost to the man..........

AD

RMK's statement about 7mm and 300 users not being able to handle the 338 is laughable. Of course this same gentleman, on another thread, extols the virtues of a 30-06 AI over the 300 WSM because it's based on the abundant 30-06 case and nearly duplicates the ballistics of the 300 WSM, but with less powder AND NO BELT (his words, not mine). Well shucks, I didn't know my WSM had a belt. Besides, if his 30-06 is good enough, why bother with the AI... this guy's logic ain't.

BA

The 30/06 is king and not the 300 magnums because very little game is as big as an elk and most of the time few people ever need to shoot the extra 20 yards of point blank range!

The typical 30/06 does it's magic with a 22" bbl and at least a pound of weight savings.

So the average hunter is far better served by the handier and adequate rifle. For hunting much bigger game at very long range of course some other special magnum will have a edge in range but still have a disadvantage in recoil, blast, weight and cost of ammo.

My analogy of having two or more guns in the trunk and picking one or the other stands. I reach for the lighter rifle over and over again. It's more than enough for 80% of most hunting where as the .300 mags are not practical.

I am not worked up about this topic at all like some of you seem to be. Each cartridge is very good. It's just that one of them is a better choice more most of us all most all of the time. The word "king" is kind of strong. The 30/06 is not king over the .300 mag, not by a long shot but it is by far the best rifle to buy for starters.

I like my 300 Win mag in the Ruger #1. I feel that if I ever want to carry a long range rifle I have one. But on most hunts it stays home because the ligher, handier, easier to shoot 30/06 is a long range rifle also!

quote:

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Originally posted by allen day:
All of those globe-trotting Weatherby Award winners are .300 magnum shooters almost to the man.

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What a surprise! It might also surprise you to know that all the buildings that have won Lincoln Electric awards have been arc-welded steel.

The 30-06 embodies the legendary "Jack of all trades, master of none" proverb. That's not to denigrate this fine, old round. It's just to point out that for any hunt you can name I can find a better "tool" (cartridge) to get the job done.

The 30-06 is for the one-rifle hunter, or for those who want to simplify things.

Nothing wrong with that approach, just not the approach most genuine rifle loonies (myself included) want to take.

Brad

But a 22" 30/06 will cover for both the .308 carbine and the 24" .300! Now it's best to own all three but which one first is up to me. There is no doubt in my mine which one to get first and keep to the last.

Jack O'Connor said it all.

Brad

Don-
In my own circumstances, the 300 is more useful and versatile than the 30/06. It is also only 1/2 pound heavier, wearing the identical scope, sling, etc but having a 2" longer barrel. Unlike your own 300, I do not find it clumsy or slow pointing. I also know that a 30/06 would not cover for it 100% of the time, whereas it will cover for my 30/06 100% of the time.

You've obviously anoointed yourself "Omnipotent Guru". Somehow we should all feel fortunate that one so wise and learned has condescended to visit our little campfire and bestow on us his wealth of experience...

As for Allen, you don't know "Jack" about the man...

Maybe I should sell all I have, buy a 30-06 and never look back.

Tim

Buy the '06 NOW, and use it for a couple years. Once you see how good it works, THEN you can sell all the rest......and it will be so much sweeter.

GRIN

Which brings us to the brilliant, presumptive comments of you, RMK. Contrary to your erroneous speculations, stupid people don't manage to acquire much money, and if they are indeed stupid but get lucky and come upon a windfall, they don't hang onto their good fortune for very long. Fact of life.

Most of the hunting people in question here are very bright indeed, or they wouldn't have developed the sort of careers that allowed them to hunt as much as they have. All of the guys I know who have done a lot of hunting in a lot of places have earned their money through a lot of sacrifice, education, risk, hard work, and a willingness to do without for however long it took to bring their career together.

I know this, whatever I've been able to do, I've earned the old fashioned way. Since I was a teenager, I've outfitted my own mule deer, blacktail, elk, and pronghorn hunts - sometimes in two or three states in a single season. I am no stranger to any aspect of setting up and running a backcountry hunting camp or in gettin' up the mountain, so if you think I'm some pilgrim who has done nothing but hire guides, you'd better guess again.

Contray to what you might think, I have no interest in winning any sort of hunting award. I never enter any animal in any record book. I hunt for the experience of hunting and because I like to hunt - it's as simple as all that. I hunt in specific places for specific animals because I'm interested in seeing those places and in hunting those animals - not to win some "Level of Achievement" award.

