[amamnn]

At 150 grains you are on the light side of the border of between hunting and target bullets. In the .30-06 the discussion of this this border becomes volatile due to the fact that the cartridge is Ameica's favorite for hunting and aslo for target shooting in applications like the limited service rifle competitions. There are actually people (I know five) who will tell you that there is NO target match that counts for anything unless it is a match between 1903 springfiedls or between m1a1 Garrands. The fact that the AR-15 and its clones regularly wipe up the floor with them is of no account--these are rifles shot by mickey mouse sissies who cannot stand a little recoil.


That being said......................






I read through all the answers to your post and I thought that most of them were well considered and accurate as far as they went. However the person who told you that bullet weight was not more important vs. brass was a blithering idiot. You will be well advised to do some more independent research as concerns bullet weight (length) and barrel twist rates. Here is one place to start--and a recognized authotrity---http://www.bergerbullets.com/Products/Hunting%20Bullets.html

A 150 grain bullet is on the verge of being over-rotated in a 1/10" twist barrel of any length.

The ideal is to get a rotation that stabilizes the bullet without allowing too many rotations of the bullet--especially hunting bullets which are not necessarily the most concentrically layered pellets available. Imperfections in the jacket and core result in loss of accuracy which is more pronounced in a hunting bullet which is built for terminal performance -- than in a target bullet which is built with accuracy in mind. The weight or alloy composition of the brass used in loading the ammo is a very minor consideration as long as you do not load wildly varying weights/alloys in the same batch. A good rule of thumb for brass--and of any component-- is to cull anything that varies more than 5% from the average of your stock of components. That's a pretty wide variation.


I sometimes shoot my old Winchester model 70 which has a 1/10 twist. After 20+ years of futzing with the rifle I have found that it shoots quite well with Berger 168 gr. bullets using N-540 powder. This is not what you would expect from that barrel and bullet and powder. This goes to show you that you really must work out the best load for your rifle. Still, my rifle, and everyone else I know, and I talk to a lot of the guys at the old codgers--oops--- I mean old soldiers --at matches shooting .30--06 rifles--which they also hunt with don't see any difference when changing brass within the parameters mentioned earlier--in fact--BR shooters like Jack Neary or Tony Boyer do not even bother to weigh the brass which with they will compete all season long--and win with.

At some point, I think any shooter who handloads, realizes that buying cheap or standard brass for rifle cartridges is a false economy and will begin buying the good stuff--and not posting idiocy like what we saw above.