30-06 pet loads

[DrMike]

Truthfully, the 30-06 has never excited me. It does everything well, but everyone has one. Frankly, if an individual had only one rifle, he could do much worse than have a 30-06. I have had a couple, and each shot well, doing what the 30-06 has done for a century or more. I suppose the weight of historic opinion compels me to ensure that my safe will never be without a 30-06. The 165-168 grain bullets are ideal for this cartridge. My hunting load this past year was a 165 grain Hornady InterBond with a charge of 59 grains of IMR4831. Recent tests with a 168 grain E-Tip are leading me to look seriously at that bullet for this year. Hunter is giving me some great groups.

 

[SJB358]

Same here Mike. My father has shot a 30-06 with 180gr Nosler PT's for 20 years. He killed just about everything with the rifle. It was boring to me, so I got a 7mm Rem Mag for my first rifle. I traded a used M721 I had for about one week for a downpayment for the 7mm Rem Mag. As I have grown up, I have seen the 30-06 really does everything pretty well just like you said Mike. Unless you are shooting ultra long range, or really dangerous bears, the 30-06 is well represented from 0-400 yards with a good 180gr bullet. Plus, since most bullets work really well at the 06 speeds, you really don't have many issues of "bad" bullet performance. Scotty

 

[HeathSexton]

I shoot 59.0grs of IMR4350+150gr NPT or Rem CoreLokt.


Unfortunately I have just gotten 500 165gr Rem CoreLokt's that I now have to work up a load for, poor me. I will be running with IMR43550 and the 165's also.


I got great accuracy from the 190gr BTSP Hornady+59.0grs of H4831. Recoil from my light Ruger was brisk. If you needed to shoot through a tree or something that would be a good bullet.

 

[GrayRider]

My Sako 75 30-06, loves 57.5 grains of H4350, 165 grain Accubonds. I just load to Nosler specs :wink:

 

[HTDUCK]

Truthfully, the 30-06 has never excited me. It does everything well, but everyone has one. Frankly, if an individual had only one rifle, he could do much worse than have a 30-06. I have had a couple, and each shot well, doing what the 30-06 has done for a century or more. I suppose the weight of historic opinion compels me to ensure that my safe will never be without a 30-06.

Dr Mike said it all right there.

If I were forced to keep only one rifle out of the pile in the safe it would no doubt be one of my 06s.

It ain't flashy or finicky.

Being a handloader I find it hard to find a more versatile cartridge with so many bullet/powder weights to play with.
Living deep in the southern half of the US I can't think of a critter that would survive a well placed .308 bullet at 06 velocities.
The only elk I was ever fortunate enough to take fell to a Federal cartridge 165 loading back in 1983.
I cant tell ya how many whitetails and turkeys I have killed with an 06,I've lost count.

One of my regular customers has more rifles than a Cabelas store.Every kind and or caliber than you can name and most of them are custom built for some hunt he's going on somewhere.
The rifle he has hauled all over the planet,the one he never leaves home without and the one he has killed the most game with is a Ruger 77 in 06 that he handloads with 180 Sierra BTSPs.

 

[Alaska]

Tend to favor H4350 due to sensitivity to temp but IMR 4350 works well.

Guess I have more 30-06 in my safe than any other cal........

 

[Alaska]

What else IMR 4350 at 60.0 with 165gr.

57.0 with 180gr

Fed 210M
FC brass

 

[6mm Remington]

57.4 grs. IMR4350 & either 165 gr. Partition of AccuBond for 2940 fps chrongraphed out of a Ruger #1B ! :wink: