Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats 30-06 AI

So I am going to have one of my 30-06's rebarreled to a 24" tube. Is the AI version worth it? Would appreciate your thoughts and comments.

No.

You'll get an insignificant amount of velocity benefit, but have to fire form cases. You'll likely have to modify tried and true 30-06 loads. You'll need new dies. Feeding would probably be fine with both cases.

The only benefit I could even remotely consider would be if you just couldn't stand trimming cases, as AI cases require less trimming.

Or you could rebarrel to a 270 and have a real flat shooting hard hitting cartridge

Have AI w/the throat let out.

If did over again...just to omit case forming I'd keep the standard case and let out the throat to shoot long bullets without sacrificing case capacity (providing you have the action for it)

The 165s and down aren't helped...period

OTOH, in an unmolested action, the AI will give you 4g more capacity which will offset the loss of case capacity when deep seating heavies

Well the NO's have it for a win. I will stick with the good ole tried and true, plain jane, work horse, boring, get er done, do all, 30-06 Springfield.

Thanks for the replies.

Look at the 30 gibbs

Yeah, you will be just fine with the standard 30-06 in a 24 inch barrel.
I have a 24 inch #2 contour on mine, shoots great.

Maybe you should reword your question to address those who actually have and shoot a 30-06AI - concur with tomk - not much difference in the lighter bullets but significant with the heavier stuff - throat it to seat 180's way out and you'll be impressed.

The "significant gain" is about the same as another inch or two of barrel length. In other words, a 22" 30-06 AI should be similar to a 24" 30-06. This can also be read as "not enough to matter".

^^^^^^^


This.

then add the 2" of barrel to the AI

The '06AI is great for heavy bullets. If you are interested in shooting 180's, 190's or 200's it will damn near match the ballistics of the 30WSM without having to buy a short fat action.

I worked with one for a while, and with heavy bullets, it will do everything the Nosler manual says it will.

Why? It won't change anything except the final two digits of the chronograph readout. Certainly won't make any difference in the real world.

in the real world...why have anymore than a single caliber & cartridge for all big game in NA?

I will not be pushing a 24 inch 30-06 anywhere close to 2985 fps with a 180, now would I run it to 2758 with a 200. Yet both loads are listed in the Nosler manual.

The caveat is, they used a 24 inch tube to do it. If I still thought I needed a 30 cal, it would be wearing 26 inches and we could add 40 fps to those numbers.

This is pretty basic stuff here guys. The 30-06 is limited to 60,000 PSI by SAAMI, while the Ackley is not. That's where you are seeing a significant portion of the gain.

Do the math on the case capacity difference (4 to 1 rule), and you come up with around 20-25 fps difference at equal pressure. In other words, an inch of barrel length.

I was thinking of having my old 06 reworked for shooting exclusively the heavier bullets; primarily the 208 amax and the SMK's over 200. I even thought of a 1/9 twist to experiment with the SMK 240's.

So y'all are saying an AI with long throat is good for that?

Put a 7mm 9 twist barrel on it chambered in 280 Ackley...nosler brass, lee collet die wilson seater, go kill things !

that be my thinking...not a good sign generally speaking, for the wallet

Gee, Ingwe must have gone to bed, so let me say it for him:

If we all lived in the real world modern cartridge development would have ended with the 7x57 mauser