30-06 Springfield good for long range? Building rifle would like input from ppl in th

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imkman

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Hi guys

I have been looking up cartridges and would like an honest answer. I know about the 308, 306, 338... the wsm s... I would just like to know if I should bother mounting a scope on my 30-06 for long range shooting 1000-2000+ meters.
I have an older rifle that was not really uses for many years but seems to be shooting accurately with the irons it has. I know if I don’t like it I can always buy something else and put the scope on that, however, the reason I am asking if I should bother with the 30-06 is that only one company makes scope base and rings for this practical rifle and it is not cheap. If 30-06 is useless for what I am looking for then I would much rather spend that base/ring money on a better rifle.



All help, discussion, and debates are welcome
Thanks






You know what I have, now what is king in that range?
 
The 30-06 is VERY capable of accurate shooting. Prior to the development of the 308, the 06 was used alot for competition work.
Match brass is available for this caliber and ofcourse any 308 cal bullet will work, it is just a matter of determining which bullet "your" rifle prefers. typically the 175 to 200 gr projectiles tend to work best in an 06, but this will depend on the twist of your barrel. Some European makers used a very slow twist in their 06 offerings.
I think 2000 mtrs is going to be difficult, but 1000 , no problem.
 
The .30/06 cartridge is quite capable of good repeatable 1000 yard accuracy, but the typical hunting scope could leave you frustrated. When I began long range shooting, I put an aiming target on the berm high above the impact target. This worked to a point, but in flat country it can't always be easily arranged, and in my case it led me to better things.

IMHO, your scope could be the limiting factor to long range shooting, not your rifle. You would benefit from a minimum 10X magnification. You should be able to adjust your elevation to hit 30" high at 100 yards, this will put you close to zero at 1000. If your scope does not have enough adjustment, you should consider a sloped base mount. Ideally, the scope should be zeroed for 200 yards with the elevation adjustment bottomed out, thus all of you vertical adjustment is useable. While it is more challenging to get scope mounts for some rifles than for others, it is unlikely that there is but a single mounting option for your rifle. But I too would be interested in knowing what rifle you have.
 
Certainly there are better long range choices, but the '06 will for sure get there and get there well...at least to 1000y. Farther then that and your getting into pretty long range territory...the bullet will certainly get there, but the bigger issue is if you can see it and control it.:D Heck Mysticplayer flings his 223 Rem out to 2000y and hits stuff!!! I too would be interested in knowing what rifle this is that only has one set of mounts made for it. Hard to believe that it doens't have weaver mounts available. A set of those with the Burris insert rings will get you lots of extra elevation and maybe run you 75$ in total. My .02$
 
Hi imkman, tell us more about your rifle (factory hunting rifle, or something else? open hunting iron sights, or target iron sights?). Do you handload? (that can greatly help a long-range shooting endeavour)

An ordinary .30-06 hunting rifle will certainly fling hunting bullets to 1000y, and well beyond. If you want to reliably hit something at that distance, you'll need to see your sights and the target well enough to aim well. A high magnification target scope does this well. Specialized Iron target sights can also do this well, even at 1000 yards - a rear aperture, a front sight aperture, and a 6'x6' white target board with a 4' diameter black aiming mark are what's used in long range target rifle competitions. Also, the more accurate your rifle+ammo, the easier the task of hitting your target (so long range target shooters either use top-quality commercial match ammo, or they make their own).

I've shot my .30-06 hunting rifle at 300metres, and compared to shooting a target rifle, it is remarkably hard to hit what would be a dead-easy shot with a target rifle. This is a plain Jane Savage 110 .30-06, with a good 4X scope, that achieves typical hunting-rifle accuracy - about 2.5" groups at 100.

I've shot my (.30-06) M1 Garand at a variety of distances. At 100 yards, I can knock the middle out of a military "charging man" target. At 200 yards, I can hit it every time. At 300 yards, the sight picture is bad enough that I can't get all my hits on the 18" wide by 42" high target (even with the good military iron sight system that an M1 has). I also shot my M1 Garand at 800 yards once, I hit the 4' diameter aiming black at least half the time, and I rarely missed the 6'x6' target board - not good enough to win a match, by any stretch, but plenty good to have fun at it!
 
I used my VAR barrelled M-1 30-06 rifle at Bull Meadow once.
It was the only rifle I had at the time that had sights equal to the distance shot.
Got no complaints for that setup, until something better came along for full bore target rifle events.

PS: Fellow Garand shooters, assuming you have a good barrel/trigger, now get yourself the thinner national match grade frontsight assembly.
It will be marked "NM" to reflect this.
( .062 versus regular .075 )
Suddenly those distant shots go from near misses, to fully centred hits at 400-600 yards. At a very reasonable cost I must add!
Now the bad news, this is not a regular army issued item, so by definition, not legit for service rifle matches.
 
