Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 06 case-just about perfect.

This is a discussion about the venerable old 06 case. I have come to the conclusion, after 55 years of hunting and lots of shooting and load development along with many discussions with others with much more experience than I... that the old 06 case is so practical and versatile that it is just about the perfect case size for 90% of the worlds hunting. When you reflect on the number of factory cartridges based on it, then add all of the wildcats, up to, and including the 400's, I honestly cannot think of anything on this earth that could not be taken,capably, with one of the offspring of this cartridge. With the advent of extremely high quality, well constructed bullets over the last couple of decades, they are even more effective than ever. I think that most would agree that the average big game taken by the majority of hunters occurs at under 300 yards and 06 based cartridges can handle these with ease. This is not an attack on magnums in any way, they always have their place in hunting, just, for most of us, under most conditions, a 280, 30/06, or 338/06 for example, would have killed them just as dead as their magnum counterparts did. As a big bore and magnum fan of many years, it took me a long time and many hunts to finally realize and appreciate just how great 06 based cartridges are.

Ok I’ll undercut a bit. While I agree the 30-06 is a great cartridge, the 338-06 and the 35 Whelen are superfluous while offering little if anything over it. Categorically the same game with the same results. Next 280(270 if I can throw it in), 30-06… 375 h&h or similar.

I think the Mauser family also deserves some credit also. If the Mausers had not come along the '06 may not have come along for a long time or been completely different. With the advent of the new powders coming along , new life has been put in a lot of old cartridges. I also agree that 300 yds for most hunters is all that is practical, and the '06 is an almost perfect cartridge.. Just some thoughts from an old man.
Have a great day.
Jim

lee, I tend to agree with you and I often carry a rifle on the 06 case and sometimes the 06 its self... Depending on how I am hunting, I often have a magnum in a case so if a long shot does crop up I have one at hand.. But as you said 90 percent of the time the 06 will do the job...

I think the US military came to a slightly shorter conclusion sometime around 1952 or so.
:-)

I think the same case could be made for the 308 family or the x57's.

I can recall reading, probably a couple of times over the years, that the .222 (another perfect cartridge) was just a .30-06 scaled down to take a .224 bullet. I've never run the numbers to verify it.

Oh Gag !!

I wish I had stopped reading st WCH.

Could have left "just about" out of the title.

The point of the topic is about the 06 case size and all of the great cartridges that have been developed off of it, not specifically the 30/06, although it is certainly is the father of them. My point was that it has an adequate capacity to work well with a wide range of bore sizes and in the larger bore sizes it becomes more effective for larger game. While the Mauser 57mm case was necked up and down, it was too shy on capacity, especially above 8mm, to be as effective as the US 63mm case. The original 06 capacity just works very well and may just be the most versatile made for non-magnum cartridges.

...or that the 50 BMG was a scaled up version of the 30-06.

The .222's dimensions are actually closer to the 7x57 than the .30-06.

Never bothered to compare the .50 BMG....

Every time I think about getting a different cartridge to hunt with I can't justify it. Actually using the .30-06 is being ''over-gunned'' for most of my hunting of deer and big hogs and at the very least adequate on the 300 to 400 pound Russian Boar that occasionally presents itself. There's a lot to be said for confidence in a cartridge and I can reliably hit a deer size target at 400 yards if I know the distance and have a good corn bag to rest on. The neighbors are sort of amused that I keep a bag of corn on the hood of my Toyota Tundra.

I'd seen in print several times over the years that the BMG was a scaled up 30-06...and when I googled it, sure enough there were websites confirming my recollection, but with names like "survivalmonkey.com" So I decided to do some quick calculations of some relevant case ratios. Body Length to Total Length, Neck Length to Total Length and Base Diameter to Total Length. In each case (with the exception of base diameter to total length, the BMG was a much closer scale up of the 30-06.

You're exactly right:

6MM-06, slow or fast twist barrel, light or heavy bullets, all varminting and light big game.

280 AI, standard or fast twist, heavy [160-175gr] or damn heavy [180-195gr] bullets for near or far.

35 Whelen, 250gr Partitions or A-Frames at 2700 fps, speaks for itself.

400 Whelen, 400gr Woodleigh Weldcore softs and solids at 2255 fps over CFE-223, not a game animal walking earth that can buck those.

After some experimenting done by Winchester starting with a rimmed case from about April 1918, and then (at the prompting of the AEF and Ordnance) a rimless case, trialled in a couple of versions, and some work by Frankford Arsenal using a 13 mm German antitank rifle case as a starting point and testing a semi-rimmed case, FA did indeed end up simply scaling up the .30/06 (FA Drawing No B-7428, 28 April 1919). This design was forwarded to the US Ordnance on May 12 1919, and approved. With a couple of minor changes that is the design still in service.

FWIW there was also a .60 cal developed, in 1939, based initially on a scaled-up .50 (and, by extension, on a scaled up .30/06). It was tested with various solid bronze, steel-cored and banded bullets. Ballistics were impressive, such as a 1200 gn bullet at 3400 fps. However the experiments don't seem to have led to anything.

280 Remington, 24", 175 eldx & 180g Hornady eldm, Lapua brass is actually what a lot of others aspire to be. Even the 162 with Rem brass, 7828, at 2930 fps is the most accurate load in Nosler's #4 manual for their 160g partitions. With the heavier bullets, Lapua '06 brass is simply difficult to kill the primer pockets. Hard for most to believe the ballistics of a .796 BC bullet till you see it with your own eyes.

When I was in jr.high school, Townsend Whelan told me ...in his book Why Not Load Your Own...that the 30-06 was never a mistake on North American game. Jack O'Connor said it was more versatile than the 270. Elmer Keith said it was damn fine coyote rifle (or was that the then new 243 or the 270? Whatever.) I've had brief love affairs with a variety of cartridges from the 6mm Remington, 6.5x55, 7x57 (bless it), 7-08, 35 Whelan, 45-70's, 375 H&H and just to gild the lilly, a 458...and there were others I have probably fotgotten here, not to mention a whole passel of varmint cartridges.I still own most of them. They all have their uses.But, when it comes to getting serious, perhaps when a four digit check has been written for a hunt off in the boonies somewhere or just for a nostalgic trip to the old Vermont deer camp, the go to cartridge is most frequently the '06.

With it I have taken a truckload of deer most with one shot and three moose... all with one shot.Nothing surprising here. The cartridge is just plain...and may I add...boringly dependable. But, you knew that already.

The older I get , and I am now officialy old, and the more experience I have, I've come to believe cartridge selection means little and that bullet construction and placement is everything. What I done with the '06 I could just as well have done with a 270 or a 280.
So there you have it. Ihave spent my entire adult life confirming what I knew in junior high.

"So there you have it. Ihave spent my entire adult life confirming what I knew in junior high."

Yeah, the 30-06 is never a mistake. I agree. Regardless of what I take on a hunt, there's always a 30-06 along as back up. Sometimes as back up the another 30-06.
Paul B.