What makes the 30-06 less accurate then the 308 or any other round for that matter .

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My recollection is that the .308 was the first computer-aided design. Among design parameters, they had to figure out ways to improve consistency of the powder burn rate. That led to the present case dimensions. Another factor was that the powder give a pressure curve such that they could get approximately 2,800 ft/sec with a 150-grain bullet from a barrel of around 20". This was achieved with a chamber pressure of some 55,000 psi (I've no idea of how many CUPs this is.) By the way, that pressure is about 5,000 to 6,000 psi greater than the factory loadings of the '06 in the 1950s.

Shorter action = stiffer. Shorter barrel = stiffer. Stiffer means better consistency in the harmonics.

Add it all up and you have a better cartridge than the '06 for certain purposes. IMO, it's not better for some purposes beyond target shooting on paper or military sniper use. In some situations, it's as good as the '06; in some, it falls behind. No big deal. Figure out which need fits what scenario.
 
Thanks Bart for the detailed explanation . It appears history has shown the 308 to be more accurate then the 30-06 . It also appears that the difference is quite small when measured in MOA and most would never notice . It also appears that just about everybody in this thread is correct in there view of the 308 and 30-06 to a point .

Now that it appears the question has been answered . I'd like to look at another aspect of accuracy and that is recoil . Does recoil it self make a gun less accurate . I've heard the 308 will recoil about 3/8 of a inch before the bullet leaves the barrel ? Would a 375 H&H recoil more then 3/8 of a inch before the bullet leaves the barrel ? What about a 22-250 ? I would think the velocity would play a big roll in how much the rifle moves before the bullet leaves the barrel . Is it the rifle that is less accurate or is it really the ability of the shooter to shoot the rifle accurately ?

Again is it the recoil it self that makes a firearm less accurate or is it more to do with the shooter being able to handle the recoil ?

I ask cus I hear guys talking about heavy recoiling rifle being less accurate . They almost always caveat it with the the ability of the shooter . IMHO the rifle is accurate or not and how well a person can shoot that rifle does not say anything to how well the rifle shoots . I can shoot sub MOA with my Ruger American 308 but my buddy can't .There's to much recoil for him to relax enough to shoot it accurately . That does not mean the rifle is less accurate cus of recoil . It just means he is less accurate with a heavy recoiling rifle . yes ?
 
Old Roper comments on some sights used on Palma rifles:
They have lens in the front sight can't have them in the rear sights think is 5x on front lens.
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Current NRA high power rifle rules do not allow magnifying iron sight lens elements; it takes 2 lenses to magnify the target. Nor have such sights been allowed in any Palma match I know or shot in. Some smallbore matches allow magnifying metallic sights.

Those Rightsight +.25, +.5, and +.75 diopter corrective lenses and other makes and diopters only corrrect for the shooters vision so the target appears sharper when their aiming eye's reasonably focused on the front sight. Some folks use lenses in rear sights to make the front sight sharper. And some rear sight adustable apertures have adjustable diopter settings.

A diopter is a way of expessing a lens' focal length. 1 diopter equals 1000 millimeters (one meter); 1 divided by the diopter number equals the lens' focal length. A +.25 diopter lens has a focal length of 4 meters. A 2 diopter lens has a focal length of half a meter; 500mm.

And also the following:
When Palma made the 308 rifle to be used in 30 cal that end any competition on anything else being used.

Since it has no competition who's to say it's better? If it was the best why didn't US Palma scope the 308. Myself you put a lens which is available in power magnification in the front sight might as well scope the rifle then you add one of these
http://www.sinclairintl.com/optics/s...prod44975.aspx
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The reason the Palma rifle cartridge was limited to the .308 was to be the same as other country's rifles used in International Palma Matches; an expansion of the British Commonwealth's use of only the 7.62 NATO round. This was hoped to get more folks used to shooting that cartridge at 800 through 1000 yards.

Sinclair's AOS Microsight front sight device is not allowed in Palma matches if it magnifies the target. As it has " two tiny, internal lenses" I think that disqualifies it as the NRA high power rules only allows one lens to be used.

