Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters MD- If you had to "downsize" today...

From reading your posts over the years, it seems like your NULA 30-06 is sort of your "go to" rifle. If for some reason you were to liquidate some rifles and select a new go to rifle for general Montana/Western US hunting, would you replace your NULA with another NULA? Would it still be a 30-06? What about the scope? Bullets?

If you don't mind getting caught up in the winter doldrums, I'm curious about what your idea of an ideal general purpose setup might be with all of today's new bullets/powders/cartridges. Discounting Grizzlies.

These days I'd still go with a similar NULA (the .30-06 has a #2 contour 24" barrel) but might go with the .280 Ackley Improved. It basically gets .30-06 muzzle velocities with the same-weight bullets, but the 7mm bullets have somewhat higher ballistic coefficients, so drift less in the wind. There are so many good bullets these days it would be hard to pick one, but as in .30 there are plenty to play with. Would probably go with a high-BC 162-168 grain for a basic all-around bullet, paired with a stouter bullet in the same weight range for certain uses.

I recently put a 3-10x42 Nightforce SHV with their new Forceplex reticle on the .30-06, which looks to be a good compromise for a hunter who usually doesn't shoot at long range, but might stretch a shot a little longer now and then. The Forceplex is a more visible in dark timber than many thin-lined "ballistic" reticles.

But the reality is that I'm probably never going to get rid of the .30-06. Have taken more big game with it than any other rifle over the 21 years since it showed up, and not only does it have plenty of memories, but it still shoots extremely well, and the .30-06 isn't all that different from the .280 AI.

Plus, I have a bunch of other rifles that will be headed down the road as my work schedule slows down over the next decade or so. Don't plan on ever totally retiring. What would I do? Go hunting? But have already started cutting back some.

Thanks for the input. I know your wife has gone down in recoil over the years, and wondered if you were having any of the same thoughts. It seems like a 30-06 would kick pretty good in such a light rifle, but I know you've praised the NULA stock design before for recoil management, and that Nightforce probably adds a bit of heft.

I had also wondered if all the reports of Creedmoors and similar cartridges being used to slay elk so frequently these days might influence your thinking.

Well, yeah--on both points.

I can still shoot hard-kicking rifles accurately, but simply don't see a reason to for most hunting anymore. The NULA stock shape doesn't fit everybody, but works very well for the "average" man, with a relatively short neck and square shoulders, which describes me.

Eileen would really like it if Melvin offered a more Monte-Carlo type stock, which fits her better, since she has the longer neck and sloping shoulders typical of more women. But he isn't going to, and her .257 Roberts NULA doesn't kick enough to bother her much. (Her other two big game rifles have better-fitting buttstocks, especially her Kilimanjaro Rifles .308 Winchester, which has a walnut stock custom fit to her by their stockmaker. But even that gave her headaches until she had a small muzzle-brake installed by John McLaughlin, the very good local gunsmith we've been using a for a couple years.)

I've thought about a NULA in 6.5 Creedmoor, a cartridge I like a lot, along with a bunch of other smaller 6.5's, and have full confidence in their ability to kill elk-sized game. But I already have several very accurate rifles chambered in such rounds, including a VERY accurate Ruger American 6.5 Creedmoor--along with a Mannlicher-Schoenauer carbine in 6.5x54, a custom FN Mauser in 6.5x55, and a Sauer drilling in 16x16/6.5x57R.

The drilling has a 1-8 twist and shoots VERY well, and the 6.5x57R is ballistically very much like the Creedmoor. I've killed plenty of big game and birds with it, and can't imagine a better all-around gun for most hunting. (It even has a .22 Magnum insert for the right-side shotgun barrel, which shoots accurately enough to take small game at 50+ yards. It weighs a little more than the NULA, but not much. Between them I have two rifles that cover 99% of the hunting I do.

What happened to your Serengeti 7x57? I though you were all in on that for awhile as your do-it-all retirement gun.

It's still here, and I have full confidence in it, having taken game from pronghorn and springbok at 400 yards, and wildebeest and moose at middling ranges. Will be using it too, but it weighs a pound more than the NULA .30-06, which has become more important as I get older!

