The best all around rifle caliber for hunting

[bsa1917hunter]

Caliber: 30
Cartridge: 30-06

 

[Captain O]

"There's not much in life that a man can't fix with $50,000 and a .30-'06." - unknown

 

[orygun]

YUP, SMOKIN!
SO, you got me thinkin on the P.O. Ackly improved! Tell me more!

Anyone ever play with a 30-06 Ackley Improved?

 

[tac]

Tac, the scopes we have available to us are a mixture of MOA and mrad
My Leupold and Vortex are MOA, my Zeiss, Nightforce and Nikon are mRad
my M1 Garand iron sights is yards, my Mosin and Mauser are meters
my Bushnell laser rangefinder has switchable scale
I grew up with MOA, and as an old guy am trying to convert to metric, but still confusing to me
RJMT

You mean like my Nightforce, Weaver. Leupold and Burris?

Whoda thunkit?

tac

 

[Ura-Ki]

Anyone ever play with a 30-06 Ackley Improved?

Oh, BOY! Now I gotta visit Velsey! Darn You!
While it may not be the fastest thing out there, I do the the load data for the 180 gr, and even better, my fav, Swift Sirocco 180s should show a pretty good improvement! They seem to like being driven hard, so this might just be the hot ticket for me!
AND, as luck would have it, I have a nice little project rifle that could really benefit from this, BUT, it currently wears a 22 inch tube, so I gotta find some barrel length data to see what sort of loss i'm gonna see, if it's worth it or not!

Thanks @orygun!

 

[orygun]

Oh, BOY! Now I gotta visit Velsey! Darn You!
While it may not be the fastest thing out there, I do the the load data for the 180 gr, and even better, my fav, Swift Sirocco 180s should show a pretty good improvement! They seem to like being driven hard, so this might just be the hot ticket for me!
AND, as luck would have it, I have a nice little project rifle that could really benefit from this, BUT, it currently wears a 22 inch tube, so I gotta find some barrel length data to see what sort of loss i'm gonna see, if it's worth it or not!

Thanks @orygun!

You're welcome.

Check out post #42 in that thread. That's a 180gr at nearly 2900fps out of a 22 inch barrel. I think there is still some room before I hit max, but not much. I want to play with seating depth before I change the powder charge.

One thing I'll add here that I didn't mention in the other thread. Once the chamber is reamed to the Ackley Improved dimensions there is no guarantee that your rifle will fire standard 30-06 ammo with 100% reliability. Shooting factory ammo or my standard 30-06 reloads, my rifle has been about 70% reliable on the first trigger pull. A few more rounds will fire on the 2nd or 3rd try and they will bring the total up to 75, maybe 80%. Some will never fire, but they will if tried in a standard 30-06 chamber. If you modify your gun, plan on loading for it and plan on using your own ammo exclusively.

I reloaded the '06 for a long time before I had my rifle rechambered. Once it had been, it took very little time to work up an acceptable hunting load. I've not yet put 100 rounds thru it, but I'm completely satisfied with the change. It's at least as accurate as before and it's a fair amount faster.

Velzey did a very nice job on my rifle.

 

[Ura-Ki]

Mine has a wicked firing pin strike, I wonder if that may help with standard .30/06 loads!
I have never done an A.I. but have done a Weatherby chamber, didn't have issues with using standard base ammo. I wonder if the A.I. changed because of how the case head spaces? To far off the bolt face? How deep a throat did you get?

 

[orygun]

The wicked firing pin strike may even make it worse.
There is a small area of crush right at the junction of the neck and shoulder. Looks like about .030". Since the ring of contact is so small when a standard case is chambered, the firing pin can hammer the case forward. It will dent the primer very heavily, but it's just not enough to reliable ignite the primer. My Ruger has a pretty stiff main spring, but when Tim was having trouble he swapped it out for a new one. Didn't change anything.
When it first happened to me I was pretty disillusioned and thought I'd made a big mistake. I'd taken my perfect rifle and turned it into an non reliable POS. Thinking it was my primer, I pulled the bullet and put the dented primer case in my Dad's old 03-A3. "POP"! I started examining the cases and saw what was happening.

Once the case is fireformed, the rifle is 100%.

 

[orygun]

How deep a throat did you get?

The throat is very near standard length. I considered moving it forward a bit, but when I saw how little the boat tail bullet engages the neck as it is, I decided against it.

 

[Ura-Ki]

I see what your saying now! With so little of the original shoulder and no case taper, there is not very much "holding" the standard case. BUT, this brings up a new question, I wonder if a Controlled Round Feed Mauser Claw would make any difference, as it effectively holds the case against the bolt face ( sort of a second head space) and would in theory keep the case from moving forward. If your Ruger is the 77 type, I wonder if tuning the claw would change things for you? I'm digging around to see if this might be a possible solution!

