This coming year the .30-06 Springfield cartridge will be 120 years old. Here’s a piece I wrote about it in 2006 for Backwoods Home magazine.
This coming year the .30-06 Springfield cartridge will be 120 years old. Here’s a piece I wrote about it in 2006 for Backwoods Home magazine.
A great article, and still true today. Even in the face of the new “super” cartridges (6.5mm Creedmoor, the Federal 7mm with the super-steel case) the .30-06 lives on, reliably bringing down game.
My first rifle was a Savage 110 that came as a package with the stainless barrel and bolt, black synthetic stock and 3-9x variable scope, but it had the standard (back then) Savage “trigger from heck”. I ordered a Timney replacement and took it to a local gunsmith to install. He first tried to measure the trigger pull of the original trigger, but gave up because his gauge only went up to 12 pounds! He installed the Timney and set it for 3-1/2 pounds, and my groups instantly dropped down into the 1 MOA range.
I used to shoot mostly Federal 180-grain Nosler Partition for hunting since they printed to exactly the same point of aim as the much-lower priced Federal round-nose soft point. I could check zero with two 3-round groups, and then use one (1) round each year for hunting. Back then (middle 1980’s) you could find Federal ammo on sale at local gas stations come deer season, and .30-06 was always available (like you noted in the article). It’s one of the reasons I standardized on it.
I just turned over my two M1 Garands, and something on the close order of 3,400 rounds of ball ammo to “Lock, Stock and Barrel Auctions” here in NW Wyoming. The ammo is a mixture of mil-surp with a lot of Korean-made stuff on Garand clips in bandoliers, as well as 1,000 rounds of 150-grain Lake City. The auction is in January and closes in February, if anybody is looking for a couple of “shooter-grade” Garands and ammo.
But I’m keeping my two bolt guns and all of my commercial hunting ammo. The Savage is now battered and beaten; the cap got busted off the bottom of the pistol grip when I slipped on a mountain-side. It still shoots as well as ever, and here in Wyoming I wouldn’t hesitate to take it mule deer hunting, or even elk hunting. But my eyes have gone to heck, and my lungs can’t handle the exertion necessary at higher elevations due to some health issues, so my hunting days may be over. But there’s a range reasonably nearby that goes out to 600 yards, and I can still have fun turning money into noise.
The cartridge may be 119 years old but most certainly (like the 1911 and the .45 ACP) it is NOT obsolete.