.30/06 bolt lovers - get in here

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Orion6

New member
What’s your history with the ‘06 and what’s your favorite gun/load combination for deer and other big game?

I’ve owned several bolts in America’s old warrior from a Weatherby Vanguard, Mossberg 100, Winchester 70 (still miss it) and now a Remington 783 Walnut with Vortex scope.

Favorite loads from the factory are good old 150 grain Core Lokts or Winchester Power Points.

Thinking of trying the Winchester Deer Season XP’s this year if they group well.

Let’s hear from everyone.
 
I was passed down a M1917 Winchester by my dad who got it from his dad because he said my 6.5 arisaka didn't have enough dropping power. The arisaka has dropped plenty of deer by my other grandpa and dropped my biggest but there wasn't a drop of blood the 50-70 yards it went after being hit.

The 30-06 has pretty much exploded all deers hearts and didn't let them run more than 40 yards with a huge blood trail.

My grandfather used 150 grain winchester and that's what my dad used and now I feed it 150 grain powerpoints. I have made up my own reloads that are just as accurate but since my dad refuses to shoot reloads I always have a box of 150 grain winchester with me.
 
My 1st rifle was a 30-06 Remington 700 that I bought in high school back in 1975. It was my only rifle for years and the one I've taken most of my game with. For deer and bear here in Georgia any 150-180 gr load that shoots well works. I don't recall any favorite factory load. Just what ever I picked up. I've been hand loading for a while and usually use either Hornady or Nosler 165's.

I pretty much retired that rifle 15 years ago and have been using a Winchester and Kimber in 308 since. The 308 is lighter, smaller, kicks less, is more accurate and if I can't kill it with the 308 my 30-06 isn't big enough to make a difference.

I still love the round and have a tremendous amount of respect for it. If I were primarily an elk or moose hunter I'd probably still prefer the old 30-06 since it will shoot bullets in the 200 gr weight class a little better than 308. But for what I do it is simply bigger than needed.
 
I never wanted an 06 and somehow along the way back in 2012 if I looked in my safe I had six of them. I killed my first elk in 1996 with a borrowed Savage 110 .30-06 and 180 grain silver boxed Winchester ammunition. I bought a .270 Win and didn't have a .30-06 for several years.

It wasn't until 2006 when I went on an Alaskan bear hunt that I bought my first .30-06 just a simple M700 synthetic ADL added a 2.5-8X36 Leupold Vari-X III and went hunting. I killed a very respectable black bear around Petersburg Alaska at 200 yards with a 200 grain Nosler Partition stoked by H4350 and CCI 200 primers. It wasn't long after that I was 06 less again, trading it off for a .358 Winchester Savage Model 99A brush gun.

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My third 30-06 I bought was a JC Higgins Model 50 built on a FN Mauser action. This pawn shop gem was a little rough, but the addition of a Pachmeyer recoil pad and a stock refinish had it looking as good as new. I hated the trigger in it, but found a gunsmith familiar with them and he stoned it and worked some magic and got it down to a respectable 4 lb pull without much creep and pretty clean break. I used the rifle to take a smallish 3 point mule deer and never hunted it again and wound up selling when I was looking at a move for work along with three other .30-06 rifles I had collected in 2012.

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I kept one of my .30-06 rifles a M70 Stainless Classic Featherweight that I had bought as just the barreled action. I lucked into a used McMillan Hunter stock with a blind mag that also had the Edge fill for cheap, seemed like a marriage made in heaven and wound up with a Elk rifle that scoped weighs 7 lbs 1.8 oz. The other M70 Stainless Classic sporter that I kept eventually wound up as a custom .338-06.

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My last .30-06 I purchased after we got settled into our new house, a M670 Winchester that I snagged off of gunbroker.com for a really good price. I found a Winchester Winlite stock and it seemed like a good idea to put them together. I tried my hand at some camo paint scheme and it didn't come out too bad, it's got about an extra pound on my FWT M70. It makes a good loaner rifle for anyone who needs to borrow it.

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"Ol' Pet" is a 1971 vintage Weatherby Mark V. #2 profile 26" barrel in '06. With my handloads (mostly Sierra) it has always been a sub-MOA shooter, although I did some initial tweaking to make that happen. I installed a Canjar trigger, early on.

The stock is a perfect fit, so I say that "I'm all married up with it." :) That's made for some easy snap shots. Almost all kills have been bang-flops.

Mostly whitetails plus two mulies. One turkey and a few coyotes.
 
One 700 carbine, two 742s (one a carbine), one 740 and one 760.

48gr of H4895, WLRM primers and 165gr Nosler BTs give sub-MOA accuracy. It gives 'minute-of-ladybug' in my sons pillar and glass bedded 700.
 
My "Buck Hammer" is a "Bubba-ized" Smith Corona 03A3 and is one of the most accurate hunting rifles I've used. It killed a lot of deer at some surprisingly long ranges and did a great job BUT. I found other lighter recoiling rounds that also did a great job and drifted away from the 30/06. I still have 6 or 7 including a target rifle that weighs over 12#(the barrel alone weighs as much as some lightweight rifles) and will put a bullet in a tea cup @ 1/4 mile but I haven't fired a 30/06 for close to 10 years.
 
I have owned dozens of 30/06s. My favorite bolt actions were Win 70 pre 64s &
a 721 Rem. The others I had are to numerous to list. In the bolt actions I used
Jack Oconnor's pet deer load. 150gr spitzer/ 57.0g of IMR 4350 at 2875fps. I
found it accurate in anything I put it in.
Now I only own one 30/06, a Win 1895. I load it with 180gr RN at 2300-2400fps
the pressure on these is suppose to be kept down to 45000 psi. I have taken
several deer with this rifle & load with good results.
 
My only .30-06 bolt action is a 1903A4 made in 1944. Commercial hunting rifles are all the same and most of 'em won't shoot as well as a 74 year old rifle.
 
I've hunted with more mag rifles than 270,30-06 but doesn't mean I don't own/shoot them. I purchased new Win 30-06 and Rem 30-06 and I replace both stocks with a McMillan.

The Win, I replaced factory barrel with Krieger 1/10 twist,30-06 @ 24" and I replaced that with Bartlein 1/11.25 r twist,30-06 @ 26".

The Rem, I replaced factory barrel with Lilja 1/11 twist, 30-06AI @ 27" and I replace that barrel with Shilen 1/13 Ratchet twist, 30-06 @ 25 1/2". I use that rifle cow elk tag.

I like them and pretty accurate, makes good combination.
 
I had a 98 mauser make over that's what a lot of people did in the 60s my .06 was re -done ( the stock ) in shop class I ended up with it a year later ( 1963 ) $10 & two good tires !!!
 
Well I like the 30-06 so much I built up a Savage action and a Boyds stock into a Bull Barrel 30-06 Target rifle.

Took 4 months for the barrel because no one orders bull barrel 30-06 (well almost no one)

My take is that its one of the top finest cartridges in the world. There are other offerings that are its equal (7.92 in the rest of the world at least at one time) but none overall better.

You can hang your hat on the fact that its taken more grizzly bears than any other cartridge and done it just fine before the magnums became the thing.
 
Long ago I bought a 300 win mag--so that kinda provided little incentive for me to invest in a 30-06. But I nonetheless recognize it as an icon among American cartridges. I still consider myself a member of the "fraternity" since I bought a marvelous ruger Hawkeye in 35 whelen.

Favorite loads from the factory are good old 150 grain Core Lokts or Winchester Power Points.

Thinking of trying the Winchester Deer Season XP’s this year if they group well.
Click to expand...
Don't miss Hornady's American Whitetail--it's ben across the board in multiple cartridges one of the most consistently accurate budget factory ammos I've ever tried.
 
I fired my first 30-06 when I was 12. A borrowed 1903 Springfield and fell in love with the cartridge. Years ago I lucked up on a Colombian Mauser made by FN. I scrapped all of it except the action and had a nice altho plain sporter made out of it. Later on I got a 1903 A3 made by Smith Corona and had a 30-06 target rifle made out of it. My FN has always been my go to hunting rifle. With 57 grains of IMR 4350 and a 165 grain Nosler BTBT it will print tiny little cloverleafs at 100 yards all day long.
 
The only 06 bolt gun I have is my Sears model 73 (AKA 670 Winchester). I picked it up a few years ago at a local pawn shop for under $200 OTD and could not be happier with it. Some days you look for good deals and some days they find you.
 
I have three. A springfield that has a sport stock on it, i love the thing. A rem 7, taken a lot of abuse from it. My third is my father's 742. At one time I fired only 180 grain but lately I have moved down to 150, shooting IMR 4350 and sierra BTSP. No, not the best powder, but it' a very good combination.
 
bolt rilfe, '06

Most of my experience with the '06 cartridge has been with the Garand. But one afternoon I ambled into a local shop and there was a very nice looking Mannlicher stocked bolt carbine on the used rack. Turns out it was an Interarms Mark X in '06 with 20" barrel. Had a very nice Lyman peep (???) on it too. I noted that the butt stock had been cut very short and the price was adjusted accordingly, and I left with it. A pal that runs a stock fitting operation added a mag thicknes recoil pad, which doesn't look too bad and the rifle now points and handles well. I learned quickly that I could not see with the peep sights well enough in the late PM to ethically shoot game at all but very close distances ( and that problem has escalated yrs later). But a Leupold 6x36 looks nice and tidy on the gun and has since served well.

Of course I wanted to shoot it right away, but I did not have a lot of slugs, this was in the midst of the ammo and component crises ......I did not want to dip into my supply of .30/150's for the .308 and the Garands......but what I did have was some 200 gr Nosler Partitions that I could not foresee ever shooting at game with, so I slapped some ammo together with no particular care, and took the MarkX and its 6x to the range. Holy smokes!!!

Two things immediately apparent... 1)the 20" barreled .30'06 kicked and bellowed with those big Noslers . ...2) the carbine was incredibly accurate with those long heavy bullets, despite my slack approach to the loads. I had a great uncle who maintained that the '06 with 180 gr RN was the "best killer in the woods" and so in Harry's honor, I eventually got around to loading a quantity of Sierra 180 RN. I did not run these loads full throttle, ending up at about 2450 fps. These 180's shot stunningly well too. I realize that a .30/180 at 2450 fps is NOT what the '06 is really capable of (it's more like .300 Savage numbers) but it is more than sufficient for whitetails in the woods. It may well be that the long heavy RN slugs really do seem to hit a bit harder than lighter, pointed bullets, my limited kills with the load being bang flops. I'd add that 2400 fps or so was about what I was getting with the full power 200 grains slugs, but with a good bit more drama!

The Mark X is a looker and often draws comments from those that see it, and there is something satisfying about those long cases and big RN slugs when you bolt one up and settle into a stand.
 
At the time I discovered my Weatherby, I had been looking at the Mark 10 action with which to build a 26" '06. Shilen barrels were very slow delivery at the time.
 
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