Rather than alternating between a .25-06 for deer and antelope and a .30-06 with a really strong bullet for elk this year; I'd prefer, for the sake of both keeping things simple and doing a little experimenting, to just use one round out of one rifle for all three. That means finding a bullet that wil hold up and penetrate on an elk but isn't too tough and will provide proper expansion for antelope and deer (last year I used my elk cartridge, a bonded 180 grain .30-06 which is marketed for its weight retention, to bring down a very nice mule deer buck, and let me just say I was not impressed. Maybe I'm just talking out my ass here, but it just seemed like the bullet was too strong to provide the appropriate expansion and resulting terminal damage on the body of a lighter-than-elk big game animal). The bullet I'm considering using this fall is the 150 grain Nosler Accubond. The Accubond has a good reputation, and as I understand was designed to act around the same principles as the legendary Nosler Partion. Personally, I'm not worried that a 150 grain 06 won't be enough for elk. I know for certain that elk can be killed quite handily with 270s; in fact I know people who do just that, and some that even use smaller 6.5s. Plus, the lighter weight will help ensure better expansion on lighter game.
Does anybody else have an 06 cartridge they use for multiple game species? And what do you think of the 150 grain Accubond for the task I want performend?