I know that water always seeks its own level (law of physics - law of human nature), but it especially sounds like you're one of those people who simply can't handle anyone who hasn't exactly mirrored your own set of experiences, and you'd like to keep everyone confined to your own self-imposed set of limitations. Anything past that you want to tear down, via ignorant speculations, cheap shots, etc. - stuff a high school kid might indulge in.

I think if Jack O'Connor were alive today as a young man and had at his disposal the cartridges, rifles, optics, ammunition, and custom riflemakers that we have on the current scene, he'd change his mind about a great many things that he tried to carve in stone a generation ago. Jack, regrettably, has been gone for nearly twenty-five years, and time, hunting opportunities, and hunting conditions (as well as technology) hasn't exactly stood still.

AD

quote:

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Originally posted by Wapi-T:
So what if they took us all aside and said "You can have ONE rifle. Only ONE." What would you take?

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Wapi-T,
Can't say if you wanted anyone's opinion or were looking for specific posters only; however, on the chance it was anyones...
.338 Win. mag. for me!
best,
bhtr

Allen

The flip side to your "Why don't the 30-06 users use the 30-30 instead?" is "Why don't the 300 win users use the 300 Weatherby instead?". After all the extra energy and flatter trajectory really make the 300 weatherby much better than the 300win, right? So does this also mean the 30-378 is better than the 300 weatherby and the 300 win?

There is always something out there that hits harder and/or shoots flatter, the truth is we pick the cartridge that we feel best suits our own needs.

As far as the Weatherby award goes two of the first three were not 300 mag users.

Jason

[This message has been edited by RMK (edited 03-08-2002).]

AD [/B][/QUOTE]

I don't agree and neither did Jack O'Connor who stated that the great advances in small arms came in the first 50 years of the last century.

Even the .300 magnums were available then!

And in my beloved USA all we have is wordsmiths. We have the worst military rifle ever, have adopted an Italian sidearm and have seen almost nothing in innovation. There has been lots of marketing but nothing that really helps much.

We had a creed of real riflemen years ago. Men like Col. Crossman, Col. Townsend Whelan and Jack O'Connor. Men who took pride in a well aimed shot. Now we have the Magnum crowd.

I started to read the stuff in the "Matchking" thread and stopped really quick. You can smell the overdose of testosterone there.

My hunting partner always used a .270 pump. Worked great for him for years. Then he moved to a different town, and over the course of a couple years got new hunting friends, and a new circle. We kept in touch and still hunted together once per year. The new friends talked him into buying a .300 win. I told him it wouldn't kill a deer any faster or better, just more expensive. He borrowed his buddies and shot 1 deer, bam - flop. WOW this is the cartridge!!! I assured him the .270 would/could do the same, and that the .300 wouldn't always do that. He bought one anyway.

A year later, he told me the first deer he shot with his own .300 win was hit, but ran, and ran. I don't remember if it was a good hit, but I think it went about a half-mile.
I DO remember the sheepish look on his face,
because he remembered my words. The .300 with his $35.00 box of fail-safes was not a "miracle" gun after all.

Shot placement, my friends. Shot placement.

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I HUNT LONG RANGE.AND YES I USE MATCHKING'S.

[This message has been edited by John S (edited 03-08-2002).]

And so it goes. The so called "new" powders are only slightly slower than the old powders. And in the case of the 30/06 the real improvements have come from raising the pressure in spite of the low number Springfields.

Name one useful development by Ross Seyfried or Jim Charmichael. Maybe it's the Cheeta (a real looser).

For firearms we really need a propellant that produces a lighter gas. This is what's holding us back.

Go back to Charles Newton and the .30 Newton! Now there is an advancment. It needed only the business sense and promotion ability of Roy Weatherby and some luck and you would have skipped all those mistakes made by Roy when he copied the PMVF's.

Well at least we don't have fast draw now. It's degenerated into "tactical".

We had the .220 Swift in the ist half of the 20 Century. Where have we gone from there? Oh yes the .22-250! oops that was the .22 Varminter was it not from Gerry Gebby in the 1930's!

It's really pitiful. Get off your butts guys and invent something. We had monolithic bullets in 1885! (8mm Lebel)

The 30-06 should be off the list by now. It's not the 30/06 that's so good. It's the total lack of development!

We have shot gun loads passing out the 30/30 in peformance yet almost nothing out of rifles.

To bad Kalisnakov is not an American. They are still adopting John Browning designs!

quote:

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Originally posted by Don Martin29:
And what's really most pitiful is that the 30/06 is still really the king! Think of it, all you .300 fans here cannot argue that it's not! All you can say is that the .300 mags are better in the Rockies and are more powerful. But for the first choice for a rifle the 30/06 or a cartridge like it is still the best all around. This is really sad.

