Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 6.5 x 55 Swede vs. 30-06 - on the largest NA game

Thanks K.

As I've stated many times, I'm not much of a hunter. I'm more interested in the technical aspects of the hobby. So real life experience trumps any of the following opinions:

There is reason to believe that a larger, heavier bullet will do a better job of surviving impact on a major bone and continuing with enough momentum or energy to complete its mission.

If the bullet does not have to penetrate a major bone, then the 6.5 and 308 bullets are probably quite similar in performance. If they do have to penetrate a large bone, then a heavier 308 bullet probably has an advantage.

Bullet tests I have seen w/130 TSX in 6.5 look very impressive, more so than even 156/160s and the best of 140 premiums.

No doubt larger has advantages on dangerous large game by virtue of wound channel size - potentially due to frontal area being typically larger. How much difference in killing power - actually time to death, since the 6.5 will surely kill, it's a matter of if you need it to drop something quickly, how will that scenario play out.

I knew w/o a doubt a 338 and larger bore will surely show a noticeable difference on game vs. a small bore, but the 6.5 vs. 30 had me wondering, and I know properly loaded '06s have dropped many bear since many hunters have carried said combo in bear country.

Heavier by itself - I am not sure guarantees more penetration, more momentum perhaps, but frontal area and S.D. affects it also.

Thanks Denton.

The swede is sweet but, a 220 gn. partition @ 2650 from the old 06 would be tough for the swede to top for the big critters

Since TR died in 1919, that would have been very difficult for him. Maybe it was someone else?


edited to add, disregard my last. I saw where you corrected that statement.

NO need to get personal

if facing a charging Grizzly I'd want every advantage. This question was asked here along time ago and the weapon of choice was an M-1 Garand. So 30-06. More may not mean better -but more automatically means not less.

I agree, can't argue MO is betta when it comes to stopping a Nasty charging....

Hope to not have an encounter, but know it's a possibility and would hope to have a back up gunner as 2 would be better than one I would have to imagine.

I do seem to recall MANY reports I have read over my lifetime where the 220 '06 has a great reputation at close range for ending a charge of a nasty...

Just to change things up... if you were hunting other than BB's, with whatever rifle you hunt those other species with, would having a .454 (.44 mag, .460, et al) backup, completely negate this thread?

I've read a lot of stories by mauled (and rifle armed) hunters who said they had absolutely no time to swing and fire at the charging bear. I'd have to say a big pistol would make me feel much more confident in my abilities to get the gun actually pointed and fired (even if the bear was already attacking).

Then again, this is just a hope-I-never-get-certification-theory!

Too funny!

65: Perspective from a rookie bear hunter and FWIW.....I agree with what Klik said about the larger stuff working a bit better on these really large and/or nasty animals.

Normally I am not much of a "medium bore" guy for much hunting,finding 30 cal and below to be easily up to the task,but big bears are skosh different in temperament and physiology from the ungulates,and the first time I hunted them I watched their behaviour a lot and concluded these big grizzlies are highly intelligent,and capable of some rationale thought.

None of this has much to do with what it takes to kill them,but it does give me a very high level of respect for them, to the point where I am truly not certain I ever want to kill another,having taken two of them.

I was about 8 days into a 10 day hunt.Things unfolded quickly after the guide and I had a windshift blow an approach on a male and female....they disappeared into the brush,off the beach,and we turned to walk away,the guide getting about 30-40 yards ahead of me as I continued to lolligag for some reason,when I turned and looked back,as the male came back out,very suddenly...

..I hissed to the guide and flopped prone into 6 inches of salt water,rested over a rock,and touched off the 375....I thought I was on vitals but grizzlies have that "hump"and never having shot one before,my shot was high(rookie mistake here);he went down and was back up in a flash and my second shot as he ran for the alders caught him squarely through the lungs,but I could not know this at the time....in a flash he was gone....and I mean in a "flash".

You simply cannot believe the speed and coordination of these animals when they are under stress until you see it with your own eyes......as he hit the alders he was a "blur".....

