Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Is the the 30-06 still the king of whitetail cartridges?

Field and Stream recently ran a contest pitting a bunch of different rounds to see what was the favored whitetail cartridge. It came down to the 270 and the aught six with the 30-06 winning handily. I myself am kinda partial to this round, but am curious to see what some other fellas might think is the ultimate whitetail round.

For whites only its kind of hard to beat the 270. There ain't a deer on the plant that can walk away from a well placed shot with a 130 gr. bullet.

if "king" defined as "most popular", it probably is.

I think its a gay round.

Tom your gay.... the '06 is like the .22 of centerfire rounds everyone has had one and if not your weird.

Sucker....................

The .270, .30/06, the 7mm-08 and the .308 are about the same for all intents and purposes on deer sized game.

i have read (in the gun rags for the last 10-15 years) that the 06' is the most popular "big game" cartridge in the u.s., and either #1 or 2 worldwide. with the 06' being the number one cartridge, and the deer being the number one game animal in the u.s., i'd say the 06' was the number one deer round. like ruger77 above, i prefer the 270 win for deer.

I know it isn't cool to admit it, but I still like the 30-06. Having said that, I always considered the 270Win to be the gold standard when talking about deer cartridges. I tend to shy away from both, only because I'm a rifle-nut and they are too common to get me really excited.

It must be the off season already.

There is a lot of overlap in the effect from centerfire cartridges. The 30-06 Springfield had been the primary military cartridge of the greatest nation on earth over the last century. The 06 works just fine and so would other similar rounds if they were in its place.

It may be kind of big for deer however many of us deer hunters also choose a rifle cartridge that will be adequate if we go moose, bear etc. hunting. Thus the 06!

Selecting a hunting cartridge can be a personal thing. A hunter should get what he likes then practice with it to make it work.

Yes, Id say in My neck of the woods that the 30.06 is the most popular cartridge in the Whitetail woods, it really is very hard to beat but You can say the same about at least a half dozen other cartridges..................VaHillbilly.

No doubt the '06 is the most popular big game cartidge, if it was used for everything. IMO for whitetails the .260, 7-08 or .308 are more suited...

Savage 99 got it right.

The 06 is a great cartridge for the one gun for everything type of guy. Can range way up or way down and will perform adequately to spectacularly on whatever you're using it on.

Not a big fan myself but I understand the draw of the old 06.

Although my favorite is a 30.30 the 30.06 is king today!

The 30-06 is an elk round. Whitetail deer just don't need that much killing... not that there's anything wrong with that.

Used one for years but they are now pretty much my BIG guns. I remember thinking one fine fall day, WTF do I need all this to kill a deer, and I was right.

Not that it won't work.

Scott, in this age of mega-magnums, I think it's easy to lose sight of how muscular the 30-06 is... if there ever was an "everyman's elk round", the 30-06 is it... likely the same could be said of the 7-08 and whitetail.

And with the bullets today as opposed to 30 years ago. I haven't hunted one for years but if I ever go elk hunting it will be the one going.

I do know it works on moose. Fact is I've killed from squirrels to moose with one.

If it wasn't so easy I could happily use my old 30-06 for everything.

Truth is I've got a compact edge on the way for it; I may end up doing just that. And instead of using 10 different bullets I would just run a 150TSX at 2950fps for everything.