The 30-06 should be off the list by now. It's not the 30/06 that's so good. It's the total lack of development!

We have shot gun loads passing out the 30/30 in peformance yet almost nothing out of rifles.

To bad Kalisnakov is not an American. They are still adopting John Browning designs!

---

I removed the BS name calling. It's not necessary.

His hunting proceedures were simple: He knew the patterns of deer and (especially) elk in a few key areas, and he hunted these animals in pretty-much the same manner year after year. He had one pile of deadfall that he'd sit behind on opening day of elk season (he'd sit on that stand all day long), and within a day or two, a group of elk would walk by or get pushed through by other hunters, and my uncle would kill a bull - usually a spike or a raghorn - at a distance of fifty yards or thereabouts. One shot, one elk - it was a simple as that!

Now if I would have told Uncle that he should seriously consider a .300 Winchester for his elk hunting, he would have told me I was nuts, and he did! As he'd put it when I joked with him on the subject: "You can't kill an elk deader 'n dead, and that rifle I use still kills 'em dead!" And for him, that was the absolute truth - the ultimate practical reality. It was like Jack O'Connor said one time: "Experience can be narrow, though deep."

And that's what happens in these discussions all too often, everyone (and that includes me) seems to think that their own set of experiences (be they limited in scope, or extensive) should apply to everyone else across the board. The .30-06 guys who hunt deer-only and in the same places year after year swear that the '06 is all the gun anyone should ever need for all hunting, while the .300 guys (like me) try to sell that caliber class because it's worked well on elk under varied conditions, plus Alaskan and African game - especially at long range.

The '06 guys don't see how more punch and reach could ever be of any tangible advantage, and the .300 guys don't see why they should be limited to .30-06 type ballistics.

We're all prisoners of our own experiences, out own prejudices, our own limitations, our own set of heros, and our own statements of fashion. That's why this thread has run long and, at times heated!

AD

[This message has been edited by allen day (edited 03-09-2002).]

[This message has been edited by allen day (edited 03-09-2002).]

Yours in the outdoors

ABH

I wonder if the 240 grain sierra boat tail, in a rum, wouldn't approach the 338 in ballistics?

gs

You just repeated what I done already said!

Allen, Did you read what I wrote? I wonder if you can find any fault with my theory as to why the 300 win users don't use the "mighty" 300 Weatherby instead.

Jason

Incredible BC, flat, accurate, and, it moves the 300 mag out of class, into the 338-375 class, bullet weight wise.

Seems to me, Ross Seyfried built something like a 404/300 mag, and used it for mile shots.

I like that idea. It makes a substantial improvement in bullet weight, carry, and trajectory over the 06, enough to make the jump from 06 to be worth doing, don't you think?

I looked at the WinMag, and it just looks like a blown out, short action, 30-06...

What's the point?

Plus, I like big bullets, at moderate to high velocities. The 06 is weak with a
220-240 grain, under 2200 fps, isn't it?

While I'm sure the Rum could get it in the 2600fps or greater range. That should have substantial impact, at all ranges...

gs

gs

Soc-
I doubt the 240gr Sierra would offer anything over the 200gr Nosler for game shooting unless used in a 300RUM or 30/378 and then I'd be concerned about it's integrity if a really close shot was offered. Out at 300yds+ it might be fine.

John: That's exactly what I had in mind.

Didn't Saeed say the jackets are pretty thick, and Boyd have very good luck with them?
My speer book doesn't have any reloading stats on the 300 rum. Do you have any, with the 240 grain, or 200 grain bullet?

I wonder about the difference between a 200 grain partition, and a 240 grain bullet, with a BC of .7xx something.

You, the great father of the 300, should recognize this bullets BC is fantastic, and, would flatten out any trajectory, not to mention the increase in hitting power, at short range. I'm kind of curious. If you launch a 240 grain bullet, at higher speeds then in a 338, with a 300 caliber, and a nearly double the bullet BC, wouldn't that increase it's impact at shorter ranges, as well as longer ranges, and give a rather large advantage over the 300 mag?

Saeed has already said the 300 bullets are a thicker jacket then would be expected...

What's the heaviest hunting bullet avaliable in the 300 class?

Besides John, if you are shooting at less then 300 yards, you can use a 375, with a much larger bullet, and much more killing power( a REAL rifle;-)

Hey what happened to you? I expected you to be camping in the new 'Medium Bore' Forum, or be moderator. Nice of Saeed to provide you a new home:-)
Rofl

gs

gs

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I love 45
santilli@singleaction45.com

[This message has been edited by John S (edited 03-10-2002).]