Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting For guys that have owned these THREE - .270, .308, 30-06

I have owned all three. Currently I still have a .270win & .30-06, of the three you mentioned. If I could choose just one as a deer rifle it would be the .308win. I just like short action rifles better. So for me it comes down to the rifle, not so much the cartridge. Having said that I prefer my 7mm-08 Rem. over any of them.

I've owned all three and killed game with all three. I prefer the 308.

Right on.

I’ve used all three. I prefer the 270. There was a time when all 277 bullets were for a 270 win. They were designed for that velocity range. Bullets for any 30 are used for a 300 savage to a 300 wby. Hard to get the construction right. Hasbeen

Used all three and all three will kill deer equally well. A lot of others you could lump into that category.

I have all three, they are all great. I think you need all three also!

I have to respectfully disagree about the reason the 30's are still around. I have hunted since the late 60's with a number of guys who shot both of the 30's mentioned. In all these years, I know of none of them who have ever shot military ammo in them. And you would never get them to give up their rifles in those calibers. I believe that the real reason they haven't fizzled is because they work...it's just that simple.

Yeah. He's way off base even attempting to state that the 30 cals only survive due to "military ammo being cheap". He must not have heard of the 30-30 and the 300 magnums. It's also absolutely hilarious that he can only take a 308 200 yards. The same distance I can take an open sighted 30-30 to on game. It's never been tough to decipher who shoots and who doesn't.

I also disagree with the 30’s being around simply because of their military lineage. It would take most folks a lifetime of shooting to find an instance where a 30-06 or 308 weren’t enough gun if they were skilled enough. I’ve shot many deer and black bear with an ‘06 at distances ranging from feet to angling across a 40 acre field without any concerns of if I had enough gun. A lot of it done with a Ruger No.1 RSI 20” tube, moderate 150 Mag tip loads and a 3X9 Leupold. Nothing fancy just works and nothing a 308 couldn’t do. People need to stop drinking the Kool-aid of the “magnumitis” gun writers and get out and shoot. I’ve seen some awful impressive shooting done with 30-40 Krags that would be hard to top with any rifle.

This is true. Between the three pick the rifle not the cartridge. That said the short action of the 308 is more flexible regarding scope mounting.

I have shot many caliber over the 50 years of deer hunting. Lots of 30 caliber. Do not shoot military ammo in anything. One thing about shooting 30 s is you don't need to find the RIGHT bullet to kill a deer. I know of no 30 cal that won't kill a deer. No muss no fuss. Ed k

I "almost" found one....it was right at 50yrs ago too. After school one Friday, I was out of ammo so I picked up a box of Winchester 150gr Hollow Point 30-30 ammo at Western Auto. I shot at 30yds at camp that evening to see if my sights were good. later that Saturday morning I missed a spike buck on an old tram road around 75yds, he circled back around and ran right up to me, stopped at 15yds and looked at me over the palmetto ( East Tx). I could see his chest and I popped him just to the right of center. He spun and jumped and I popped him in the hips. I then ran around to him and shot him in the neck. I found the first one back toward the hams, which just made a pinhole channel, unopened. The hips/neck both exited but also made a pin hole wound channel. Even at 16yrs old ( and an avid reader who had a gun nut uncle to help!) I knew that was crap. I had to drive to Beaumont to find a store that had "my load"...the Remington 150gr Corlokt. Everyone else was sold out temporarily. I didn't even trust Silvertips after that, ha! Lots of fun... From then on, I never bought less than 2 boxes at a time and kept 50rds on hand...ever since then to, come to think about it!Oh yeah, back then, that Hollow Point "looked like" a round nose full metal jacket with a hollow point. It could have been designed for big elk maybe, but 90 pound whitetail was puddin!

I currently have multiple of all 3, and the only other caliber I own in a centerfire rifle is a 30-30. Between the 270, 30-06, 308 and even the 30-30 I have seen ZERO difference in the effects on a deer. The trajectories are a little different but they all kill about the same. When I’m still hunting I’m a little partial to my 308s because both of them have 20” barrels vs 22 or 24”.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many whitetails have fallen to the ammo they sell in the green box?!

You bet! Later in life, when the Mod 742 came out in 6mm Remington, it became 'almost mythical" in my hunting club. No one shot anything but the 100gr corlokts in them, at least that I ever saw. I was into bolt guns by then so I never tried one, though my BIL still uses his!

I still shoot them in my 25/06 and in my 270, even though I shot one the other day with Barnes ammo in my son's 270. To me, they just work!

The muss and fuss is preference , either will do the job fine . Dam it , need to go to bed , closing one eye to see the keys a good sign ?
Kenneth

Blasted these with a 308

But that's the whole point of one argument...the .308 only worked because your kills were "short range", ( the pen), ha. I had a Model 99C in .308,I traded a Mark X .458WM for, back in '82-'83. I never killed anything with it, as I hunted with a Mod 700 7 Mag all the time then, but it shot the "then new Frontier Ammo" which was the Hornady 150SP so well I never tried to handload for it. I put a Leupold 2.5 on it and it was a sweet rig. I tried to sell it, and ended up trading that thing off (w/o the scope) at a shop for a brand new RCBS Rockchucker Reloading Kit and a whole bunch of equipment with/for it. His kid wanted a 99 Savage so we both still consider it a good trade. May as well, I thought, as no one had any money to buy it from me. Oil was still about $18 a barrel then, maybe higher...but,.not much was going one in the oilfield, you remember that. I envy your hog killing time pard! Have a ball for me!

You are down to the best 3 choices for a lot of reasons, as in they are all more than adequate, all are accurate, all have good velocity, all have ammo readily available, none of the 3 have excessive recoil. All 3 are a bit of overkill for deer but that is better than underkill any day. I have used the .30-06 and .270W a lot on big hogs and deer and the .308W on a few. If they kill big hogs a deer is a piece of cake.