Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 30-06 didn't impress me.

i started hunting with a 30-06 at a early age and by 25 years of age i started to reload my own ammo. i tried many different cartridges bigger and smaller and now at 69 years of age after bench rest , FTR , winter fun shoots , 1,000 yd. bench shooting and many years hunting . yes i like my 257 Weatherby mag. cartridge for deer but if i go on another fly in hunting trip including to Africa i plan on taking the one rifle cartridge that i can find ammo for any place in the world the plain Jane 30-06 . the 30-06 is the grand old cartridge is and has been the King of all cartridges . > LONG LIVE THE 30-06 <

Read and reread this post. Had to make sure of it, your opinion is based on zero experience in the field with the 30-06. No experience, no opinion should go together automatically. You are a hero in your own mind. Jfc where do these people come from?..mb

Curious, what do you carry? What do you hunt?

If there are 3 identical rifles in a gun shop setting side by side, same price, and I'm in the market for a rifle, give me that 06 every time. Hard to go wrong. Bullet doesn't get there as fast as some new precision cartridge in most cases, vut when it does, I reiterate, you better have a sharp knife ready. Bullet to chest cavity on any cervid in north America, and it's over and done with.

I didn't own a centerfire rifle until I moved to Steamboat Springs, CO in the late '70s. I had killed my first elk the year before with a borrowed .30-40 Krag and wanted my own deer and elk rifle, so I asked a couple of guys that I worked with that had grown up huntint in that area what rifle I should get. They both said to get either a .270 or a .30-06. I chose a .30-06.

For about the next 10 years that .30-06 was my deer, elk, and antelope rifle, puting 8 elk into my freezer. This is the last elk that I shot with that .30-06, and it was a one shot DRT kill. None of my elk (shot with my .30-06 or anything else) were shot from a road, none were gut shot, and none had a leg blown off.

From '65 to '80 I hunted Hinman Park and southside of Farwell moumtain with my dad and brother and friends. Mostly 30-06, and mostly meat elk. Killed three with a 25-06, but felt it a little light for that work.

Road hunter here with a couple 30-06 kills under my belt...

That is one heck of a bull buffybr!!!

It sure is!

buffybr, that is indeed a hell of an elk!

I have killed more elk with the .30-06 than any other cartridge, and according to my hunting notes (which are better than my memory these days) the farthest any has gone after the shot before falling was 50 yards--and all except one were 1-shot kills.

That was my biggest one, both in antlers and body size. It immediately "locked up" after being shot at 250 yards--with a 180-grain factory load, not some special handload. But it was the biggest of a group of four bulls, and when the three others ran off, this one managed to stagger after them for around 20 yards before stopping, whereupon a second shot dropped him.

Destroying myths one elk at a time.

kwg

nice pictures guys that dang old 30-06 is still knocking elk and deer down who would have thought ?

I like my 06’s. Don’t recall ever shooting from a vehicle or a road, I dunno, I guess they’d work that way?
As I’ve aged I have slimline muzzle brakes put on my heavier calibers including the 06’s, they are a pleasure to shoot and have more than enough horsepower for whatever I point them at.
Then again, I do quite often enjoy wandering hither and dale with a… .270.
Two strikes huh?
I’m a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess.

Osky

Best show ever!!!

That’s what I’ve done. Keep the old rifle zeroed at 250 with the 212’s and I’ve got a box of 50 loaded. At my rate they might get passed to a grandchild before I use them all up

Great bulls as well fellas.

Those are some excellent road hunted bulls Brad! You must have a helluva good truck!

I’d like to borrow Brads truck so’s it’ll take me to a dandy bull. I’ll furnish my own 30-06.. 😃

No kidding!

Ooofff, we've got some serious lack of being able to pick up a what should be some mighty obvious sarcasm.

For the most part, I shoot one of a couple M70 SS Classics in 300Win Mag for elk and the one Canadian moose I've taken. I mostly use one of several 270Win's for everything smaller. I've also taken elk with a 257Wby and a couple with the 270Win. Because someone asked, I've taken 13 elk on 17 trips, unguided, public or private with no $$ permission. 1 moose, 2 caribou, half-dozen Mule-Deer, a couple pronghorn, 50-some whitetail bucks and a whole bunch of WT does.

The 300 is a relic of my pre-LRF experience when I was just certain down to my toenails I needed a belted magnum for everything bigger than a coyote. I know I no longer "need" a 300Win for elk. But, the rifle is accurate and more importantly, I can shoot the rifle well both off the bench and from field positions, so, the 300 is going to be my elk-rifle for the foreseeable future.

The whole picking on the 30-06 thing is really just because I grew up in the '80's shooting a 270Win. Now I chose the 270Win not because of some perceived mythical characteristics or demonstrable "on-paper" differences that show a few fractions of an inch difference in trajectory or wind drift at several hundred yards. I shoot a .270 because my dad shot a .270 and if I shot what dad shot while I was in jr-high and high-school, ammo was free, just had to stuff the components together.

So, settle down guys and re-read the hairy armpits and bearded grandma stuff and just grin, maybe chuckle a bit, as that's all it was intended to do, give folks a laugh.