But another side-effect of aging is there's more desire to hunt with rifles that provide emotional satisfaction. The 7x57 and .30-06 do that, but not as much as my grandmother's Remington 722 .257 Roberts, which I hunted with last fall for the first time anybody in the family had for over 20 years. It doesn't provide the ballistic advantages of my 6.5 Creedmoor, but it still worked fine on a pronghorn doe at 350 yards. Which felt better than any hunt with the 7x57 or .30-06.

Today, the 30-06 is about as much as I consider comfortable for shooting off a bench and then hunting. It does the job that I ask of it.

I use the 35 Whelen occasionally, but max loads with 250 gr. bullets is reaching or exceeding my comfort level for long shooting sessions. Best of all., the 30-06 can handle all North American game, properly loaded.

Glad to see you still have a .257 Roberts John. I may be wrong and please don't take offence but, just as Jack O'Conner was linked to the .270, somehow I always link you to the old .257 Roberts, even though you obviously hunt much more with other cartridges.

No offense taken at all! The .257 is a fine round.

Is "Grandma's 257" the one that you dropped into a Mountain Rifle walnut stock?

Have you settled on a do-it-all bullet for it?

I've had it in several stocks over the years, but eventually put it back in the original, with the original sheet-metal floorplate.

Right now am using 100-grain Ballistic Tips and Tipped TSX's with enough IMR4451 to get 3100+, and both shoot very well to the same POI. Which bullet gets used depends on the game and range.

The thread title alone is giving me the shakes. i gotta have a shot of scotch ;]

Kind of a shocking suggestion, ain't it?

Yes, I associate him with the 257. And "making" me discover it and spend a couple grand building rifles around it. I am a victim lol

Still my favorite round and if I were downsizing it would the be the one left in my safe. 75s to 120s. Barnes called it the most useful cartridge ever in his book.

YES!

I have three .257 Roberts rifles, all Rugers. Two are Hawkeyes. One has the matte blueing and the other the gloss blue. I thought that was reason enough to get both of them. The gloss blued rifle has also had the throat lengthened which means 115gn Ballistic Tips fit in really nice with the standard length magazine without taking up powder space. The third is a tang safety 77 in about 95 % condition. It is the least accurate of the three so I am getting it rebarreled to 7x64. Of the two Hawkeyes, I load 100gn bullets in the short throated one and 110 -120gn bullets in the long throated one.

My .25-06 has sat in the safe for about six or seven years and hasn't got a run as I like the .257 Roberts so much and it kills just as well. I find as the seasons go past I'm hunting more and more with the .257 Roberts, 6.5x55 and 7x57. All relatively mild for calibre, low recoiling rounds that put down deer and pigs well enough. The 100gn Swift Scirocco has been an outstanding bullet in the Roberts. A bit pricey but good things usually are.

Have you got any rifling left at all- or is it a smooth bore now? Can’t imagine needing/wanting a longer throat in a Roberts. Even for the 115bt

I'm in my 60th year. I am primarily a whitetail deer hunter, but I want to expand that after I retire. Moose is on the bucket list. Probably red stag and few other. However, watching my older hunting companions, I know that eventually recoil sensitivity will probably come into play.

In 2014, I decided to buy my last 30-06. I've got 8 of them. I just decided that with the decades I had left to hunt, I should start thinking about exploring downwards instead of upwards. I'm currently exploring 25-06.

35 Whelen was my high-water mark for big game rifles. I've still got The Whelenizer, and I intend to keep it, but I've recycled it to shoot cast lead. The loads are more like 35 REM.

I still shoot a 3" 12 GA at turkey. It's got the recoil of a 416 Rigby, but it's only a few shots a year.

Have to agree whole-heartedly. I have many rifles I use, but only a few that absolutely must stay for this very reason.

Have come to the conclusion that I don't need or will use all I have anymore. Since retiring I have become addicted to building them more than anything. I could get by with my 721 in 06 and the 722 twin of John's gun. I have some of good friends now gone. Memories will keep them here. My Swede which I finally fullstocked after 30 odd years of enjoying it. Various single shots of which I went nuts over at one time. Guess my sons will just have to divide them up one day.