Mule Deer - Just to clarify, I never said the 30-06 is not an effective or otherwise good cartridge. I have indeed noted 458Win's signature line many times. No doubt he is in the top 0.01% of skilled hunters and guides in North America, and probably higher than that. That he will let a client hunt a brown bear with a 30-06 says more about his level of backing skills than about the cartridge, itself. And I still say that the pull of tradition is strong in the rifle community, but tradition is not the same as rational thought for making a cartridge choice.
Again, I am not saying the 30-06 is a bad or ineffective cartridge. If the only cartridge in existence was the 30-06, I would happily go forth and hunt everything up to elk with it. All I am saying is that especially with modern bullets, it is no longer the best cartridge, as so many traditionalist claim. Modern bullets, especially all-copper bullets like the Barnes and Hammer bullets have caused the 30-06 to be supplanted by the .308Win, the 7mm-08, the 270Win, and probably a few others. Such cartridges will kill an elk just as well with an all-copper bullet as the 30-06, and will do so in a smaller/lighter/faster/flatter shooting package and with less recoil. And, those cartridges will not be unnecessary overkill on smaller animals like whitetail deer and antelope. If a person prefers tradition over "smaller/lighter/faster/flatter shooting package and with less recoil", then that is their choice, but that is getting back to the "tradition over rational thought" point, and certainly doesn't make the 30-06 the best cartridge.
If a person wants to hunt big bears, then unquestionably there are many better cartridges than the 30-06. For a start, I think most experienced big bear hunters would say a .338WM is a preferable minimum. And the number of people who will actually hunt big bears is a tiny fraction of the hunting community. That the 30-06 can be pressed into service on a bear hunt with a good guide backing you up I don't believe is relevant to the majority of North American hunters, nor is it necessarily an indication of a great cartridge.
If a person wants to hunt with a 30-06, then more power to him. But liking a cartridge, or that it has been around over a hundred years, is not the same as it still being the "best" cartridge.
And for all those that are now going to line up to say a Barnes TSX/TTSX failed them on their last elk hunt, please note that there are plenty of failure of lead bullets, too.
JMHO.
So if I'm reading this right with the Barnes mono bullets the 270, 7mm-08, and 308 have all taken a quantum leap forward in performance thus rivaling the 30-06. But the 30-06 evidently gains nothing from these all copper projectiles and therefore cannot outpace these smaller cartridges? So in essence it's a draw between the 30-06 and the lesser cartridges? LMAO! The worst part is this guy is actually serious! Do people even think about what they post before they send it?
