Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles New 30 06 owner, need bullet advice

Jarhead 88
There is real good advice in here. HOWEVER, lots of shooters "decide" what their gun WILL shoot... come Hell or high water. Let the rifle tell you what it likes that meets your acceptable standards for accuracy. I'm a huge 165 fan and use it for most applications. On the other hand my son-in-laws '06 hates the dang things and we have tried a bucket full of em factory and home rolls... nadda so he's a 150-180 man by default. We all fall into that trap....I WANT TO SHOOT XYZ and then it's the rifle's fault if we don't get off that horse. The benefit of saving money on reloading is you save money on every shot, you shoot a heck of lot more so maybe you end up in the hole. But there's some real good company in that rut so jump in too.

I loaded 165 game kings for about 10 years for my pig round in M1s and my buddies families deer rifles. That was the most erratic performing bullet I've seen. At least in 06 loads. In 308 it seemed ok.

In 06 about 50% of them worked fine. About 40% lost the cores and made some horribly big wounds. About 10% more or less didn't expand at all, and would have caliber in and either caliber or not nearly double caliber out.

Of course I think I bought 500 bullets and still probably have 150 left.... they mostly moved on from the 06 and then to barnes bullets at the same time.

Factory wise I"ve never been unhappy on mid size deer with 180 corelokts but probably have not shot more than 100 or less rounds of those over the years.

180 gr corelokts from an '06 have killed a bunch of whitetail for Dad and his friends over the years, in factory ammo or handloads.

Jarhead,
When I'm testing different ammo. I only fire once about every 3 minutes. This will give a fair comparison to the different brand of ammo. After trying out several kinds of ammo at 100 yards I will select the best two or three loads and move over to the 200 yard range, this will tell you a lot!

The 180 Core-Lokt round nose should have been the official PA deer bullet.

Let your rifle tell which one it likes. My 700 likes 180 grain bullets. 150's had a much larger group. 180's were nice and tight. That was with factory ammo----Rem, Win or Federal. Then I started to handload----the sweet spot was 56 grains IMR 4350, Win LR primers & 180 Grain Hornady spire point. Flat base & interlock ring. That load had cloverleafs at 100 yards. Killed moose, elk, mtn goats & bighorn sheep.

But I've got lazy & went back to shooting factory loads. 180 grain "Core-lokts", "Power-Points" or "Hi-Shok" kill just fine. I use them for both elk & deer.

There are three different work-up loads on my shelf waiting for the next time I take my Ruger American .30-06 to the range.

These are 150g Ballistic Tip, 168g TTSX and some I just loaded today, 180g Ballistic Silvertip.

I was leaning toward the 150g as I've used them (AccuBond) on elk before, but if the 180g BT's do what I want their next of kin (AccuBond again) will probably get the nod.

This will be the first time I've tried 180g in a .30-06. The higher BC means is flied nearly as flat as the 150g if I can get the velocity I want, but it retains more energy downrange. At 500 yards the difference in drop is a mere 5" if zeroing both for MPBR for a 6" target and using 2950fps and 2750fps respectively. That's a yawner of a difference.

A 165 Sierra HPGK and 57 to 58 grains of H-4350 will usually make you smile.

Any 165 gr bullet, bonded or Cup & Core with H4350 should get you what you are looking for in the 30-06

ok.. so I tested 150, 165 and 180.. Corelok. shooting at 100 yards.

Keep in mind this is the first time out with my Savage Trophy Hunter. 30 06.

I finally got the rifle sighted in and the 150 was a ok grouping. less then 2 inches.. as I went to 165 it group widened and with 180 it got worse... ???
Can a rifle be that finicky..

Same day I used some different ammo in my AR and the shots were terrible, really bad... 62 grain... then I put through some of the ammo I have been using, Wolf 55 grain (cheap stuff) and my groups were TIGHT again, smoke a penny at 100. crazy that it makes that much of a difference.. Really??

Yes, bullet weights can make a big difference. So can individual loads � the 165�s and 180�s might have been fine with a different brand or handload.

For an example, take you favorite rimfire out some day with 3-4 boxes of ammo from different manufacturers. Zero with one type of ammo at 50 yards, then see where the other types land in comparison. They may not even be close, as was my experience when I tried this experiment.