And in respons to the following:
I think Bart was talking about F-Class rifles and no bearing on the real world of shooting. When they open the F-Class sure didn't see a rush to scope 308 so that got to tell you something.
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I've never been to, much less fired a round, in any F-class match. I have used F-class shooting positions to test rifles and ammo for accuracy. Lots of folks did that decades before F-class was established as a competitive discipline. I was referring to NRA high power match rifle shooting where no rests are allowed and all's done shooting standing, sitting or kneeling and prone holding the rifle to ones shoulder. That's the closest competitive shooting discipline to the real world of shooting. . .to me, that is.

That lack of a rush to scope 308 tells me folks wanted to use some other cartridge and some of the 600-yard benchrest favorites were popular. I've no idea what they thought the accuracy of a .308 Win. might be when fired in the positions they used. But they probably didn't think it was all that great. Most "group" shooters have no idea whatsoever that "score" shooters' hardware will equal theirs when tested under the same conditions; that's beyond their comprehension and understandably so. I've never held that against them; it's pretty much human nature in my opinion.
 
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Metal god, the more recoil a rifle has while the bullet's going down the barrel, the more the bore axis will move off where it was pointed when the round got smacked by the primer and fired the bullet. That's 'cause the recoil axis is not in line with the butt pad center against your shoulder. You gotta hold a smallbore target rifle perfectly still 3 times longer than a .308 to shoot good scores. This is the reason a rifle's bore axis does not point exactly to a spot above the aiming point equal to bullet drop plus sight height above bore axis when they're zeroed by the shooter. They're all off a bit by some angular amount and direction.

And if the rifle's not shouldered exactly the same way for each shot, that alone will cause the muzzle axis to vary its direction for each shot fired. This is the reason several people shooting the same rifle will have different zeros for each load they use in it; they each hold the rifle differently and their body's are not all the same shape, size and makup.

Tube guns whose recoil axis is better aligned with the butt pad-shoulder center move less during recoil. I believe this is one reason why they shoot more accurate than conventionally stocked rifles.

Recoil energy formulas are easy to find on the web. Here's a decent one with rifle weights and cartridges already listed:

http://www.chuckhawks.com/recoil_table.htm

How massive the person is holding it as well as how hard against their shoulder the rifle's held determines the distance backwards the rifle's going to move. And the angle the bore axis is to the shooter's body also has some effect.

40 plus caliber double rifles shooting 500 grain plus bullets have their muzzle axes toed in so they cross at 10 to 30 yards downrange. Left barrel firing swings the rifle to the left, right to the right. The barrels are "regulated" to do shoot to point of aim at 50 or 75 or whatever yard line the customer wants. Look at one sometime and note the bore centers are closer together at the muzzle than the chamber centers at the breech.

Hand gun front sights' tops are higher above the bore axis than the rear sight tops (square notch and square post types) for the same reasons.
 
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Bart B. -- interesting, if not persuasive, factoids. Thanks.

That .30-06 reaming you reference -- does that coincide much, if at all, with the .30-06 Ackley Improved chamber then accuracy-wise do you know? I believe these favor some bullet weights...
 
MattSchlock, I've no idea on anything about an Ackley improved chamber except their only objective is (in my opinion) to get as much velocity possible from a standard case blown out as much as the brass will allow and still clean up the original chamber. But their larger and more angled shoulder area will better hold the case in place when the firing pin strikes them and that's a plus for accuracy as well as case life.
 
I find it hard to believe that the minuscule difference in felt recoil between a .308 and a 30-06 (given the same rifle model and weight) can be much of a determining factor in the relative accuracy of the two rounds.
I've been shooting both calibers for almost 50 years and I just don't believe it.
 
Figuring comparative recoil is easy enough.

Add the powder and the bullet weights and multiply by the muzzle velocity, for the cartridges under consideration. Then look at the ratio between them. If the rifles are of equal weight, you then know the comparable recoil between the two.

If the rifles are of different weight, just figure that ratio and add it to the ratio from above.
 
RevGeo, the felt recoil difference between any two cartridges in otherwise identical rifles has nothing to do with the relative of either the rifles or the cartridges. As long as the rifle's held exactly the same way for each shot, it doesn't matter how much recoil it has; accuracy of the rifle and ammo will be pristine, excellent, match winning and very small game dropping.