I will probably be repeating and summarizing everything these chaps have already said (Rick Dainiel and Dan are very good sources of info) but the 30-06 in an accurate rifle is absolutely capable of shooting to 1000M and beyond, but the cartridge is only as accurate as the rifle.

I had a totally unmodified Remington 700 hunting rifle in 30-06 (now owned by CGN "Curt"s father) that grouped .3MOA with 178 Amax bullets seated very long. It's downfall for anything beyond a hunting rifle is that it got too hot very quickly, and like all hunting rifles it was unsuited to shooting anything more than a few rounds at a time.

On a perfectly calm day, a rifle/shooter/load combo that groups 1" at 100 yards will group close to a foot at 1000M. Add any sort of mirage, or wind and it is going to be much bigger. One minute of angle becomes very large at one kilometer, which is why quarter-minute differences in accuracy are HUGE in competitive shooting.

Good optics are an important part of the equation as well. Those Iron sight TR/Palma shooters blow me away at how they can hit a 6'X8' target let alone actually hit the bull, but they do! But having a cheap or low power scope can almost make things worse.

My advice would be to play with what you have without investing too much into it. Those 30-06 rifles are a hoot, but when you become addicted to shooting long distance, you will find that its recoil in a hunting rifle weight and its tendency to get very hot fast, will inspire you to tell the wife you need a set of replacement left handed carter wrenches and go skin the credit card on something more suited to long distance punching.
 
Brutus said:
PS: Fellow Garand shooters, assuming you have a good barrel/trigger, now get yourself the thinner national match grade frontsight assembly. It will be marked "NM" to reflect this. ( .062 versus regular .075 )
Suddenly those distant shots go from near misses, to fully centred hits at 400-600 yards. At a very reasonable cost I must add!
Click to expand...

2nd opinion - one of the first things I did was to buy NM sights for my Garand (a narrower front blade, and a smaller rear aperture). I found the smaller front blade to actually be a *DIS*-advantage for precise target shooting, so I have reverted to the ordinary sights. I find that big fat square easily seen sights (be they iron sights or scope reticles) can be reliably and repeatable aimed to a resolution much smaller than the size of the sight element itself.

Obtunded said:
Good optics are an important part of the equation as well. Those Iron sight TR/Palma shooters blow me away at how they can hit a 6'X8' target let alone actually hit the bull, but they do! But having a cheap or low power scope can almost make things worse.
Click to expand...

It blows me away too. Have a look through an iron-sighted target rifle some day when you have a chance, and see what the sight picture looks llike at 900m or 1000 yards (FYI it's at least twice as awful as a 600m sight picture). A small fuzzy gray blob (at the target it's a sharp black 48" diameter blob; through the sights and 1000 yards of air, it is often gray and indistinct) inside a reasonably sharp front sight ring, inside a blurry rear aperture. Hold still, aim, and make the trigger break without disturbing things too much. Based on what you can see, hitting the board (6'x6' or 6'x8') seems like about all that could be reasonably hoped for. And yet, just-beyond-beginner-level shooters can quite easily "call" whether or not their shot broke inside the 24" bull-5 ring (which is half the diameter of the tiny little black blob you're actually seeing through the sights!).

When my first sighter at 900m/1000yards is a "5", or even better a "V" (a tie-breaking 12" circle inside the bull-5), to this day it still amazes me. It's enough to keep you coming back for more...

My advice would be to play with what you have without investing too much into it. Those 30-06 rifles are a hoot, but when you become addicted to shooting long distance, you will find that its recoil in a hunting rifle weight and its tendency to get very hot fast, will inspire you to tell the wife you need a set of replacement left handed carter wrenches and go skin the credit card on something more suited to long distance punching.
Click to expand...

Ditto. Especially the recoil bit - shooting a dozen shots out of a hunting-weight .308 or .30-06 is *way* more punishing than shooting fifty shots in a day from a 13+ pound .308 target rifle (and a 13+ pound 6BR or .223 target rifle is an absolute treat!).
 
Hi guys, appreciate the replies

The mystery rifle is a Zastava m70 (not the AK version but the sporting rifle)

Today I went to bass pro out of boredom and of course bought a scope lol and not even the one I was planning on buying or looking at for a few reasons. So what I thought was an ok and economical scope was the “Burris® Fullfield™ II 6.5-20x50 Ballistic Mil Dot Reticle Scope with Spotting Scope Binocular” i saw on the internet on bass pros web page at $519 it was fully multi coated and I thought a good deal. I went to look at it and they did not carry it. For the first time in my life!first time! I was down sold lol I walked out with a “Bushnell Banner dusk and dawn 6-18x50”multi coated for I think $199 but checking the price now they have it on web site for $160... is this scope good at all?
I am the easiest person to up sale and I even told the guy that the scope I had in mind was a Burris and $519. And had to be at least 20x50 and fully multi coated. But then I looked through others, it was the same thing for me so I cheapt out. Was this a good move?
I was not comfortable spending more than 500ish so comparing the two models here would there be a big difference other then price? I could tell at the store that $2000+ models there nice and didn’t really look at much in-between 200-2000$

