View Single Post
Old July 22, 2013, 03:33 PM   #108
Paul B.
Senior Member
 
Join Date: March 28, 1999
Location: Tucson, AZ
Posts: 3,795
It has been said that all a man really needs is a .22LR, 30-06 and a 12 ga. shotgun. Might be kind of boring but there's a lot of truth in that statement.
IIRC, the OP asked about only being able to have ONE rifle and what cartridge would you choose?
Seems like the majority appear to approve of the 30-06 which did not surprise me. I did see some disparaging remarks about the .308 Win. One example "The .308 is a really bad choice for moose and really not very good for elk either." All I can say is, "Oh really?" It is generally agreed upon that the 30-06 on average is about 100 FPS faster than the .308. Big whoopie! How many times have you heard someone say, "The animal won't notice the difference."? it's a;most impossible to find 220 gr. ammot for the 30-06 and the only figures I can find were from some Remington ammo. It said their load was doing 2400 FPS. Of course, no one loads the .308 with a 220 gr. bullet and shortly after it came out, Winchester dropped the 200 gr. load from the .308 line up. Now if the 220 gr. 06 load was considered a decent moose load, why wouldn't a .308 only 100 FPS slower not also work on moose, or elk for that matter withing range? Oh but you say, "nobody would load a .308 with 220 gr. bullets." I say, "Why not? I sure certain individuals are lighting up their flame throwers as I type this. I can only speak from experience. I have loaded the 220 gr. Hornady round nose to 2310 FPS in my Winchester M70 with 22" barrel. Accuracy was superb with groups running from .375" to .75".
The late William David Maitland "Karamojo" Bell who killed over 1,100 elephant, most with the 7x57 Mauser once opined that the .308 Win. with a 200 to 220 gr. bullet, full metal jacket would probably be the perfect elephant gun for his style hunting. While I would be a lot more comfortable with my .35 Whelen while facing one of the great bears, I do believe a 220 gr. bullet at 2310 FPS would do a credible job.
For those curious enough to exlore the matter further, here is the published data.
Powder: Win. W760
Start:42.0 gr./2177 FPS/42,000 C.U.P.
Maximum: 44.0 gr./2295 FPS/46,900 C.U.P.
Winchester brass and standard primer.
From my rifle velocity was 2310 FPS
So to answer the OP's question, yes I would consider the .308 for most hunting I would ever do but my final answer would be the 30-06. The rifle would be based on a Mauser action, preferably Oberndorf but a clone by FN is perfectly acceptable.
Paul B.
__________________
COMPROMISE IS NOT AN OPTION!
Paul B. is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.06763 seconds with 8 queries