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

The 300 WSM has more recoil than an 06. Rifles in WSM generally only hold three rounds and sometimes more is useful. The short magnums also tend to have more feeding problems. I have nothing against them, but I think the 06 is more versatile, not to mention that ammo is widely available, even in small towns, something that cannot be said for the WSM's. In the end it's all about personal choice but that's my opinion, and by the way, the opinion of millions of shooters who use the 06 and not the WSM's.

To the OP: you're right, your original post was about the 06 case. As usual on the 'fire, the discussion veered away from it's original point.

My dad was a WW11 veteran. Couple other men I’ve known were Korean veterans. They sure loved the 30GOVT06. My dad bought a model 70 in 1941 and he bought my featherweight in 1955. Of course both are in 06. 110s to 250 Barnes and six rounds on board in the grizzly hills.

I’ve never been into
The Almost as good as......

Why have an Almost... when you can have the real one ?

I’ll take an 06 and 270 in favor of the
“Almost as good” ones.

Jerry

ps: I’m Old School

Worth noting that every big game species in North America has been successfully hunted with the good ol' 30-06 cartridge. This fellow did almost all of his hunts with the 165 grain Nosler Partition, bumping up to the 200 grain Nosler Partition for a few of the really big animals.



I like lots of different cartridges, but have to admit that the 30-06 & 25-06 are two of my favorites. Not sure there's anything 6mm - 40 cal on the .30-06 case that I wouldn't like. I've taken wolf, antelope, deer, elk, black bear and grizzly with my 30-06, it was absolutely "enough gun." Then again, I could have done that with a dozen different cartridges.

But... "perfect" ? I dunno. Is anything ever perfect?

Regards, Guy

Amen brother

When and if you hunt deer and elk size game what do you use?

Llama_Bob, curious what your choice of the perfect cartridge would be?

Who cares? Our military stayed with .30 in our battle rifles from 1892 clear up to the late 60's yet that squirrel tries to claim the 30-'06 was obsolete right from the getgo. What a clown

Aren't even the short action .473 case head line of cartridges based off of the old '06?

Case capacity and bore size is what makes the 30-06 such a great cartridge.Not too many cartridges can burn such a wide range of powders and shoot such a wide range of bullet weights like a 30-06.

I cannot argue with that.

Old African hands will tell you the perefect safari battery is the 30-06 coupled with the .375 H & H. They shoot the same basic trajectory and are a highly effective pair to cover everything from duiker to elephant.

fter

In fairness your military was experimenting with calibres smaller than .30 from the early 1890s, and this continued up to, during and after the US participation in the last few months of WWI. They even tested a .25 based on the .30/06 case in 1917.

Of course you'd also know that your Navy and Marines adopted a 6 mm too, after considering a .32, and this was adopted after the Navy had also considered and tested the .30 Ball (.30-40), though after a comparatively short period of a few years the Navy decided to come into standardisation with the Army.

Through the 20s and early 30s work continued, with intermediate-sized 6.5 and 7 mm calibres favoured. There was a strong view that an intermediate-sized 7mm, the .276, was ideal, based on quite comprehensive tests of such things as lethality, and considerations of ammunition weight, recoil and package size. It was close to being adopted, and was specified for the trials for a new self-loading rifle for the Army, with the Garand which was ultimately adopted being designed around it. This all came to a halt in 1932, a decision based largely on economics, there being too many rifles, machine guns rounds of ammunition to replace at the height of the depression, and as a result the Garand was redesigned to suit the .30/06.

And of course after WWII work again started, more or less immediately, on a cartridge smaller and lighter than the .30/06, eventually leading to 5.56. More recently, as a matter of some irony, there have been some for whom the ideal service cartridge is an intermediate-sized one of about 7mm, whose ballistics more or less replicate the .276 of 1932 (and, for that matter, the .280 favoured by Britain and other allies for the NATO round in the late 1940s).

That is not to be taken as a criticism of the .30/06 as a hunting rifle cartridge. I've always had at least one, for the past 40-odd years. I think it is a good versatile sort of cartridge, and I've shot hundreds of animals with it, including pigs, goats and several species of deer. It has always done what I expect of it.

30-06 works fine everytime I use it. As a matter of fact that pile of 78 year old SL 43 brass I been using in it for 50 years could probably stand a cleaning though. Perfect is a word that needs to be defined by the individual using it. The 30-06 based cartridges I been using seem to be fine enough for me also. Don't have much use though for people who have 20/20 hindsight and can't see in front of them
. Mb

i have not used a 30-06 cartridge rifle for 40 some years but i inherited a pre-64 30-06 a few years ago that i never will part with, this rifle has plenty history was made in the early 50`s like 1951 maybe ? just because i can i plan on deer hunting with this old pre-64 30-06 this year 2021, sure i have the latest and maybe even the greatest in todays manufactured rifles Red Ruger Precision AR bolt type 6.5 Creedmoor and it shoots great. but sometimes as we get older we think of the past and its nice to use a tool for hunting from the past ,besides when i pull up this old pre-64 30-06 Chev pickup it fits me better than my new Red Ruger AR Camaro of a 6.5 Creedmoor.

The recoil for a .300 WSM is negligible. Are we arming little girls here? Oh, and the WSM case feeds just fine.

You do have me on one point though - the .30-06 is PERFECT for the sort of guy who forgets his ammo. The ignorance of ballistics that created it goes perfectly with a fellow who can't remember to bring his ammo

I agree with the OP. Availability of brass and actions aside, if the -06 case wasn't close enough to perfect, wildcatters would have based so many of our cartridges on something else.
But of course having owned at least one since the '60's, I admit to a certain amount of prejudice.
And anyone who doesn't own at least one is a commie pinko kweer.

I don't put any particular stock in "perfect" cartridges as design work continues. For example it's quite likely in 10-20 years time we'll be mostly shooting cartridges with steel case heads at 80+KPSI. The .277 SIG demonstrated this is feasible, now it's just a matter of making hunting type cases on the same principle and the guns to go with them.

But of the current choices, for hunting I think the WSM case and Nosler case are very well though out. Currently I'm using a .28 Nosler, .300 WSM, or .375 WSM depending on circumstances and the level of bear threat. I've used a 7mm WSM in the past quite a bit as well.

LBob: you make some good points. But, IMO stating that the '06 was a disaster militarily might have been a tiney bit overstated. As you said in your post above, design work continues. So does that mean that all current cartridges are a disaster because future improvement may come? Hardly.

Sorry, but General Patton's opinion carries more weight than yours, in this case.

I'm only comparing the -06 to what was available at the turn of the centry. The fact is we would have been FAR better off with the 6mm Navy with a spire point or a 6.5x55 or any of a number of smaller bore, smaller case cartridges. As I said, it was acceptable as a hunting cartridge at that point, mostly because of the poor availability of superior cartridges. It was a disaster as a military cartridge.

And it's standard for the nostalia nuthugger to tote out some old quote. To the nuthugger, things said long ago are more important than the facts of the matter The Garand had the merit of being the first widely deployed autoloading rifle in that weight class. That was good. The cartridge was bad, and the Arsenal knew it which is why the .276 Pedersen was created. Confusing the cartridge and the rifle is stupid.