Alot of people feel that the 30-06 is a worthless cartridge. I am not one of them, but I thought I would see if anyone on here could change my mind. I think that the old cartridge is capaple of taking any big game on North America. But don't get me wrong there are better and I own better rifles, like the 7mm Rem Mag and 338 Win Mag. Mainly to feed my addiction but I still own 2 30-06 and feel that if I can't kill it with an 06 that I shouldn't be trying. Just trying to see what people think the downfalls of the 30-06 are.

Joe Oakes

Joe,

To each there own I guess myself I like the medium bores (303British, 30-06Springfield, 30-30, 45-70, 8mm Mauser) they do what ever I'd need to have done so why go for something else ??

There arnt many downfalls with the 30-06 as you can load a single shot ball with alittle pistol powder for a short range pest work I'm told, to a 220gr for bear.

Myself I see that there are 5 types of shooters out there:

1) "Small Bore" People - Want to shoot 223 or 243's all day long because they cannot handle rifles of more recoil due to many things (smaller people etc).

2) "Medium Bore" People - These are the ones like many that shoot 30-06's, 308Win's, 303 British, 8mm Mauser, 30-30's, 45-70 and other types of century old medium caliber ammunition.

3) "Magium" People - Are the ones that buy a 7mm or 300 or 338 or so magium rifle to shoot little deer. You may find them at the range just before hunting season to shoot the gun thats been in their safe since last hunting season to sight it in but flinch at every shot.

4) "Big Bore" People - They are the ones that shoot bigger heaver bullets downrange, dont mind the recoil much and practice and know what they are capable of. All the magiums, bigger bore rifles like the 375 H&H Mag or 458 Lott and the like are the realm of these shooters.

5) "Newer is better" and "Change is good" People - They are the ones that buy up guns in the newest and more unique ammunition because they always want something new to try out and test or they are the type that think because its newer it's better (eventhough that maynot be the case)

Numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 are the ones that may consider the 30-06 worthless.

Dimitri

I've loaded mine from 110 grn to 220 grn bullets. Used it on varments to Elk. All shots resulted in clean kills. I won't be bad mouthing the 30-06. If you can only have one gun, the 30-06 will do it all. I've read articles that claim they've taken elephants with it. Wouldn't be my choice and will probably never get a chance to hunt game that big, but, for anything on this continent, you can't go wrong with the 06.
Keep it coming...

my father used to have a 30-06 very nice rifle but he had shoulder problems and had to sell it (but it is in good hands) i have shot 30-06's and found them to be very nice and i'm looking into a 30-06 for an all around medium to big game gun so no i don't consider the 30-06 to be useless

I bought my 30-06 new in 1972 on the advise of an elderly Gentleman and I still have it. For years that was my only big game rifle and it has taken it's share of big game. It still looks and shoots as good as the day I bought it and now my son uses it for Elk hunting. The last time I used it for big game was in 1998 and I took a nice 5x5 elk with one shot. In my opinion it is still one of the best all-around big game cartridges out there.