This is a question based in curiousity and ignorance: Why?
I've been a 30-06 fanboy for all my life. 30-06 is far and away my favorite. I spent the first 20 years of my deer hunting career lobbing 180 grainers. The latter 20, I've shot mostly 165 grain. I just received a lifetime supply of 150 grainers for free.
I see folks speaking glowingly of 200-grain loads, but I have yet to figure out why. What makes 200 grain preferable? Why do y'all like it?
Shaman,
I started using the 200 Partition in the .30-06 in the 1970s, during the last couple years Nosler was still lathe-turning them, and the 200 was a "semi-spitzer" (roundnose). I used it back then because of doing all my elk hunting in a couple timbered areas where 100 yards was a long shot, and after a bad experience with lack of penetration from another bullet switched to the Nosler 200. Loaded it to around 2600 fps from the 1903 Springfield sporter I had back them, and got groups around an inch at 100, which seemed more than sufficient. (Have been puzzled ever since byt those who have difficulty getting Partitions to shoot "decently," as even those lathe-turned bullets did fine in the limited use I made of them back, including the 130s used in another rifle, a Remington 700 .270. The impact-extruded bullets that followed have tended to be more accurate.)
Anyway, was very impressed with both the way the 200 penetrated and killed, and the lack of meat damage. Both areas also had whitetail and mule deer, and often doe tags were available. It was nice to be able to shoot a 100-pound whitetail doe at close range and not lose 10 pounds of meat.
I switched to the impact-extruded 200-grain spitzers as soon as they became available. By then I'd gotten rid of the 9-pound 1903 and replaced it with a tang-safety Ruger 77. Their barrels could be iffy in those days, but I got a good one--and by then had a chronograph, finding I could get right around 2700 fps and sub-inch accuracy with the old mil-surp H4831. Due to a divorce the Ruger was my only big game rifle for a few years, and I not only killed elk and deer with it, but my first black bear--and a pronghorn doe.
I'd worked up two loads that shot to the same place at 100 yards, the other with 165-grain Nosler Solid Base softpoints and IMR4350. I used the 200-grain load when hunting where bigger game might be encountered, and the 165 for deer and antelope in eastern Montana. The only way to tell the two loads apart was the brass: The 200s went into Winchester cases, and the 165s in Remingtons.
After marrying Eileen she decided to start hunting, and her first hunt was after pronghorn south of Fort Peck Reservoir in northeastern Montana. We couldn't afford another rifle, but luckily nobody in the family was using the .257 Roberts Remington 722 that had belonged to my paternal grandmother, so I worked up a load for it with 100 Partitions (which turned out to be the first big game handload I'd tried to that point that would average five shots, not three, in an inch).
We'd drawn both either-sex and a doe-fawn tags, and the first day happened on a herd without a big buck. Made a stalk and crawled across the top of a ridge within about 250 yards. Eileen got buck fever bad, and couldn't hold on the biggest doe. I eventually asked if I could shoot it, and she said yes--so I did. It went about 50 yards and keeled over. I picked up the brass and found it was a Winchester case! The 200 worked just as well on that antelope as it had on bear, whitetails, mule deer and elk--and shot up less meat than any bullet I ever used until monolithics appeared.
My primary .30-06 these days is a New Ultra Light Arms Model 24 acquired in 1997. Have used it on more big game animals than any of my other rifles since, partly because it went on many trips to various places around the world. Have used a bunch of different loads, but one of them I still use some is the 200 Partition and 59.0 grains of H4831SC. It will put three in around the magic half-inch at right around 2680 fps, and because of the relatively high BC of the bullet (around .500 G1, which was confirmed by Bryan Litz in his book), it shoots just as flat as most 180 softpoint spitzers, yet drifts less in the wind. (Have also used 168 and 185 Berger Hunting VLDs considerably in the same rifle, and of course they're better ballistically, but don't penetrate nearly as well....)
If for some odd reason I had to limit myself to one rifle and load for all my big game hunting for the rest of my life (am not planning to do any more Cape buffalo hunting) the NULA and the 200 Partition would be on a very short list.
