BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 3 months ago
American Hunter:
Comparing Hornady’s Precision Hunter ammunition, the .30-06 will deliver about 9 percent better performance than the 308. The trade off—there’s always a trade off—is this performance increase comes with a 16 percent increase in recoil. In other words, with what is arguably the best big game hunting ammo you can buy, the .30-06 gives you about half what you pay—suffer—for.
Some might point out the .30-06 will handle heavier bullets. True, but given our modern projectiles, 200 or 220 grain .30 caliber bullets offer no advantage. Back in Whelen’s and your grandpa’s day, this was not the case. At .30-06 velocities the weakly constructed 180-grain or lighter bullets of that time, shed lots of weight during penetration. 200 or 220-grain bullets didn’t because they impacted at slower velocities, thus penetrating deeper.
With bullets like the Partition, Triple Shock, AccuBond and ELD-X, those weighing less than 200 grains offer a better ballistic balance. This is why 200 grain or heavier .30-06 ammunition is almost as rare as flying frogs. Modern projectiles have even improved the performance of smaller cartridges. They can now hang with the ’06 and not whack you near as hard.
Consider the 6.5 Creedmoor. Comparing similar bullet weights, the Creedmoor will shoot flatter and just as hard as the ought-six. But, the .30-06 will kick 34 percent harder. Though some will argue you gotta get used to recoil if you’re going to hunt big game, it’s an established fact, the harder a rifle kicks, the more difficult it is to shoot with consistent precision.
Well, some of this is true, and the 6.5 Creedmoor is a very interesting cartridge, especially because it is a necked-down .308 and therefore a short action cartridge and capable of semiautomatic operation. But I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about here.
He’s focused on recoil and the ability to shoot it well. But according to this logic, there is no reason for the .300 Win Mag to exist in North America. And he’s being savaged in the comments.
What do readers think?
