# 30-06 ammo advice



## ake24 (Nov 23, 2013)

I recently bought a 30-06 for a general purpose rifle. I had been looking for a rifle that would be acceptable for deer but I knew that I would need something that would eventually be usable for an elk too. So I figured that I should get something that was common enough to have bullet weight choices and would be available....Go big or go home was also a thought that I had when I was deciding between it and a 270.
Now that I have one I'm looking for some advice on decent practise ammo that I can use to get used to the gun. I'm used to just picking up whatever .22 is available and being grateful. All these different options are making me a little confused because I'm not finding enough information to make informed decisions about what to buy.
Right now I just want some ammo to become familiar with the gun, and to re-sight the scope so I know what it's doing. Any advice on factory loads that will fit the bill?
Also, I'm considering using it for coyotes...I've lurked a ton of threads on a ton of forums and I know that most consider it to not be the best tool for the job, but it's the tool that I have. Any recommendations on factory loads for them?
Thanks in advance for any advice anyone has to offer to the new kid on the block.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

"....not the best tool for the job"...................so goes hunting forums I guess.

Get some 150 gr Core-Lokts and practice, practice and practice. Use it for everything. The elk, or rabbit, won't know the difference......uh, a man with two watches never knows what time it is. 

Ammo is high now and may never get any cheaper. Look at reloads; your own or have someone do it for you.


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## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

I just picked up some 150 grain soft points for my '06 at Hurst Sporting Goods in Cedar City for $17.99. I've never heard of the ammo company before, but their name is PPU (don't know what that stands for) and they came in a blue box. If they shoot reasonably accurate from my gun I will probably go buy some more and use them for hunting deer; a cheap soft point is perfectly adequate to take deer down.

Other than the PPU cartridges, the aforementioned core lokts or Winchester power points would probably be the cheapest factory ammo you could find, and would probably be approx. $22 for a box of 20.


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

colorcountrygunner said:


> the aforementioned core lokts or Winchester power points would probably be the cheapest factory ammo you could find, and would probably be approx. $22 for a box of 20.


You can find winchester powerpoints for $17.99 or so. I usually use Federal, its the cheapest I usually find. Its the stuff you always see in walmart in the blue and grey box. 150grn. or 180grn is usually what they have.

Oh and to the original poster, I'm currently using a 30-06 for coyotes as well:mrgreen: 
Just use whatever ammo for them that you have .


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

"Danged few things a man cain't fix, with a few hundred dollars or a thutty-ought-six."


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

I am with Goob, sounds like a good job for Core Lokt 150's to me or Winchester Soft Point.


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

Haha goob;-)

That also brings to mind "with an f-150 and a thirty-ott six". Can't remeber what song thats from, I think its Jason Aldean though.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

PPU = Privi Partizan, its cheap stuff made in Serbia and imported.

http://www.prvipartizan.com/

-DallanC


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## ake24 (Nov 23, 2013)

outdoorser said:


> Haha goob;-)
> 
> That also brings to mind "with an f-150 and a thirty-ott six". Can't remeber what song thats from, I think its Jason Aldean though.


Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins "hilly billy bone"....great song.

As for the PPU, I saw some of that as I was searching around the web but no real consensus on whether or not people liked it. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

The Winchesters and the Corelokt stuff kept on coming up pretty regularly too. If I sight in with a 180 and then shoot 150's how much higher am going to hit with a 150? Should I just go find some ballistics charts for that kind of information?

And it looks like I need to go check out some threads on reloading :grin:


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

I personally would leave the 180 grain bullets alone. The last time that I shot them was when I was 17 and in high school, the deer I hit didn't know what hit him but the amount of blood shot meat was huge and my mom took forever cleaning it up since she helped me butcher him. After that the only grain bullet that I shot out of my 06 was a 150 grain one except for when I came upon some 125's at a Gibson's store in Orem. 

Since that time I have taken a number of deer and a few elk all with the 150's and never had one actually require a second shot, a few elk got that second one but they just didn't know that they were dead.


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## 2full (Apr 8, 2010)

165 grain partition has worked great on elk for me.
150 grain as talked about is a perfect deer load.
used my 243 for coyotes and smaller animals for years.
Only two guns I need..........:mrgreen:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

You need to match the weight of your selected bullet and the velocity of the selected bullet with the rifling in your 06. 

My Ruger m77 with a 1:10 twist shoots 180 grain bullets at 2700 FPS much more accurately than anything else. 

