Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Long range steel 30-06

I have a M700 SPS SS I picked up from my brother in law when he quit big game hunting. It’s been collecting dust in the safe ever since.

A couple years ago I picked up a SWFA 10x on a Black Friday whim. This last fall on another whim I bought an Arken SH4 Gen2 4-16x50.

Say you’ve never dabbled in LR shooting and wanted to do something with this 30-06. Which scope would you mount?

Thoughts on a couple factory loads to get me started?

On my long range 30-06 I've got a SWFA 12X mounted with a Badger Ordnance 45 MOA rail. Enough elevation to get to a mile with a handloaded 208gr AMax at 2700 fps.

I couldn't really offer any factory load advice.

Semper Fi!
Good looking rig, Marine.

That 06 is getting it done.

Very nice.

I use a load similar to Montana Marines, 212 ELDs and use a 3-9 SS on it. Haven’t shot it past 800 yet but it’s a decent set up. Not sure what’s out there for factory 30-06 LR target ammo.

The Arken


What distance would you like to consistently hit steel at?
Will it also be used for hunting?

To the OP, SIG has, or at least did have, a 30-06 load with the Sierra 175 MatchKing that should get you to 1000 yards pretty well. 10.5 or so mils of elevation to get to 1000 yards with a 100 yard zero.
As far as the Scope, SWFA would be my choice, bit either should work as long as the turrets and reticle match (mil / mil or MOA/ MOA).

Neither the Arken or SWFA are mounted. Just sitting NIB in the safe.

I don’t have a budget for a scope. As in I’d like to use one of the two I already have.

I don’t have a distance goal. This is just for fun. If I could eventually get out to say 800 yards that would be satisfying.

No hunting, strictly steel

I see Winchester has their 190 ABLR, the Hornady 168 and 178 ELD and Federal with MK and ELDs out there. If I was trying to reach out with factory I’d grab a few of those to see what shoots.

I would try the Arken first.

Did that a few years ago with my "hunting" 700 in 06. Utilized the 10x SWFA I have, 175grn Bergers and good to go to 1K. Don`t need to be too fancy, if you can shoot.

I don't have any experience with the Arken, but I do have experience with the SWFA 10X and 12X.

So what I should have conveyed in my first post is that the SWFA 10X is a very capable long range scope. It tracks very well, and has a ton of erector travel. Also the milquad reticle is very nice.

I was just looking over the specs on that Arken. Looks pretty nice too. A lot of great features, travel, etc. A little on the heavy side at 35 ounces, but that's not really a deal-breaker on a long-range play toy.

I've compared my 4-16 to another range member's 6-24 and I definitely preferred my 4-16x50. The adjustments work great. The "glass" is OK, but I don't expect "alpha" glass at the price point. At least on my sample the distance scale on the parallax adjustment is a fairy tale.

If you wanna try out the 4-16 MM, shoot me a message, I'll gladly send it out for you to try. I think I'll go with the small variant next time. Good scopes and all but they are huge..

They are huge, but mine looks a bit less huge sitting on a Rem 700 with a 26" Varmint contour barrel in a 5R model stock.

Geez Scotty. That reminds me of you on that yellow snowmobile. I think your camera is fugged up!!! Making things look huge. Oh wait, you probably like that. ha ha.. carry on.

On to the subject of "longrange" 30-06. That would be fun, for a while.

For sure. Probably right at home there.

Live and learn.. My brother has a couple of their smaller LW ones and it's a good enough scope.

It still don't look small