B & R Photography

Too kick start a new weekly blog post I’m starting with the tried and true ole reliable 30-06. The cartridge that everyone hunter should own at least once, your grandfather likely had this and so did your dad (Mine still does.)

The 30-06 was designed in 1906 hint the name. The naming convention back in the day was a little less fancy compared to modern cartridge names. 30 stands for the cartridge’s projectile caliber (30 Cal) and the 06 is for the year it was adopted/designed. The parent case was a .30-03 Springfield but that’s an entirely different can of worms that we might get into another day. The cartridge was designed for the United States Military by the Springfield Armory.

Fun fact is that the Canadian military did not use the .30-06 but instead used the 303 brit up until they switched to the 7.62 NATO Cartridge.

Originally it was designed to fire 150-grain flat-based spitzer type bullets. Currently you can find ammo on the shelf of your local retailer ranging from 150gr to 200gr, however if you’re a hand-loader I see manuals having loads from 110gr at roughly 3453ft/s to 220gr at roughly 2500ft/s

As far as trajectory goes the .30-06 will shoot a 165gr bullet leaving the muzzle at 2800fps in a rifle that is zeroed at 100 yards will have the following bullet drop in good weather conditions:

200 Yards: 3.68 Inches

500 Yards: 55.35 Inches

1000 Yards: 375.57 Inches.

(Please note the above trajectory information was pulled from https://gundata.org/blog/post/30-06-ballistics-chart/)

The 30-06 has a maximum point-blank range of roughly 300 yards depending on the projectile you use. (300 yards is based off a 150gr projectile with a moderately decent BC)

The 30-06 has been the parent case for numerous cartridges over the years and still to this day stands strong. If you only wanted to own one rifle and hunt everything in North America this would be a great choice. While it may not have the fancy case designs, speed, light recoil, flat shoot trajectory of a new cartridge it will still get the job done and at the end of the day thats all we can ask for.

Short Notes.

Official Name: .30-06 Springfield (7.62x63mm Metric Notation and .30 Gov’t ’06.)

Year Designed: 1906.

Designed by: Springfield Armory.

Parent Case: .30-03 Springfield.

Rifling Twist Rate: 1:10.

Maximum Point-Blank Range: Roughly 300 yards.

I hope you enjoyed this brief overview of the .30-06 Springfield and will return next week for our Cartridge of the Week series.

Please remember to always practice safe muzzle control when dealing with firearms and happy shooting.

B