My 1966 Winchester Model 70 has a 1:12 twist and shoots 150 grain bullets at 2900 FPS more accurately than anything else.

Whatever bullet you choose, choose one that makes your gun shoot better. Whatever you are going to shoot in North America with an 06 isn't going to care if it is a 150 or 180 grain bullet.

If you are doing better than $1 a round, you're probably not doing too bad. One thing you can do is save your brass and sell it to suckers like me who never have enough of it. That will bring down your cost per shot by 15-20 cents a round.

Before I reloaded, I bought Federal power-shock bullets in 150 grains for the model 70 and 180 grains for the m77. It's what Walmart had - and it took down my elk last year at 350 yards, 1 shot, no meat ruined.


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## LostLouisianian (Oct 11, 2010)

I would recommend getting to be friends with someone who reloads. You can reload 30-06 ammo for a fraction of the cost of new rounds. I reload for less than 50% of the cost of new ammo and it's superior to the high quality ammo. You can then optimize the bullet, powder charge etc for your gun very inexpensively compared to buying new store bought ammo which isn't anywhere near what you can do by reloading, in most cases.


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## bowgy (Oct 10, 2007)

*ake24 wrote: The Winchesters and the Corelokt stuff kept on coming up pretty regularly too. If I sight in with a 180 and then shoot 150's how much higher am going to hit with a 150? Should I just go find some ballistics charts for that kind of information?*

I sighted in with the 150's and then shot the 180's, the 180's shot about 6 inches higher and slightly to the right in comparison. This was at 100 yards and both shot good groups.

Since they are factory loads and I didn't take any apart to measure the powder, they may put more powder behind the 180's but even with the same amount of powder I think the 180's build a little more pressure and therefore the velocity out the muzzle was a little higher was my thought on that, but again, I didn't disassemble any of the rounds to see what the real difference was.


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## Kevinitis (Jul 18, 2013)

Here is my 2 cents. It depends on which animals you are going to shoot. Of course shot placement is the most inportant factor in killing power but when hunting you may not hit the animal in the sweet spot every time. That's when sectional density comes into play. Sectional density is largely what determines how well your bullet penetrates. The 150 grain bullet is a good deer round, but it lacks the sectional density to be a good elk round. Sure you can kill elk with good shot placement with a 150 grain bullet, but in cases where you hit shoulder bone or have a quartering shot, you want a bullet that has the sectional density to penetrate deep such as a 180 grain bullet. A compromise between the 180 and 150 in 30 cal would be your 165 grain bullets. A 150 grain bullet has a SD of 0.226, a 165 grain 30 cal bullet has a SD of 0.248, and a 180 grain has an SD of .271. Sectional densities appropriate for deer sized game range from 0.223-0.248, and for elk sized game SDs should be between 0.260-0.283 to ensure adequete penetration through thick skin and heavy bone. So if you are planning to shoot mostly deer then 150s are your ticket. If you are planning to shoot mostly elk then you might want to go with 180s or if you plan to shoot both then perhaps a 165-168 grain bullet. However, the heavier you go, the more recoil you are going to endure. 

You also asked about switching bullets. My recommendation is that every time you change ammo you should check to make sure your gun is sighted in at the range. even minor changes in ammo can change your point of impact. For example I reload and if I change the powder charge by 1 grain my point of impact changes, and thats with the same bullets as projectiles. So you should not expect to shoot one bullet at the range and then be able to switch to something else to hunt with without sighting in again. Your point of impact will be in the ball park but you might need to make adjustments.


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## Frisco Pete (Sep 22, 2007)

Different loads cause different barrel vibration or whip. The barrel, when fired, whips up and down like when you shake a garden hose. Because of this different loads, like the 150 vs. 180 we are talking about here often exit at a different point in the up-and-down cycle. Hence they have a different point-of-impact downrange. Dwell time of the bullet in the barrel is part of this timing with the cycle.

There is also the fact that downrange trajectory is different between the faster 150s and slower 180s. Bullets started faster have a flatter trajectory, although the greater streamlining of the heavier bullet (of the same shape) gains back some of that difference at long range.

In response to _bowgy_'s post - No, the 150 grain load will have more powder in it than the 180 grain. When bullet weight increases, powder charge decreases with the same or very similar burning rate powder. The 150 is faster than the 180 by a margin of 200 fps or so.
And 30-06 of ALL bullet weights is basically loaded to the same industry pressure specs.
The difference you noticed was due to the factors listed in the first paragraph.