Thanks soo much for the replies. Hope this rifle works out and if not we will have a lively debate on the rem 700, browning a-bolt, browning x bolt lol
(easiest person to up sale, do it to myself all the time lol)


Thanks
Kris

Ps the ring mounts I wanted were the “Burris Xtreme Tactical Picatinny Style Rail” and then had to order “ZRAK mount M98” being the only ones I could find to fit.
 
OK, it's a commercial Mauser-98 sporting rifle, made in Serbia

http://www.zastava-arms.rs/cms/index.php?id=46

montaza.jpg


The scope you just bought (if I've found the right model?) seems to have a total adjustment range of 40 MOA. Not sure if it has hunting-style adjustments (use a coin to adjust) or if it has target-style adjustment (a multi-turn drum, that you can turn with your fingers, and which includes a numbered scale - sounds like it though, which is what you want "1/4 M.O.A. fingertip, resettable windage and elevation adjustment").

I am guessing that the ZRAK M98 rings you bought(?) nominally align the scope tube parallel to the barrel's bore. This means that you'll have about 20MOA of "up" adjustment (above boreline), and about 20 MOA of "down" adjustment (which is never needed). This will be enough "up elevation" to get you to at least 600 yards with a .30-06, but it won't be enough to get you to 800 yards and beyond. You'll either need to get a scope with more internal elevation adjustment, or you'll need to arrange to point your scope "downhill" about 15-20 MOA (so that nearly all of its elevation adjustment range is available as "up elevation".

Just looking at the photo of your rifle's receiver, I am wondering if the manufacturer was smart and used standard Rem-700 or Win-M70 dimensions for the receiver where the scope bases are mounted. If they did, you're in luck, and have a wide array of bases to choose from (including one-piece bases with 20 MOA taper, or standard Redfield-style bases that will allow you to use Burris' most excellent "Posi-Align Offset" ring system).
 
If it's a commercial Mauser sized receiver, you should be able to buy mounts from a few different manufacturers (Leupold and Burris and Weaver come to mind off the top of my head) that will fit, enabling you to use Burris offset insert rings. This will give you enough offset to compensate for the lack of come ups, still will be tight after 800 though. - dan
 
The Burris you had in mind would be a major step up from the Bushnell. Aside from the Bushnell's lack of internal adjustment, the mil-dot reticle of the Burris will give you an additional 18 MOA beyond the total adjustment by simply using the mil-dots as hold-offs. Long range shooting requires constant elevation and windage adjustments. The adjustments on inexpensive scopes like your Bushnell are designed to be zeroed and left alone, so the life span and the accuracy of the adjustments will not match those of a top quality target scope. If you use that Bushnell for a while, you will sure appreciate a better scope when you get one.

Every now and then try shooting a box to test the accuracy and the repeatability of the adjustments on your scope. Begin with the rifle sighted for 100 yards, and shoot at a large target with a centered aiming point. After the first shot adjust your scope 6 minutes up and fire another shot, then adjust 6 minutes right and fire a shot, then repeat 6 minutes down, then 6 minutes left. If your adjustments are of the correct value, the bullet holes on the target will form a nice square box with a 6" spacing between each hole, and the last shot should hit your first bullet hole.
 
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Yeah I really have no faith in the cheap scope the only thing that might work to my advantage is that I do not have much experience on the subject and when upgrading to a high quality scope I will feel the difference, as boomer said.
I am considering returning and replacing the scope while I still can too... any good placing to find a scope at a good price in Ontario?
 
YES return and replace that scope if you can . If you can't well just use it for now and if you find you like shooting and want more of a good thing then buy a new scope with a new gun attached. Scope problem solved.
 
Its good, but there are better cals that would fit the bolt face , neck to 7mm or 6.5 , you got better ballistics from bullet design.
rings , and bases don't have to weight 1 lb to work , a cant rail is a good idea for those long shots though...
 
Here is an article on the 30-06 and a guy that is quite familiar shooting it in competitions. Some of you may be familiar with the author German Salazar.
http://riflemansjournal.########.com/2009/12/equipment-sorting-out-new-rifle.html

Here is his 30-06 tube gun.
http://1.bp.########.com/_f1TTfqxVUw4/Szi8Ny5jdVI/AAAAAAAAA20/USFcP9Qub9M/s640/DSCN7156.


here is an article on heavy bullets and the 30-06
http://www.6mmbr.com/heavybullets.html
 
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