Hans and I got to where he was hit;there was a LOT of blood on the beach.....where he hit the alders,the ground dropped down where the alders grew,and there was no blood on the ground,which struck me as strange.....then I looked "up",at eye level,and noticed blood and hair,in the alder tops,6 feet off the ground.....in thinking through what I had seen after the second shot,but did not register,is that the bear had "swum" through the tops of these alders like a squirrel over the tops of a front yard hedge,in a blur and with such speed that I simply cannot describe it....(suffice to say he made a whitetail buck running across a hardwood ridge,look like a plodding oaf.)

This situation will give a guy pause.....you will think very hard about what you have here,and do not follow up with impunity. We waited 45 minutes and followed up....he had gone maybe 50 yards back into the forest,swung left of his backtrail into a blowdown,and died there,his chin rested on a log.My first shot was high;the second made a gaping hole through both lungs with a large exit.

There were lots of mistakes here by me;I was wound up,in a hurry,concerned he would disappear again, hurried the first shot and did not think it through.Bears are built different and the same placement would have dumped an elk in his tracks.

I vowed I would never let a dangerous animal make any tracks again if I could help it.My next brown bear never made it 10 yards from where he was hit.

I have seen lots of elk sized critters killed with smaller bore rifles up through 338;the volume of blood and the wound channels created through that bear by the 375 was in a different category alltogether.The amount of blood was reassuring and a comfort to see on that beach.....

Which is why,to me, conversations about minimum calibers and theoretically perfect shots with small bores,on these great animals,become completely irrelevant in the context of actual field conditions.....and if forced to choose between a 6.5 and a 30 caliber for these great bears,I would, every time,take the larger bore diameter in a rifle I can shoot......given time to reconsider,for brown bear anyway(not interior grizzly which I have not hunted)I would look to a 9.3x62 if it is more comfortable to shoot but a 375 would be my first choice.

It is nice to sit here and ponder this stuff on a keyboard,how we will react,what shot we will take or won't,how we will exercise restraint and coolness under pressure with the little rifle.But you can be cool as a cucumber and still blow it.I know I did...

Yes it is always about bullet placement,but it is also about telling bullet effect....and it is also about pieces of bear clockwork on the ground in front of you,when things happen in nano-seconds,and the wheels fall off.So I don't ever wonder about the minimums required.I want bullet construction and bore diameter when dealing with these animals.

I wonder how reassured I'd have felt if this whole thing unfolded with a 6.5?

Sorry for the long post but I think you get my drift.Again,a rookie perspective on the matter,and FWIW.

Great stuff there guys. Capitalist, I have done a fair share of shooting and hunting w/handguns and would plan to have one available.

Bob - no doubt, they are to be respected and I do. Likely will have a mid bore of perhaps a 9.3 or perhaps a 338 or 375.

They are no doubt amazingly quick and move much faster than the best a human can - even a world class track runner on level ground. There is no where to run, or use in trying to outrun one, that is for sure.

Glad you survived! Thanks sir for your sharing the story.

65br,

i just got back from a cow elk hunt and killed a large cow 600+ on the hoof im told with a 120 ttsx out of my rem 700 6.5 swede.

it took her at a little over 250 yards 1/4 to me. hit her on the shoulder and exited off side through the ribs. she ran 50 yards and gave up the ghost.

when we skinned her the side that was hit was blood shot and tore up ( no eating right up to the hole on this one ).

to be honest i wasn't sure i had enough gun with me ( first elk hunt ), but the bullet made it a bigger killer than i thought it could be.

Same old same old....

(I can think of any number of other people who have said those exact same things. However, you get credit for writing it down well. But those who propose to hunt big bears ought to pay heed. Nicely conveyed, BobinNH.)

Great post Bob, I enjoyed that.

well thought, well stated

Guys thank you.Just trying to convey perspectives from a newbie bearhunter.Screwing up is part of the learning process sometimes.

I mean it when I say the first shot went precisely where I intended;it was simply not the right "spot".It would have been on an elk, or a moose,but bears are built slightly "differently".I learned that day,that it is vital to place shots on potentially dangerous animals very precisely.And "enough gun" is very reassuring.

Yes, very good post by Bob, and appreciate all posters comments -thanks again.

If I do get on a once in a lifetime bear hunt, I do want to report back - in good fashion ...Health!

Tag

7 year old thread... but it was nice to read the posts from Bob in NH...
who passed with the past year or so...

RIP Bob... you and your writings are missed by your campfire Brethren...