Personally I think that a premium bullet (for hunting) weighing 165 grains is the best ballistic balance of exterior ballistic performance, velocity, and sectional density (SD) in the 30-06. It also is a superior all-around bullet weight. 
For the curious, it may be noted that the SD of the 130 grain .270 bullet is virtually like that of the 165 .30 caliber (.242 vs. .248 ) which, when coupled to higher .270 velocity does much to explain the excellent downrange performance of the lighter .270 bullet. They are almost ballistic twins.

Traditional simple cup-and-core bullets (like the Core-Lokt mentioned) in the '06 were designed around deer in 150 and elk in 180 grain. Performance can vary with these because of the simple technology that controls expansion and penetration. With those, certainly heavier bullets were required for deeper penetration if all else was equal (greater SD).

With modern premium controlled expansion bullets, whether a Partition type, bonded core, or mono-metal (Barnes all copper), SD is less important, as these highly engineered bullets have better control when it comes to expansion and penetration. 
With these a 165 easily does the work of the old 180 on elk with the benefit of added velocity for a flatter trajectory. They also tend to open up better on deer than the stiff 180 cup-and-core bullets.
Downside is cost, which is insignificant for big game hunting but precludes the use of them for large scale practice.

In my experience the 30-06 is finicky as to the length of the bullet it shoots - though this is usually a by-product of weight (the heavier the bullet of the same shape, the longer it normally is).
A surprising number of 30-06 rifles I am familiar with, including my own Rem 700, are more accurate with heavy bullets. 150 flat base are so-so, 165 boattails (boattails are longer) shoot very well, as do 180 flat bases bullets. 125s are not too hot, accuracy-wise. This is something I ask about and take note of over the years.

As to twist, virtually all 30-06s have a 1-10" twist rate (_Husqvarna; Remington 700 Varmint (old); Browning 78 excepted at 1-12"_)

While a 1-10" twist may _theoretically_ favor the heavier bullets, particularly if you use a well-made concentric lighter bullet, the 1-10" twist is of no handicap. Witness how well modern 1-7 to 1-9" twist AR15s shoot good, but light bullets in the 40-55 grain class, despite those being designed for and technically suited best for the original 1-12" M16 twist.
The 1-10" twist in the '06 is a non-factor IMO when it comes to choosing hunting bullet weights.
In the old days when bullets were none too concentric it might have been a different matter because the faster rotation increased any inherent off-balance wobble and degraded accuracy.

One thing is for sure, though a bit boring, the 30-06 is a well-proven round and even if most hunters switched to one from their super magnums, they would still get fine kills at normal hunting ranges. It works.


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## ake24 (Nov 23, 2013)

Wow, thanks so much for all the information guys. Looks like I have some more trial work to do. I went out yesterday with some 150 grain Corelokts and was sighting in and the scope that was on the gun when I bought it started having some issues....after the third shot the scope reticle started rotating. Time to start a new thread about scopes I guess:sad: Again, thanks so much for all your advice and thoughts. Lots of good information guys.


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## Mavis13 (Oct 29, 2007)

A scope topic would be interesting. I've heard that you take the value of your gun and spend about half that on a scope and you'll be fine. I can't say I've done that but seems reasonable. I've upgraded a scope when I can see (using a good rest with a clamp) that the gun will shoot better than I'm shooting it. And have seen that upgrade pay off in accuracy. But I'm sure at some point your can cross a line where you're putting a $5000 set of wheels on a Geo Metro if you follow my drift.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Mavis13 said:


> A scope topic would be interesting. I've heard that you take the value of your gun and spend about half that on a scope and you'll be fine. I can't say I've done that but seems reasonable. I've upgraded a scope when I can see (using a good rest with a clamp) that the gun will shoot better than I'm shooting it. And have seen that upgrade pay off in accuracy. But I'm sure at some point your can cross a line where you're putting a $5000 set of wheels on a Geo Metro if you follow my drift.


It is interesting. My recent purchase was a Savage model 16 Bear hunter with a Monarch 5-20 for total retail of about $1,500, but worked a few deals to make it only about $1,100. Scope was about 1/2 of the cost of the rifle and I am very pleased with the results.


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## fishreaper (Jan 2, 2014)

The rule I've always been told is to "multiply the price of your gun by .5 and by 2, and find a scope that is somewhere in that range". regardless of how accurate the gun is, "it does you no good if you can't see your target." when you have a 400 dollar gun like my little mossberg I got for my 13th birthday, a 300 dollar Leopold was a nice addition after a few years of birthday money came together. 8)


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