 

[Argonaut]

A lot of work and silliness to duplicate a 308 Norma Magnum.

 

[Ura-Ki]

Yea, BUT! It's cool

 

[Argonaut]

I have built several 308 Norma magnums, the first in 1970. The cartridge is designed to fit in a standard length Mauser action, brass is available at Starline, simple rebarrel (or rechamber) open the boltface..........clean, powerful adaption without drama. I met Ackley while living in Utah, was in his shop many times........he did a lot of stuff to sell magazines and books with little thought to practicality. He was a good smith but I much prefer Elmer Keith (that I also knew) Keith's work was always practical without drama or snakeoil.

 

[Captain O]

A lot of work and silliness to duplicate a 308 Norma Magnum.

Agreed. "reinventing the wheel" seems to be the "great American gunsmithing pastime".

 

[osprey]

The only way I see the 308 Norma Mag having an advantage over the 30-06 AI would be the availability of factory brass. The improved 06 gets the same speed as the 308 NM with about 8 grains less powder making it a fair amount more efficient and providing less felt recoil. That is quite an improvement in my eyes. Ackley didn't hit them all out of the park but thank god for his endless tinkering because without his countless endevors, we may not have my personal favorite the 280 AI.

 

[Argonaut]

The only way I see the 308 Norma Mag having an advantage over the 30-06 AI would be the availability of factory brass. The improved 06 gets the same speed as the 308 NM with about 8 grains less powder making it a fair amount more efficient and providing less felt recoil. That is quite an improvement in my eyes. Ackley didn't hit them all out of the park but thank god for his endless tinkering because without his countless endevors, we may not have my personal favorite the 280 AI.

. I didn't say the 308 Norma had an advantage, but the wildcat is a useless expenditure of time and energy.
The recoil part is a myth.......(did you ever study Physics?) actual recoil is the equal and opposite force law. With the same energy it produces the same recoil. Felt recoil is subjective as to things like rifle weight, fit, stock design but the actual recoil is identical with the same energy produced. So, 8 grains of powder less......the simplicity of factory brass more than makes up for the few cents in cost with ability to fire factory ammunition and use factory formed brass.....you forgot the extra cost of Magnum primers......also negligible.

 

[osprey]

Obviously, opinions vary.

 

[orygun]

I see what your saying now! With so little of the original shoulder and no case taper, there is not very much "holding" the standard case. BUT, this brings up a new question, I wonder if a Controlled Round Feed Mauser Claw would make any difference, as it effectively holds the case against the bolt face ( sort of a second head space) and would in theory keep the case from moving forward. If your Ruger is the 77 type, I wonder if tuning the claw would change things for you? I'm digging around to see if this might be a possible solution!

My rifle is a 77 MKII so it has the big ol claw for yanking brass outta the chamber. Just one of many reason I shoot this style of Ruger rifle.
Would it be possible to tune it to shoot factory brass 100%? Yeah, probably, possibly. Personally, I'm not going to waste the time. The only reason I see shooting standard cases is to make Ackley cases. I can always seat the bullets a little long to touch the rifling and that will help hold the case stationary for reliable primer ignition. Or I can use Cream of Wheat as a filler with Bullseye and fire form them.
The fact that I could wasn't the point I was trying to make. I just wanted to point out that I think it's a misconception to assume that you can "always shoot standard ammo" in an Improved chamber. My experience is just an echo of other Ackley Improved users, possibly even Ackley himself. (I hear from so-n-so and he heard from so-n-so...)
Most of us aren't flying to some far off land to hunt with a 30-06 AI and aren't likely to lose our precious ammo to the airlines. 100 rounds of brass is really a bunch for a hunting rifle.

 

[osprey]

I took nosler load data for both 308NM and 30-06AI using the same powder (imr 4350) and similar velocities. The velocity on both was out of 24" tubes. I input the data into a recoil calculator and got the following results. Load 1 is the 308NM and load 2 is the 30-06AI.



All things factored in, I know which one I would choose, and yes powder charge weight does have a very tangible effect on recoil. In this case 2 ft/lb.

 

[Captain O]

I took nosler load data for both 308NM and 30-06AI using the same powder (imr 4350) and similar velocities. The velocity on both was out of 24" tubes. I input the data into a recoil calculator and got the following results. Load 1 is the 308NM and load 2 is the 30-06AI.

View attachment 422015

All things factored in, I know which one I would choose, and yes powder charge weight does have a very tangible effect on recoil. In this case 2 ft/lb.

Excellent research. Numbers don't lie.