It only effects the ability of the shooter to keep the rifle from moving while the bullet goes down the barrel. That's when the small recoil difference between the .30-06 and .308 makes the .308 a tiny bit easier to shoot accuratly. And it's only about 5% of the total recoil and mostly imperceptable. It's the jet effect of high pressure gas shooting out the muzzle after the bullet's left the muzzle that causes 95% of felt recoil.

That barrel time recoil's enough to cause problems. Mostly when slung up in prone and the shooter's front elbow on the ground and the front hand's under the fore end. If that elbow's moved in any direction after first keeping it in place to get a zero, the next shot will not shoot to zero; typically to the left or right.

Also, when slung up in prone, if the rifle's butt doesn't get back into the same position for each shot, vertical shot stringing will occur. Shots go high if the butt's too low in the shoulder; low if too high. The muzzle axis elevation angle's not the same for each shot.

Both of the above can easily cause a 1 MOA error; sometimes more. This is one of the main reasons why medium size 26 caliber cartridges are now the favorite for long range prone matches; the big belted magnums would shoot bullets just as accurate but the barrel time recoil was a lot more and the rifle moved more off from where it should point during barrel time recoil.

Most folks will never see this happen, but to the few who can, it's important to deal with.
 
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OK art I did your math thing here with what to me would be common rounds/loads . All loads were on the hotter side of powder .

69gr 223 = 75,069

175gr 308 = 104,245

190gr 30-06 = 117,970

300gr 338 Lapua = 207,000

As you can see the recoil goes up the chart as you would expect . How ever when i use Mag Pro powder with the the bullet wight and same velocity as the above 30-06 the number comes out to 142,800 . So you have the same bullet , same case , same velocity but more powder and you get quite a bit more recoil . Is that right or am I doing something wrong . The Mag Pro is a slower burning powder so does that make for more recoil ? I would think the slower the powder burns the less felt recoil you would have . For lack of a better term . The slower powder would feel more like a push then a kick ?

I'm not saying I know this , It just sounds right to me
 
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I'm no expert, but I would thing there are a lot of things stacking up to make a difference.

1. Different cartridge length.. this makes different powders behave differently, and a better case fill with a faster powder can make a huge difference, also the shorter the case, the better the primer can act on the powder directly, making for better efficiency. As with most things, efficiency = performance.

2. Different shoulder angle.. this has been an area often explored with an eye toward accuracy, the steeper a shoulder is, in general, usually the better the accuracy potential is.

3. Shorter action.. I'm no gunsmith, and I'm sure the difference is minute, but several minor differences add up to a big one..

4. Military development.. yes the 30.06 preceded the .308 as a military sniper round, but the .308 enjoyed more modern testing and development on that end, and that is sure to have made a difference in the overall development of the round over the years. The 30.06 would have been effectively abandoned in favor of the new round, so the military development would have stopped.

5. Availability of match grade components... with the advent of the .308 in the military, so came the .308 in competitions, and that has had a longer life than what the 30.06 spent as a military round, as such there is a larger market base for all the match grade ammunition and rifles in .308 vs. the 30.06.


I do know this.. I've RSO'ed for a few ranges for a sniper section, and I've seen .308 rifles in the right hands do some really incredible things.. as well as the Barret M82.
 
I would think the slower the powder burns the less felt recoil you would have . For lack of a better term . The slower powder would feel more like a push then a kick ?
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Nearly all of the recoil you feel occurs after the bullet leaves the barrel. The gun only moves rearward about 1/16 inch or so during barrel time. The rest of the movement is momentum. The exact amount of movement during barrel time depends on the ratio of gun mass to bullet/powder charge mass.

I would think that a slow burning powder would have a higher pressure as the bullet exits making for louder muzzle blast and more jet effect after the bullet leaves the barrel.
 
Comments on SVTCobra306's comments follow:

Shorter action.. I'm no gunsmith, and I'm sure the difference is minute, but several minor differences add up to a big one..
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Note the benchresters sleeved those round Remmy receivers with tubes an inch or more longer than the receiver to get more stock grip on them. Flat side/bottom ones worked the best. With the barrel torque and whip from firing, shorter receivers' bearing surfaces tend to work loose quicker from epoxy bedding. The original .308 bolt guns used standard length (.30-06 size) receivers with flat sides and bottom. The short Remington 700's and 40X ones in .308 were/are notorious for twisting loose from epoxy bedding. Later, when pillar bedding was use, they got somewhat better, but their accuracy never equaled what a standard long Winl 70 receiver would produce; the M70's near 3 times stiffer than the M700's in the vertical plane where it's most important anyway.

