Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles When will 30-06 not work?

I like your list--would love a .223. Must be a traditionalist as mine are:

.30-06, .30-30, .22, plus 12-ga and .357 mag.

"Super bullets" like AccuBond, TTSX, Grand Slam, Scirocco II, A-Frame and North Fork? It is true I trust them more than standard cup and core bullets, but so do lots of other folk. When I load them up I often pay less per box of 20 than others pay for factory cup and core ammo. At best the cost of the premium bullets is a very small percentage of what I spend to hunt and the money I could save using cup and core bullets is even less. Several times I have calculated those differences and discovered the money saved using cup-and-core bullets in a year where I bagged two elk, a deer and an antelope wouldn't buy me a glass of cheap wine with dinner. Expensive? Not really. Expensive is blowing the dual-mass flywheel in my F250, 20 miles west of Laramie on the way to elk camp.

Yes, I often use North Forks for deer but the primary reason is that I hunt deer and elk in the same season using the same rifle. While I haven't used them for antelope, I see no reason not to do so and in fact may well do so this fall when I plan to take my .280 Rem antelope hunting. Most likely it will be stoked with 140g North Fork as I have a good supply of the hollow point design Mike Brady was testing before he sold the company and the current plan is to use the same rifle and load for elk and deer a month later. As in my 7mm RM, they are exquisitely accurate in the .280 Rem and using the 7MM RM I've driven them the length of a mulie buck. I trust them to do the job.

The North Fork didn't fail on the cow - it penetrated and exited, leaving what started out as a massive blood trail - the largest I have ever seen. I failed to take into account wind drift and have admitted as much. The blood trail slowly petered out as we followed it over two ridges, finally losing it at dusk. We tried again the next morning but found no more blood beyond where we lost it the night before.

Several times you have claimed I chose bullets BECAUSE they were expensive. Even after I stated that my reasons had to do with a) confidence in the design, which I verify in the field or reject the bullet, as I did with Barnes XLC and TSX, b) accuracy in my rifles and c) that cost was a minor concern at best, you continued to misrepresent my reasons for choosing the bullets I do. On one occasion you claimed I changed my posts after you had responded to them, even though an analysis of the time stamps clearly showed my changes were made long before you had made any posts in response. In other words, you lied.

Unlike you, no one compensates me in any way for my hunting activities. I choose the rifles and scopes and bullets I use because they work, and every penny comes out of my own hard-earned money. Why you have a problem with that and continue to misrepresent what I have written I can't imagine, but it is petty and pathetic.



There is nothing wrong with the 7mm RM and I have never stated there was. Mine served me well for 20+ years as my only centerfire big game rifle with no problems taking down elk. Over the years it has accounted for more elk than all my other rifles put together. Again, for those that are tone deaf, I blew the shot and have admitted as much. Further, I will continue to use my 7mm RM with the confidence it has earned since 1982.

Nor have I decided that " a much bigger cartridge would have killed the poor cow elk". This is a fantasy in your mind. What I clearly stated but you chose to disregard, is that the additional frontal area and energy provided by an expanded .338 bullet "might" have made a difference but that no one can know for sure. Apparently you have reading comprehension problems.

BTW, I don't use North Fork in the .338WM, I use 225g AccuBonds with 225g SST as my practice loads. I've only taken two elk with it but it does make noticeably bigger holes than the 7mm RM and so far all bullets have exited. The last elk I killed with it was in 2013 at 487 yards and bullet placement was very similar to where I think I hit the cow with the 7mm RM last year - a few inches under the spine and a little further back than I wanted. The difference is the cow shot with the .338WM, or what is left of her, is in my freezer.

