What's so moronic about a case with 56 grains of 4350 and a 180 grain bullet in it?
From a military perspective, the problem with the .30-06 is that the bore was too big and the case/OAL was too big. This was based on a combination of a mistaken belief in a need to stop cavalry charges and a mistaken belief that indirect fire from small arms was useful. The result was a cartridge that consumed at least 50% more resources than it should have to do a worse job than it could have. Interestingly both the Navy and the arsenal had clearly seen where things were going with the 6mm Navy and .276 Pedersen,. but the Army was stuck in the mud and got their way by sheer bull-headed stupidity.
From a hunting perspective, there are several problems:
- an inefficient shoulder and taper designed for machine gun use that increases recoil,. reduces velocity, and reduces case capacity
- an overly-small diameter that gives unneeded magazine capacity in trade for loss of case capacity
- an overly long case and overall length adding weight to both actions and barrels with no benefit
- a low MAP caused by weak rifles and excessive taper
Take that all together, and it's hard to imagine what a WORSE hunting cartridge of the same general case capacity and bore diameter would look like. I guess you could take a .30-06 and add an unnecessary belt and make it a little [bleep], but only a little.
The .308 is a better hunting round - better shoulder, better taper, shortened, better MAP. The .308 AI is a step better, improving the shoulder further, and the .300 WSM better still - finally fixing the case diameter problem.
