What makes the 30-06 less accurate then the 308 or any other round for that matter .

[sirgilligan]

This thread has been very interesting to read.
Thank you to all that have participated.

My brother is the rifle guru of the family. He likes his 220 Swift for ground hogs. He has .30-06's a plenty and 300 WinMags too. He loads for his son's .308 and shoots it as well.

My father gave me a Browning BAR .30-06 for my birthday a few years ago. It was bought used by a cousin, so no idea how many rounds through it. If I recall correctly it was made in 1994.

I will state the only advantage I have seen of having a rifle chambered in .30-06 instead of .308. I can find ammo!

Practical accuracy, the accuracy of in field hunting use, we can't tell the difference in any of the .30 calibers.

Now, talking about recoil... let me say this:

My .30-06 will knock the snot out of you.

I shot it 30 times one afternoon and remembered each shot for the next week every time I moved my right shoulder. No, I do not have any butt pad on it.

My brother usually shoots bolt actions for the known reasons of consistency. When he was helping me sight in the BAR with a new scope he commented how nice the rifle was. He had put in two off the shelf Hornady Superformance cartridges (150 grain) and one of his 110 grain hand loads that he had made specifically for hunting antelope. After he fired all three and we walked out to the target 100 yards away he was pleased to see a little Mickey Mouse pattern. "That's great, a rifle that isn't too sensitive to loads is a lucky find". He also commented, "That Superformance load kicks worse than my 300 WinMag, you need to get a butt pad."

My cousins shoot .243, and have never failed to take an Elk each year, and they drop them on the spot, with good shot placement. Point is, shoot what you like and the range of cartridges is quite large for hunting Elk down to Antelope.

I personally believe that anything that improves "placing" the cartridge in the chamber the same way every time, minimizing wiggle room, avoiding things that would alter the cartridge (like moving the bullet back) would be a good thing for precision.

Next, I believe anything that promotes consistency in the ignition would be good as well. If case shape helps, then case shape must be considered an important factor.

If there is a sweet spot in time and distance for when the powder is burned relative to the position of the bullet in the barrel then it has to be considered.

As this is a multivariate problem it is clear to me why so much work, study, and experimentation is done and why competing would be so very addicting to the inner engineer in all of us.

As for practical accuracy for hunting get a rifle you can afford in a cartridge that you can afford to shoot and actually find some ammo in that cartridge!

I don't know why I just typed all of that in, I don't think I added anything to the discussion, but it has been so fun to read I wanted to participate.

[Bart B.]

44Amp says:

If all you are interested in is what the cartridges themselves will do versus each other, then get the two most identical barrels you can (other than the chamberings), put them in a universal receiver, and feed them the most carefully crafted ammo you can make.

This is exactly what happened in the early 1960's. (I've mentioned this before)

The top high power match rifle competitors used the same quality Hart and Obermeyer barrels their .30-06 rifles had, same bullets and primers that produced such good results, but chambered them with a .308 Win. reamer. In all other respects, the rifles were the same.

Those .308 Win. chambered barrels shot 30% to 40% better than the .30-06 ones did.

Sierra Bullets' test barrels in their rail guns used to test bullets' accuracy with barrels chambered for the .308 shot more accurate than the ones for the .30-06.

Did anyone notice I mentioned that the scores shot with the .308 soon broke all the records held by the .30-06? And that the NRA had to make the target scoring rings smaller 'cause too many unbreakable ties shot with the .308 were at hand.

Universal receivers, per se, are fixed breech mechanisms used with precision test barrels for pressure and velocity testing only. They are not used for accuracy evaluation as the pressure measuring parts are unique to them and not part of standard firearms. There's different types available Here's a picture of one:
http://www.newlenoxordnance.com/univ...--barrels.html

[Kachok]

I reload, shoot and hunt with both, truth be told if there ever was any difference in inherent accuracy you would have to be shooting really long range to notice. My 308 holds 1/2" with 150gr BTSP with Varget and my 30-06 holds 1/2" with RL19 and 150gr Accutips. To me as a hunter accuracy is a wash. Interestingly if there ever was such a thing as an inherently accurate cartridge it is neither the 308 or 30-06, my 6.5x55 is so darn accurate I have a hard time finding anything it does not shoot REALLY well, and it is older then the 30-06 even the 30-30!

[Bart B.]

Kachok, there's many a .30-06 and .308 that'll hold 1/2 inch (at 100 yards, if that's the range you're using). Down in the sub 1/4 inch range at 100 yards is where the differences exist.