Availability of match grade components... with the advent of the .308 in the military, so came the .308 in competitions, and that has had a longer life than what the 30.06 spent as a military round, as such there is a larger market base for all the match grade ammunition and rifles in .308 vs. the 30.06.
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The .30-06 was a competition round at its onset. The accuracy of its match ammo stayed the same from the 1920's (when the 172-gr. FMJBT bullet was developed) until the late 1950's when good HPBT match bullets became available. I think it's remarkable that the '06 maintained its best accuracy level in the 6 inch range at 600 yards for almost 40 years. The .308/7.62 started out in the 3 inch range and hasn't changed.
 
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30-06 not accurate? Nobody told me! Man! I guess I'll have to let that handful of deer I shot with the '06 know that they were killed with an inferior cartridge.
That really bum's me out. :(
 
Way back in 1973, I switched from an almost 10 pound bubba's 1903 Springfield 30-06 to an at leats 2.5 pounds lighter Reminton 660 in .308. Never did have much respect for the .308 until that deer season when I took a nice Mule Deer at 427 paces. :eek: My hunting parner had wounded it and I was trying to bring it down. All that shooting at running jack rabbits earler in the year paid off nicely.
I always though the .308 was a 30-06 wannabe but hunting at the 9,000 foot level and saddled with the fact that I was at that time a 3 pack a day smoker was the reason for switching to the lighter rifle. For the record, I did quit smoking just two years later. Haven't touched one since. For deer at least, I haven't touched the 30-06 in years although I still shoot it some at the range. Current pet .308 is a Ruger M77 RSI shooting 165 gr. Speer Hot-Cores at 2550 FPS. No barn burnier but the deer have not been in any shape to complain. :D
Paul B.
 
Alaskabushman and Paul B, nobody has said the .30-06 was not accurate nor it or the .308 could not take game decently.

And all those deer were killed with bullets, not cartridges. The rifles just shoot the bullets and have no idea where they went. There's no way game animals know what gun held the cartridge that shot the bullet they get smacked with. ;) ;) Four identical 30 caliber bullets moving at 1642 fps striking game the same way will all perform equally. Even though they came from four different size cartridges such as the .30-40 Krag, .308 Win., .30-06 and .300 RUM.
 
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I just got a savage 10/110 TH xp 30-06. I reqloaded some nosler BT 150gr using IMR4320 @ 49grs n was very please with its accuracy. If what I seen is concerned to be inaccurate then ill take it every day of the week. I really enjoy the 06, n imo would feel more then comfortable taking it anywhere to hunt anything. Just for the simple fact I know I can hit whatever I'm aiming at, up to 500yds.
 
Metal god, maybe check your math? How many more grains weight of MagPro did you use? And, same bullet?

I've never really paid a lot of attention to the style of recoil. Folks say that big bores are somewhat lower pressure (.470 Rigby, e.g.) and that''s why the recoil is more of a push than a sharp kick. I dunno.
 
From my sierra book for 30-06

190gr match king / velocity 2500fps

IMR 4895 44.3gr - Total calc = 110,940

Mag Pro 57.5gr - Total calc = 143,940

These were not the exact numbers in My above post cus I used Varget instead of IMR 4895 but the numbers are about the same
 
Art Eatman said:
I've never really paid a lot of attention to the style of recoil. Folks say that big bores are somewhat lower pressure (.470 Rigby, e.g.) and that''s why the recoil is more of a push than a sharp kick. I dunno.
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I believe that a lot of "push instead of a hard kick" stems from the fact that a rifle chambered for those African calibers weighs at least 12 pounds and may weigh 14 up to 16 pounds.
Your shoulder stopping a 16 pound rifle that's been accelerated backwards to a velocity of 10 ft. per second is going to feel different than your shoulder stopping a 4 pound rifle going 20 ft. per second, even though both have the exact same recoil energy.
 
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