A final note about bullet selection. While I readily use cup-and-core bullets in my hand and lever guns, I've only taken one head of big game with them using a bolt gun. That was my first elk, back in 1983 or 1984 (I didn't keep track back then) when I used the 7mm RM and a 162g BTSP Hornady InterLock. I didn't know much about bullets back then except that Partitions were "expensive". As a result I chose the BTSP primarily for its B.C. and calculated trajectory. The BTSP grounded the elk but retained less than 50% of its original weight, even though all it hit was a single rib. I was not impressed and the next year I started using Grand Slam bullets. It was nearly 20 years before I recovered one and although that one had destroyed both shoulder joints of a 5x5 bull elk it retained over 70% of its original weight. When Speer changed the way Grand Slams were made I went looking for something different, which resulted in my trying and rejecting Barnes XLC and TSX bullets. These days I primarily use AccuBond, TTSX, A-Frame and North Fork, depending on the rifle, and make no apologies to anyone for doing so.

I am willing to bet I spend MORE money than you do every year on guns and bullets I choose to use, and hunting I choose to do. Yeah, when somebody invites me on a hunt I use what they provide, but I spend far more hunting on my own, with my own guns and ammo, around half of it on public land.

So now you're justifying using North Forks for deer hunting when you might see an elk, but when we got into another discussion a couple years ago about all this, the thread was started by somebody specifically asking about bullets for whitetails. You posted that super-bullets should be used, because they were obviously better than "ordinary" bullets like the Hornady Interlocks and Ballistic Tips several other people suggested, or other bullets that don't meet your standards.

Since you don't know exactly where you hit the cow that was lost, I don't see how you can claim another cow killed with a .338 proves anything.

Keep posting. You never state exactly what you eventually claim to really mean the first time anyway.

If a bigger faster bullet is the answer to poor shot placement you might want to look into a 50BMG....

David

What I've noticed about Coyote Hunter over the years is that he often theorizes, whether by number-crunching, or claiming a tougher bullet will make a difference in every situation, or "thinking" he hit a lost cow elk somewhere. This is normally the sign of a relatively inexperienced hunter, but he claims to be pretty experienced.

There isn't an elk walking on this earth that can take a 150-180grain coreloct through the lungs and live to tell about it,but you have to put it there. A coreloct in the lungs beats a fancy bullet through the guts every time.

A double lung or a heart shot rom just about anything will take anything down. The question is, how long does it take. Could be a DRT or a couple of hundred yards.

I love this stuff, hunters and shooters are the biggest group of experts on their sport. It does not matter if it is the drunk at the bar telling you his 303 is the best deer gun, or A rifle crank with A 22cf imp kills like lighting. The only time the 06 will fail is with a weak bullet and bad placement. Is that not the reason for the 35 whelen, and todays bullets have fixed that.Peace...

Yep sometimes you need real tall boots to wade through all this stuff lol

There is one place that the 30/06 will not work, and I think at least one other poster has mentioned it.
With full power loads, it is not a cartridge to begin training a young shooter with. The recoil is about at the tolerance level for adult men. Trying to teach breathing techniques, trigger control, follow through and how to call the shot to a 12 year old with a rifle that is difficult to hold and has a rather stout recoil isn't going to instill a love of shooting in a young person. Not when they can go play video games with instant gratification and no pain.

I don't think there exists any reasonably scientific study that concludes that a .300 magnum kills better than a 30-06, although we "think it should." An exception might be Texas heart shots with very stiff bullets for all I know.

I suspect the 30-06 might work just fine on African dangerous game. A Cape buffalo weighs less than a big moose. A 220 grain solid has the same SD as a .458 500 grain solid and should penetrate an elephant's skull just as well. Lions only weigh about 450 pounds. The one I shot (with a .375) would have been just as dead with a 180 grain NNP. And leopards are even easier to kill.

I think you're right. I started off with the 'pathetic' 243. I didn't learn it was inadequate till after I quit using it.

You probably do spend more. And that is relevant how? The point is I can write what I want and not worry about offending any manufacturer because none of them have ever given me a single penny to promote their products, either directly or indirectly.


I don't think I've ever stated "super-bullets" or even premium bullets "should" be used. I challenge you to post a link proving your claim.

To the contrary, I've often stated most bullets will work most of the time, that my loads get used for both elk and deer, that I choose premiums and my reasons for doing so, and that I don't care what other people use. On occasion I have recommended people just buy standard cup-and-core bullets as long as they shoot well in their rifle. When my son-in-law started hunting I got him some (gasp) white box Winchester Power-Points. They shot well in his rifle and he used them to take his first elk on a cross-canyon shot.