Regarding the 6.5x55, it was a favorite for 300 meter biathlon and free rifle competition around the world. Dr. Henry Cross, former US International Rifle Team manager told me some years ago that the 6.5 Swede was a favorite of the US Olympic Team, but the .308 Win. easily outperformed it as it quickly won the gold medals in the late 1950's.

[Kachok]

I have a couple friends who shoot 1,000yd F-Class with 6.5x55s, they report better results with the old Swede then with their 30 calibers so I think it is fair to say that it is still a highly competitive cartridge, the tightest groups I have ever shot have all been behind my 6.5x55 it shoots remarkably well and it is NOT a heavy barrel match gun, nor have I ever shot a "match" bullet through it. RL22 and 140gr bullets work remarkably well together, as does RL19 and 129gr. A 6.25lbs gun shooting one hole groups at 100 I call that a helluva hunting rifle, I am often tempted to put a higher powered scope on it and see what it would do out to 600yd.

[Bart B.]

Kachok says the tightest groups he has ever shot have all been behind his 6.5x55.

To which I say, a cartridge or rifle's accuracy is best defined by the size of the loosest (largest) groups shot. Any rifle-ammo combination will shoot a very tiny group once in a (great) while. And virtually all of the time, they'll shoot better than the biggest group shot. I boils down to what you want to count on; what happens a small percentage of the time or near 100%.

Given two rifle and ammo systems with equal accuracy levels, one with 20 foot-pounds of recoil energy and the other with 10, one shooting both the same way off their shoulder will get best results with the lighter-recoiling one. This is why the folks producing the best scores in long range prone matches switched to the 6.5x284 and quit using 28 and 30 caliber belted magnums. But that didn't happen until really great quality 26 caliber match bullets were available.

[Kachok]

I am not talking about once in a while I am talking every trip to the range, I worked up an RL22 load with flat base flat tip 140gr Deep Curl hunting bullets and from starting load to max the worst group was .649" at 100 yards the best was around 1/4" I have shot and handloaded for alot of rifles, no other has been that accurate with a variety of loads. My personal best was measured at 1/12th MOA using 129gr SSTs and RL19.
I handle recoil quite well, and can honestly say that I have zero flinch behind my 30-06, I shoot much higher recoil firearms for fun, so recoil is not the issue.
For what it is worth the current world record smallest 10 shot group at 1,000 yards was shot with a 300 WSM using 210gr VLDs and H4350.

[Bart B.]

What benchrest discipline was the current world record smallest 10 shot group at 1,000 yards was shot with a 300 WSM using 210gr VLDs and H4350 occur in?

There's several benchrest organizations that have their own records.

And the smallest 10-shot group ever fired at 600 yards I know of was shot by a Hart barreled Winchester Model 70 in .308 Win. back in 1971. 0.710" as I remember. That's .1183 MOA with full length sized WCC58 cases, IMR4064, Lapua D76 185-gr. FMJBT bullets.

[Kachok]

A 2.815" group at a thousand yards is impressive to say the least. Here is a link.
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...-with-300-wsm/
I think it is fair to say that the 300 WSM has some world class accuracy potential, hard to argue with record setting results

[Bart B.]

All those tiny few to several shot groups at any range are mostly luck. They happen when all the variables tend to cancel each other out and the shooter dopes the wind very well. When all those uncontrolled variables add up, the groups are larger; much larger. Rarely, if ever, does a record holding barrel shoot another group smaller; they all are larger.

The best long range rifles' accuracy is, they'll keep all shots under 7 to 8 inches in a no-wind condition. Check out the many-group aggregates' average then add 50%. That's typically the size of the biggest groups' shot. Benchresters are sticklers for not making it public information as to the largest groups shot. With these aggregate's average in the 4 to 5 inch range, that means some of their groups were in the 6 to 7 inch range; maybe bigger.

Therefore, I'm not all that impressed by those record-setting tiny, rare, once in a lifetime of the barrel, groups at any range. They're a statistical issue; there's always one data point at the tiny end of the performance spectrum.

[kraigwy]

I'm like Bart, no one ever post "poopy" groups. Shoot about ten "10" shot groups and the real measure in my opinion is to throw out the best, and worse, and average the others.

But we don't do that, we tend to throw out the worse 9 of the 10 and say our gun is capable of that.Do this several times you'll find there is always going to be the bad group.

Trouble is you never know when that bad group will show up, so in reality that bad group is the true measure of your rifle/ammo combination.

