The Great .30-06

[snowman]

I purchased a Ruger M77 chambered in .30-06 new in 1982. Its the original design prior to the change to the MkII in the early 90's. It came with a beautiful walnut stock. That stock has quite a few battle scars now. Every now and then I consider putting a synthetic stock on it. Then I pull the old soldier out, run my hands over the stock, and remember all of the great hunts I had with her. I shot my first whitetail deer with that rifle. OUt of the box accuracy was ok, then I free-floated the barrel and accuracy is very very good.

I've used that aught-6 to take a whitetail deer, black bear, and moose in Minnesota, a couple elk in Colorado, and a few mulies in Montana.

I do have other rifles that are good in certain situations. However, if I could only own one rifle, it would be chambered for the .30-06.

As others have stated, its also a joy to reload. Easy, and many many options for powders and projectiles to choose from.

Cheers!

 

[Deltaboy]

It a great round and I love mine .

 

[Acmemfg]

Had a Remington 700 ADL some years back. Nice enough rifle but all the evil rumors about the Walker trigger just got me antsy. Wasn't real happy about the captive magazine setup either. Got a killer deal on this....Browning A-Bolt .30-06. That was that.

 

[Maximumsmoke]

i wonder how my 7.7 jap compares to the .30-06. i know its really close, so much that you can convert -06 case into 7.7. more performance wise, if i was to get another rifle it would -06 all day long.

The 7.7mm Arisaka is more or less a rimless .303 British -- significantly lower in performance capability relative to the .30-'06. Yes, using .30-'06 brass, you can shorten, resize and fire-form cases for the 7.7mm Arisaka. Back in the '60's my dad made a bunch of cases like that for a neighbor, whose war trophy Arisaka had been sporterized -- also by Dad. It shot fine, but I never liked the look of those fire-formed cases, as they clearly displayed an expanded diameter area just above the case head. I suppose such cases might not last for many reloadings before the heads would pop off leaving the rest of the case stuck in the chamber. Maybe that rifle had a loose chamber, maybe not, but the nominal specified chamber dimensions of the 7.7mm Arisaka are just a tad bigger at the base than the .30-'06.

The '06 has a about a 10% velocity advantage (so about 20% muzzle energy advantage) over the 7.7mm Arisaka with equivalent bullets. After all, the '06 case is over 5mm longer (there's that almost 10% thing again), so the '06 probably has at least 10% greater powder capacity. The Arisaka actions, both the Type 38 (6.5x50) and Type 99 (7.7x58) are considered quite tough by some. I would, however, never own or sporterize one myself, safe as they probably are, because I fail to see any beauty in them -- just my own humble little opinion, though -- beauty is an "eye of the beholder" thing, isn't it. Value? For that the Arisakas are best left in military configuration, especially today, as are so many other old military bolt actions whose numbers have been decimated by sporterization. I do understand why Arisakas were sporterized; they were cheap and available, as were plenty of other bolt action rifles in the '50's and '60's. Arisakas were not great sporterization candidates compared to all the Mausers, Springfields and P14 and 1917 Enfields, so they are a bit unusual to find today. As sporterized rifles, they are a sort of curiosity -- neither fish nor fowl.

Cheers!

 

[Quaznoid]

Nice article. I mostly agree with you. I would also nominate the 6.5 Swede and the 7 mm Mauser for similar versatility with a lot less recoil.

 

[Ad Astra]

The 7.7mm Arisaka is more or less a rimless .303 British -- significantly lower in performance capability relative to the .30-'06. Yes, using .30-'06 brass, you can shorten, resize and fire-form cases for the 7.7mm Arisaka. Back in the '60's my dad made a bunch of cases like that for a neighbor, whose war trophy Arisaka had been sporterized -- also by Dad. It shot fine, but I never liked the look of those fire-formed cases, as they clearly displayed an expanded diameter area just above the case head. I suppose such cases might not last for many reloadings before the heads would pop off leaving the rest of the case stuck in the chamber. Maybe that rifle had a loose chamber, maybe not, but the nominal specified chamber dimensions of the 7.7mm Arisaka are just a tad bigger at the base than the .30-'06.

The '06 has a about a 10% velocity advantage (so about 20% muzzle energy advantage) over the 7.7mm Arisaka with equivalent bullets. After all, the '06 case is over 5mm longer (there's that almost 10% thing again), so the '06 probably has at least 10% greater powder capacity. The Arisaka actions, both the Type 38 (6.5x50) and Type 99 (7.7x58) are considered quite tough by some. I would, however, never own or sporterize one myself, safe as they probably are, because I fail to see any beauty in them -- just my own humble little opinion, though -- beauty is an "eye of the beholder" thing, isn't it. Value? For that the Arisakas are best left in military configuration, especially today, as are so many other old military bolt actions whose numbers have been decimated by sporterization. I do understand why Arisakas were sporterized; they were cheap and available, as were plenty of other bolt action rifles in the '50's and '60's. Arisakas were not great sporterization candidates compared to all the Mausers, Springfields and P14 and 1917 Enfields, so they are a bit unusual to find today. As sporterized rifles, they are a sort of curiosity -- neither fish nor fowl.

Cheers!

Well said. I load both 7.7 and 6.5mmx50sr for my Arisakas. Beauty is as beauty does; to actually improve on the Mauser action (the bolt cap) is amazing engineering IMO. I have one such Bubba'd Arisaka carbine, but. The veteran who hand-carved the beautiful stock, complete with white line spacers and antler end cap did such a beautiful job, I thought it was worth $125. It has an intact mum, indicating it was not surrendered. It obviously meant a lot to this unknown vet and gun tinkerer, for some reason... We can assume why. And I have a Type 38 stock set to restore it, if I wanted to. Out of respect, I do not.

AA