Do I think North Fork, AccuBond, A-Frame and TTSX are better bullets than InterLock and Ballistic Tip bullets for my purposes? Yes, and I will continue to use them, with no apologies to anyone.

Hell, I use premiums (100g TTSX and 110g AccuBond) in my Roberts for antelope and see no reason to change. They are very accurate, work reliably and don't come apart and destroy meat like some other bullets do. These are the only big game loads I have for my bolt guns that don't get used for elk and deer as well. When the Roberts gets carried during elk and deer season it gets stuffed with 120g A-Frames, again with no apologies to anyone.



You are right that I don't know exactly where I hit the elk with the North Fork. Years of experience shooting that rifle and load, blood high on brush along the trail, an obvious exit, the dark color of the blood, the position of the elk when the shot was fired and the direction of the wind all suggest to me a hit below the spine, behind the lungs in the liver. It is a reasonable supposition but it may be incorrect.

Once again you are writing about a fiction in your head. I did not in any way claim killing another cow with the .338 "proves" anything. What I stated was that the .338 makes "noticeably bigger holes than the 7mm RM", that I believe bullet placement was "very similar", and that the cow is now in the freezer. This proves nothing but it does lead me to wonder what would have happened had I hit the cow last year with the .338 instead of the 7mm RM. I don't believe extra thump provided by the .338 would have resulted in a worse outcome and the .338 ***might*** have done more damage resulting in a better outcome. I don't know one way or another and have explicitly stated as much. Neither you nor anyone else knows for sure either but in my opinion those who contend that extra thump never makes a difference are fools who ignore the fact that marginal differences often result in drastically different outcomes. A little extra traction going around a corner can make the difference between life and death.

I don't really believe someone who makes their living writing has such poor reading comprehension skills - instead I think you deliberately misrepresent what I write. As I said before, that's petty and pathetic.

Do you never get tired of posting bullschit?

I have NEVER claimed a premium bullet will " make a difference in every situation". Quite to the contrary, I have often stated most bullets will work most of the time.

As I stated in my last post, "You are right that I don't know exactly where I hit the elk with the North Fork. Years of experience shooting that rifle and load, blood high on brush along the trail, an obvious exit, the dark color of the blood, the position of the elk when the shot was fired and the direction of the wind all suggest to me a hit below the spine, behind the lungs in the liver. It is a reasonable supposition but it may be incorrect."

After shooting two elk at over 400 yards and hitting both too far back, you might consider not shooting at elk over 400 yards--not a bigger cartridge.

David

I've also found that, aside from being easy to shoot and kill things, the 30-06 is easy to load for. I've used powders from Unique to Magpro, and bullets from 110 to 245 grains. I keep collecting various weights and constructions of 30 cals, including 6 moulds. They all have shot from adequately to admirably in a 30-06.

In response to concern over recoil for the sensitive, it is a simple thing to load 125gr bullets to the low 2000's with a fast powder for a mild and lethal combo. Start the kid off with cast bullets and unique in the low teens and work them up, and Bob's your uncle.

I have loaded 39 different bullets and 20 powders in the .30/06 and still have a couple of bullets and powders on the shelf I have not yet tried.

With this background, I only had 1 bullet fail during culling that caused me to drop it. That was a 130gn ADI HP that simply could not take the under 3200fps velocities I was generating.
John

Couple of points.. First of all, in my post, I said "full power loads" were not good to start a youngster with. Second point, if a beginning shoot is the size of a typical 11 or 12 year old, many 30/06 rifles are a little to heavy to be an ideal starting rifle.
Have seen way too many 12 year old first year hunters lugging around Dad's model 700 30/06 that weighs close to 9 pounds with scope, sling, and a full magazine of full power factory loads.

The 12 year old son of a Wyoming buddy killed a bull elk,an antelope,and a mule deer buck in one season with Managed Recoil ammo from a 30/06.

I watched the mule deer killing. Hard to argue with that sort of success and the young guy seemed none the worse for the wear.