As to groups at extended ranges, 600, 1000, and beyond, I contend its not the gun, or ammo, but the shooter.

I hear a lot of "no wind" thousand yard shooting, but I've shot a heck of a lot of 1000 yard matches in the last 35 or so years, all over the country, and I've never seen "no wind" conditions at that range. May not detect it, may not see the mirage, but trust me, its there. The guy who can see it, and adjust for it is the guy who's gonna get the best groups or scores.


A 175 gr, 308 bullet, leaving the barrel at 2600 fps is going to take about 1 3/4 second to get to 1000 yards. That's really a long time, plenty of time for a boil, or wind switch.

More then once I got caught. Shooting as the range flag is at 15 degrees or so and see it drop just after I pull the trigger. It happens.

If you want to see what happens in "no wind" situations, as in bench rest, google and read "The Secrets of the Huston Warehouse" and Dr. Mann's "
The Bullets Flight From Powder To Target".

[Kachok]

Yeah Bart I am sure that is all dumb luck, all the precision work has nothing to do with it. Most world record scores come about by dumb luck so no skill involved LMAO!
Do you realize how silly that sounds? 308, 300 Win Mag, and 30-06 have been around for a long time and many long ranged groups have been shot with them in competition, the 300 WSM is relatively new and already has taken the record, dumb luck I think not. I think there really is some truth to the short action magnums having slightly better accuracy potential in contrast to long action shallow shoulder angle cartridges.

[Bart B.]

No, Kachok, it's smart luck, not dumb luck. They've got hardware, skills, knowledge and techinques to shoot average group sizes as small as possible. Good luck comes when they shoot a group the smallest shot; bad luck when they shoot the largest group ever shot.

Does Matt Kline also hold any aggregate records? If not, then he's luckier than most. Readers should check out the Pensylvania 1000 Yard Benchrest Club's web site and look at the sizes of groups shot:

http://www.pa1000yard.com/wo/choosewostandings.php

Matt Kline's best group averages in 2012 were from about 4 to near 8 inches. All with a .300 WSM cartridge. Which to me means his 2.815" 10-shot group was luck. Period.

[Kachok]

Luck favors the best prepared The point is that the WSM case is quite capable of some impressive accuracy, only been out for 12 years and already holds some serious credentials in long ranged matches and now a world record, don't own any 300 magnums so I cannot vouch for it from personal experience, just what I have read. Engineers at Browning have said the 270 WSM is in general the most accurate cartridge they have ever dealt with, I own one and have found it quite easy to develop accurate loads, 130gr SGKs and 61.5gr of IMR4350 shoots one tiny hole in my Savage at 100, very impressed.

[Bart B.]

Luck always favors those with the best stuff. And rimless cartridges have typically produced better accuracy than any belted ones.

Charles Newton designed the .30 Newton cartridge back in the early 1900's but it was never popular in competition. Winchester even made factory ammo for it. It's quite close to the rimless, 30 caliber short, fat magnum cases these days:



A modified name was given to Fred Huntington's (RCBS owner) .30-.338 Win. Mag by some folks calling it the .30 Belted Newton as it's virtually the same round but with a belt

The US Navy Small Arms Match Conditioning Unit turned the belt off of some .30-.338 cases and made the rim the same diameter as well as deepening the extractor groove naming the cartridge the Super .30. They suggested it be "the" standard US military sniper cartridge back in the 1960's. But the powers in charge of the foot soldiers didn't think it would be all that great. Such is life with so many good ideas for cartridges that were never understood by the masses.

[Meeteetse]

I guess the whole discussion comes down to what you think an accurate rifle is. For me it is a hunting tool that bring home the game year after year with clean shots. For me, the .308 and 30/06 are equals and both have done the job over the last 50 years. I personally could care less what happens at 1000 yds because I don't hunt at that distance and won't take a shot that doesn't guarantee a clean kill. For me, that is what accuracy is all about.

[Kachok]

While your average hunter is not likely to ever notice the difference here is what I have noticed about splitting hairs when talking accuracy.
Beltless is more accurate then a belted cartridge (though there are some hella fine shooting 300/7mm Mags.)
Sharp shoulder (25 degree or sharper) tend to be more accurate then any 17 degree shoulder.
Short action cartridges tend to be more accurate then any long brass case, this has less to do with the actual length of the action and more to do with the length of the powder column.

[Art Eatman]

Pretty much a good closing summary, Kachok.