Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting 30-06 vs 6.5 Creedmoor, with contraints

I have an X-Bolt (in 300 H&H), tell me more about the DNZ one piece please...

I know you guys are having lots of fun here, and I will play along for a bit.

I did everything quite successfully with a $200 used Win 670 with a $60 Weaver V7 2.5-7x32 on top from 1978 to 1995. Elk, deer, coyotes, fox, muskrat, rock chucks, whistle pigs, oh yes hundreds and hundreds of three ounce whistle pigs each spring. All with that old '06 zeroed at 300 yds. I played with a bunch of loads and bullets from 110 to 220 gr. But when putting meat on the table, or shooting for who paid the bar tab that night, it was a 165 gr Ballistic Tip over 60 gr of H4831.

I absolutely refuse to shoot factory ammo. I still do not trust any adjustable turrets to absolutely return to zero every time, and they are superfluous when shooting inside the range one is limited to with no range finder.

Hathcock, according to his book, sighted in dead on at 600 yds, and had no problem shooting to 1000 yds or beyond. But he was just as happy to wound as he was to kill and he was shooting at a five foot tall target. We, as hunters, are obligated to cleanly kill our target species, so our target is a bit smaller in vertical dimension.

I have never met any man capable of estimating range in excess of 500 yds accurately enough to compensate for steepening trajectory past 500 yds. As far as I am concerned, 500 yds is a hard limit without a range finder.

If shopping today for a one rifle battery on a budget, I would start with one of those Walmart Vanguards in 30-06 for $349 and then add a Leupold VX3 3.5-10x40 for $320 from Optics Planet with a set of Talley LW rings for $49 from Sportsman's Whse. Which puts us inside $750 even with a bit of sales tax.

Today's load would be a 168 gr Ballistic Tip with a bc of .490 with enough RL22 to push it to 3000 fps from the 24 inch barrel of the Vanguard. Trajectory would be about +3.75" @ 100 yds. +4.5" @200 yds. 0 @ 300 yds. -10" @ 400 yds. and -27" @ 500 yds

Gawd yes.......

Dogger, your choices suck, and this topic is idiotic

lol, thanks for the replies. interesting post, Idaho Shooter, thanks, i have a bunch of 180 BTs but not the lighter weights. i know i have lost my mind, because i have rifles in 30 cal, 7mm and 6mm, and i am leaning more towards the 30s these days....

OK, i will open up choices to 30-06, 300 H&H, 6.5 Creedmoor, 280 Remington, and 26 Nosler... handloads are now in. still no LRF

IMO if you are dead set against an LRF, you have no business shooting at game beyond the point blank range of whatever cartridge you select. Good LRF's are relatively inexpensive and any scope that has dots or turrents to twist go hand in hand with the LRF. As previously stated by another poster, once you go beyond a certain range no man can reliably guess range accurately enough to compensate for the arching trajectory. You want to shoot rocks at those ranges fine, but not live game.john deere

my self imposed limit is +/- 6 inches on wind drift, the ponder is how far i can push the range, given the advantage different reticles might offer. i don't see me getting much past 350 yards

Under those constraints,I would buy about any cheap 30-06,cheap Bushnell scope and ammo for under $500 and kill anything on the continent at 200 yards and under.

or why not a synthetic grey X-Bolt chambered in 26 Nosler scoped with a useful ballistic reticle...might be good to 500 yards...

Can you estimate range at 500 yards to +/- 100? 10/10 times in various terain and light?

heck no.

OK, relaxing another constraint: LRF are now in.

Total acquisition cost for rifle, scope, rings, and LRF is limited to $1500. Reloading allowed. with respect to scopes: NO TURRET TWISTING!

Would not change a thing from my original answer. Unless you are going to let us punch the 280 to AI, then I would use the 280 AI with a decent high bc bullet of 160 to 165 gr. I know from personal experience the 162 gr Hornady btsp will kill elk well to 400 yds, but I started it a couple hundred fps faster than the 280 AI will.

If you are using a LRF, think about this.

It just ain't that hard to hold under a bit for shots at 75 yds to 250 yds. Everybody I knew did it that way up until 20 years ago. Some of us even kept a range card taped to the stock way back forty to fifty years ago.

So I would buy a dependable scope with ballistic hash marks like the Boone and Crockett, or Ballistic plex. I would zero the main wire at 300 yds, and shoot to determine where the lower wires are actually zeroed. Add that data to the range card, and you will be set for a considerable distance.

What did we do before LRF? We traveled our favorite hunting areas in the summer on horses or motorcycles with our rifles and chosen hunting loads. We picked out targets from the landscape, usually rocks, and bet each other on the actual distance from trail to target. Rifles were fired and distance was verified by bullet drop on target.

Viper pst, 450, Walmart weatherby 250, or 500 on a tikka in 06. 180 gr partitions. Spend the rest on practice ammo

I pick a 6x42 Leupold and whatever .30-'06 would fit under it within budget. Weaver Top Mount rings and bases to but more money toward the rifle. The .30-'06 is never a mistake.

Yeah, if I were going to be packing a remington 700, it would be an older mountain rifle.. Just me though. However, My first pick would be a model 70..

Kinda bass ackwards thinking. If your not using a range finder, you shouldn't be shooting past 400 yards anyways. You can easily do that with a skinny barrel. If no rangefinder, I'd set up zero for MPBR and limit my shots to no further than 400. Past that and your range guistimate could get you in trouble.. Just sayin..

Excellent post. I agree..

You are busting our balls here. Again, if you are shooting to 500 yards, you probably should be using a LRF. No amount of 26 Nosler or similar cartridges are going to compensate for poor range calculation at that distance. It could mean a wounded game animal on your hands if you take such a shot in the dark...