Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game "The 30-06 is obsolete!"

If they ban all 30/06 ammo today and stop making reloading supplies for the cartridge, my 30/06 (daddy's old Rem. 760 made in the 60's) will be the last rifle I will get rid of. Obviously part nostalgia because it was daddy's 1st rifle and killed a lot of deer with it. But part of it is, that the I associated the 30/06 with being a deer cartridge and so, my 1st rifle was a Rem. 742 in the the same cartridge. Obsolete, never! Well played, szihn!

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Jerry

Based on my experiences at the range and in the field, many, if not most, "modern riflemen" are pretty clueless.

I can't count the number of times I've asked a hunter what load they were using and they were unable to tell me. Ask them about trajectories and they get glassy-eyed. Ask them to estimate a particular range and they aren't even close. (OK, I'm wrong on that a lot as well, which is why I carry a laser.)

Multiple times I've talked to a hunter in the field who was using a new rifle that they had never fired before. In some cases it was just bore sighted by the dealer, in others it had been zeroed by someone else.

Two or three years ago I talked to a hunter who killed an antelope doe at a claimed 400 yards with the then new, 16.1" barreled .308 Ruger Scout. I asked about the holdover and he said he held "right on it". When I asked about the load he had no idea what he was using. With typical ammo, a 400 yard zero with MY 16.1" Ruger 308 Scout would mean the bullet is about 10-12" above line of sight between say 150 to 300 yards, give or take a few. Maybe he had a magic load but I think the only thing he got right was he killed a doe.

A few weeks ago I was at a gun show in Colorado Springs and overheard a conversation at one of the tables. An attendee was trying to sell a dealer a box or two of 30-378 Weatherby ammo. The attendee claimed it had a velocity over 5,000fps. No typo, 5,000fps. With a 5 and three zeros. The dealer and I had a good laugh after the attendee left.

When I go to the range and see what some hunters are willing to settle for in terms of accuracy I often feel sorry for whatever unfortunate critters they might try to shoot later. It is not at all uncommon for their 100-yard targets to look like something a decent shooter might end up with at a much, much greater distance. For them a clean kill is an accident as much as anything.

Most hunters could use a .30-06 and a 4x scope and never need more if they stay within the ranges where they are actually well prepared to shoot.

The 30-06 is obsolete because there are so many cartridges that are better.............Which ones are better???????

Depending on the intended usage, a good argument could be made for almost every currently produced, non-.30-06 cartridge being "better".

It is also hard to argue that, for the one rifle hunter, any other cartridge is as versatile and available as the .30-06. That is why I give them to my sons-in-law as wedding presents.

For antelope, some in my extended family, including myself, will continue to use my .243 Win, .257 Roberts, 6.5-06AI and .280 Rem. Daughter #1 has her own 308 Win and it works quite well with 130g TTSX. My sons-in-law will continue to use their .30-06 rifles. Come time for elk, my group tends to go .280 and bigger. This year, for example, I expect the .30-06 to be the most used. In addition I expect at least one each .308 Win, 7mm RM and .300 WM.

Last fall, just for the fun of it, I decided to use my 22-250 for antelope instead of my 30-06. I got one but it wasn't a test for anything. I could have got it with a 22LR. The 06 weighs 1/2 lb less than the 22-250 anyway so in the future, I'll just load it with the flattest shooting, most accurate bullets I can find. Almost any bullet that's accurate will flop an antelope.

To be obsolete, it's taken a lot of game and killed a lot of men.

Back then, a soldier had to aim. It wasn't pray and spray like the army did when I was in in the 70's.

Damn it! Obsolete!? What shall I do with my two 30-'06's and my really obsolete 7x57? Ohhh, I know. I'll buy one of those new 30-'06 Magnum's that 22250rem spoke of. Whew!

Ignorant self-possessed outfitters are REALLY obsolete, and there are plenty of them available.

The ones that kill just as well while recoiling less, having better flight ballistics, and/or fitting short actions.

Too many to list, really.

I guess I'm obsolete, maybe that's why I like the old '06.

Birds of a feather...

DF

There are currently five of them in my safe, three of which are mine. One belongs to Daughter #1 (but i want to buy it) and one belongs to a new son-in-law.

IMHO, anyone that thinks they are obsolete is an idiot.

But........ it IS .... I mean, no shame in that, it's over 100 years old. But things have advanced a bit since 1906.

Great cartridge, one of the legends. But technically speaking, obsolete is a pretty good word for it.

The Chevy 350 small block is still everything it ever was.... but it's obsolete. Doesn't mean it doesn't work, just that the state of the art has left it behind.









God I love trolling!

I suppose it's a different kind of dead.....

What has advanced beyond the '06? It still takes a good hit in the vitals to kill an elk and as far as I know, elk haven't evolved much in the last 100 years. An '06 will nicely handle Partitions or TTX bullets. It's still one of really accurate rounds out there. The fact that it's still around and still one of the best is a tribute to the engineers 100 years ago. They were geniuses. Age and obsolete aren't synonymous.

This thread likely to sell a bunch of '06's...

"Things go better with chemistry"; with all the new powders available (bullets, too), old rounds like the '06 really come to life.

There isn't a more versatile round.

It is (can be) whatever you make it to be, almost limitless options...

IME.

DF

Technically speaking, it uses the same quality brass and the same primers, powder, bullets and rifles as any modern cartridge. Nothing obsolete there.

That leaves only case capacity and shape and caliber to argue about. Competing case capacities vary from smaller and generally less versatile to shoulder-busting, retina-detaching cartridges like the .30-378 WBY and .300 RUM that use powder by the gallon. The .308 Win, ,30-06 and .30-30 are easily the most popular .30's when measured by Federal's 2015 sales. Granted, Federal doesn't offer many of the other cartridges but the variety of the offerings by different vendors that sell pretty much everything tells pretty much the same story - the .308 Win, .30-06, .30-30 and .300WM are easy winners in the popularity contest.

Some would argue the ideal cartridge would be some combination of shorter, longer, skinnier, fatter, belted, use either smaller or larger diameter bullets or have some other feature, Regardless of such features, I can't think of any modern cartridge that can lay claim to being the most versatile hunting cartridge available with the same authority as does the .30-06.

With "obsolete" being a highly subjective standard, it would seem most shooters (who vote with their wallets) and vendors agree the .30-06 is far from "obsolete".

I must be a caveman because a Springfield with a K4 Weaver and 165 Hornady bullets over IMR 4350 have worked well for about
50 years

The .30-06: