Once upon a time long ago -
Wife bought me my 1st 30-06 for Christmas. I trade it for a 270.
2 Christmas' ago, My 2nd 30-06 followed me home from deer camp:
It's a 1942 Winchester Model 70 period correct 20" barrel Carbine. When I first saw it - Thought it was a super grade but turned out it wasn't. It was missing a rear sight, had been D&T for scope bases, and had a non-factory rebed job under the barrel - So not the collector status I had hoped. Which was OK to me, as I'm not a collector and wanted to get this rifle back to the job of hunting it was made to do.
Now the story takes a turn I didn't see coming!
Wife confiscates rifle as hers and wants to learn to shoot and hunt - She had never shown any interest before! So I take rifle to my GS to check it out - He mentioned that I should get a box of 180 grain factory loads and let her shoot those till she gives it back - Said "Won't take long w/ that steel butt plate". LOL, I told him I had already thought of that and decided NO. I wouldn't discourage her since this was the first real interest she had in shooting/hunting. He said "Well OK - She's got good taste!"
So...I had read about the Remington 125 30-06 Managed-Recoil ammo, but couldn’t find any in stock. I got playing with a trajectory and a recoil calculator one evening and decided I could reload some reduced ammo for her. Then find that 06 dies, cases and bullets are OOS, too. So started scrounging up components - Took 3 months. A friend found a site that had 1 set of 30-06 dies left in-stock so got those dies. Finally got 120 1xFired 30-06 cases from a guy in MI and some 150 NPTs from a guy in WA. Thank God for internet connections. During this process, I was stopping every where to look and happened to find a box of the Rem M-Rs.
Took me another couple of months to get scope, mounts and work-up reloads.
Finally! - Here's a 100 yd sight-in target I shot showing both loads:
My reload is on the left target and the Rem Managed-Recoil ammo is on the right target. Shot the right target first with the Rem M-Rs. As you can see they shot a little high. Adjusted the scope down 1.5". Then shot that low group with my 150 NPT reloads. Adjusted the scope back up the same 1.5" and shot that other group in the center of the left target. Shows my reloads to be the more precise groups and that the 2 loads will NOT shoot to the same POA.
Now she's happy with the recoil and shoots'em just fine: