There's a wood-stocked 270 Hawkeye at a local gun store that my wife always says is "pretty."
This should be your next rifle because getting your wife squared away will buy you time and budget to get another rifle for yourself. THAT rifle should be a 30-06 because you can get good ammo for it without much hassle. That said, it's not as ubiquitous as some would have you believe.
For years, I believed that you could get decent 30-06 ammo almost anywhere that people hunt, which made the 30-06 a superb (possibly even morally superior) choice for the general-purpose rifle. But on the way to a pig hunt in northern California a few years ago, I stopped at the In-and-Out Market in Palo Cedro, CA, to buy a hunting license. I always check ammo in little roadside stores and this place had easily the weirdest inventory I’ve ever seen in one place, to wit:
1 box of 225 Winchester (never seen this in the wild)
1 box of S&B 5.6x52R (Euro name for the 22 Savage Hi-Power, had to Google it)
6 boxes of fresh Federal 25-06
6-8 boxes of Federal 7x57 Mauser 175 RN
10 boxes of fresh Federal 7mm Winchester Short Magnum
6-8 boxes of fresh Federal 7mm Remington Magnum
6-8 boxes of fresh Federal & Fiocchi 308 Winchester
3 boxes of fresh PPU 303 British
1 box of Hornady 32 Special
2 boxes of Federal 338 Winchester Magnum 250-grain Woodleigh
1 box of 358 Winchester 200-grain PPT
2 boxes of 375 RUM
3 boxes of Hornady 450 Marlin
They had plenty of service pistol ammo, rimfire, 7.62x39, 5.56 NATO, and assorted 12-gauge but only ONE box of 30-06. To add insult to injury, this box was American Eagle 147-grain FMJ. There was not one softpoint 30-06 cartridge for sale in the entire place.
My guide later told me that this place used to have an FFL but gave it up after state laws became too onerous, which explains a lot. As noted, some of the ammo was fresh so that's probably what people use most of the time. The rest must have been NOS. In this area, that makes a certain amount of sense given that you’re probably either shooting pigs inside of 150 yards or blacktail-mule-deer hybrids at fairly long range, but it was still jarring to see the 30-06 so badly under-represented. Seems almost unpatriotic...
So I've revised my stance on the whole “30-06 wins at logistics” thing.
Okie John
