Ch,
Though I have read your posts with interest and have read your preference for 7mm and .300 mag ( ipobably would have a 7mm or . 300 if I lived where you do), I always thought you had and admired the .30-06, and/or killed deer with it. Maybe it was your son in-law. Just curious.
Picked up my first .30-06 was a Ruger M77 purchased at a gun show in Conroe, TX, when my wife was hospitalized at MD Anderson for leukemia treatments. The intent was to go pig hunting and all my firearms were back in Colorado during our 4 month stay in Houston. That was the M77 walnut/blue, purchased in November, 2006, and manufactured in 1984. I floated the barrel, scoped it with a Burris Fullfield II, zeroed it with factory ammo and declared myself ready to hunt the piggies. Then my wife was released from the hospital and I didn’t shoot it again until after we returned home. Never did get to hunt pigs with it and in fact still haven’t done so period – something I hope to fix one of these days. After getting home I tuned the trigger and developed loads for the 165g North Fork and 168g TTSX, both of which it shoots extremely well. In 2007 I took two cow elk with it using the North Fork load. Both went straight down on the initial shot, got back up and went straight down for good with a follow-up shot.
In February of 2008 I purchased my second .30-06, a Savage 111GNS, as a wedding present for my future son-in-law. It got scoped with a Burris Fullfield II with Ballistic Plex reticle and I worked up 168g TTSX loads for it, which it shoots quite well. My daughter didn’t get married until August of 2009 so my future son-in-law hunted with it that fall not knowing it would be his less than a year later.
Then in March of 2008 I bought my (at the time, as I still had the Savage) third .30-06, a new Remington M700 “”Special Purpose Wood” model. It is blue with a real walnut stock, nicely finished metal and a floor plate but no grip cap or fore-end tip. It shoots well enough and I have hunted with it, but it remains a virgin in my hands.
As mentioned, the Savage went to my son-in-law as a wedding present and last fall (2009). He hunted both antelope, filling his doe tag, and elk. He had a shot at elk but never pulled the trigger. The 168g TTSX dropped the antelope doe with minimal meat loss.
Last April I purchased another used Ruger, now my third .30-06. This one a MKII stainless/laminate version, manufactured in 2001. I floated the barrel, as I have done to all my rifles that didn’t start out that way, and tuned the trigger. It got scoped with a Burris Fullfield II 4.5-14xAO. Until last weekend I had only shot factory ammo through it because it has a shorter throat than the other Ruger and Remington .30-06 rifles and won’t accept my long COL handloads.
Two of my nephews will be joining my son-in-law and myself for this fall’s antelope hunt in Wyoming. Last weekend I developed a 150g Ballistic Tip load that shoots very well in all three .30-06 rifles. I plan to try 150g AccuBonds also, and if things go as planned, use the Ballistic Tips for practice, saving the AccuBonds for final check-out and hunting. I think it would be fun if all of us used .30-06’s and the Ballistic Tip/AccuBond load, since it works in all three of my rifles, will prevent ammo mix-ups. (That said, I have promised my nephews they can use whatever rifle they want.)
So at this time I have one “blooded” .30-06 and two I have yet to take game with, something I hope to fix this fall. It has often been said that a man with a .30-06 doesn’t need another rifle, and there is a lot of truth in that statement. I always figured it was a good reason not to own one. Nowadays I don’t worry about justifying a new rifle on the basis of “need” and told my wife I passed that point long ago. Which means it is “safe” to have the .30-06’s in the stable...
