Best calibre/ammo combo
 

If you could only have one rifle and one choice of ammo what would it be for big game?

Welcome aboard Huntnmachine! I don't particularly care for the .30-06 but for the "one gun" arsenal, the '06 would be hard to beat!

Thanks for the welcome, I used a 308 for years and it did everything I needed it to do but for some reason I have become a speed freak and now own a 270 wsm and a 300 win mag, to answer my own question I would probably take my 270 wsm using Winchester accubond 140 gainers as my "one gun".
It has tons of speed and energy to take out our Canadian Black Bear and Moose

Second vote for the good old .30/06. More than enough power to down ANY game on this continent. For the people who don't load their own ammo, factory ammo available pretty much ANYWHERE in the world with many loaded options. Can be had in almost every platform of rifle made. If you reload, it can make either a scary good varmint rifle with little 95 grain bullets or a Moose gun with 210 grain bullets. And everything in between. Out to 500-600 yards, it will kill anything just as dead as any .300 win mag without breaking your wallet in half with every shot.

7MM RM with 139gr. Hornady SST

338 RUM...160's for the small stuff and 300's for the big stuff...

I couldn't imagine just having 1...?

If you're new ish to rifle hunting... consider this...
Buy the rifle/caliber you plan to use most now/in the near future, ie. if you plan to hunt local whitetails for the next 5 years to rest of your life, well maybe a 270 etc... is what you need.

Down the road if you go elk hunting or moose, etc... in the future you'll probably be able to pick up another rifle that may be more appropriate for that game.

If I had just 1 rifle for NA or the World it might be a 375H&H or 458 Lott, but I really don't want to shoot that on deer year in year out.

So rather than trying to pick the best 1 rifle for everything, I'd focus on what you plan to hunt this year, next year, within 5 years.

Many hunters would love to hunt ELK "one day" and bought a 300win mag and will never end up hunting an elk.

if you are talking a do it all gun for everything thats non dangerous in north america ive always heard the 3006 is about the perfect caliber.....personally id prefer either the 308 or 7mm08 though

+1

Excellent advise !!! :wave:

Just one rifle, really just one? To hunt what with?
If your just talking white tail deer I my self would go with a 243, If I was forced to buy ammo I'd have some Remington 100gr core locks for deer and for coyotes I be looking at some thing from 70 to 100 grain hollow point.


:D Al

I wouldn't be afraid to hunt any animal on this continent with the good old 30-06 loaded up with a good 180 grain bullet like a Barnes TSX or Nosler Partition.

As most have said, 30-06. BUT!!!! If I were to be up Nort much, I would lean towards the 300 Win Mag. That's a whollelotta whummpp when u need it for a bear with your butt on his menu all of a sudden!!!! Nice to have and not need it than the other way. You can load it down for smaller animals and then step it up for the bigger critters.

.300 Win Mag to do it all. But I like a 7mm-08 right well for what I do.

The 30-06 can do anything the .300WM can do inside of 400 yards. The only place the .300WM outshines the .30-06 is after 400 yards where the extra giddyup helps.

Agree.
Or you could say the .300 will do anything the 06 will do and will keep doing it past 1000 if you ever want to shoot some LR steel.
The .300 with 168s is fast to 600 or so and the 210s still pack a good bit past 1000.
If you are talking one rifle for hunting or play the .300 will do it all.
That said I shoot 6.5 Creedmoor,.308,and 7mm-08.
I don't care for the recoil or expense of the magnum calibers or the barrel burning of the fast wildcats anymore but there is no doubt what they will do.

I refuse to own just 1 rifle,period, end of story!
RR

Ha.
I hear that.

X2 on that RR! Right tool for the job! '06 is great for a "one gun arsenal," BUT, there are many better tools for specific jobs!!!!

Tru that!!! But the OP did ask for just 1 rifle and ammo combo. So I was just playing along with the game. I called the rifle, couldn't the load. Would depend on where I was going to be I guess. With having shot many of the big guns and hunted with them from 308 to 458 WM, I would still go to the 300 WM from my own personal experiences.

and I don't and won't own a 30/06!
RR

Me either! No desire whatsoever!

Unless it's necked down to .270, 6.5mm or 6mm...

Myself as well. That's why mine go from 308 then jump to 300 WM then to 338 Lapua then to 375 WM. No '06.

Any specific reason other than it's just so common?

To answer the question. If I was limited to one I'd probably go the with the .30-06. You can buy ammo anywhere, and if you can't somebody near you probably has some extra in their truck.
-Jake

Personally .308, five reasons, tried and proven, big enough for anything I hunt (up to Moose or Red Deer), acceptable recoil, if the SHTF it is a military caliber and something you may be able to scrounge on a battlefield and the vast majority of my shots are within 200 yards.

I've tried the magnums, kill in front cripple behind. Shooting one from a prone position can hurt. I sold my model 70 7MM mag. Only rifle I've owned that left me with a black and blue shoulder and scope eye.

This is basically the question that I asked myself when I bought my rifle years ago as a starving college student. I went with the 30/06 as it gives many, many reloading options and you can buy ammo anywhere.


Over twenty years later, I'd only add this:


1.) A 300 win mag, as was said, might be better than a 30-06 if you're in a brown bear world. I'm not, and probably never will be. I could probably make the 30-06 do with a good handload, maybe a 220 grain bullet if I ever got the chance.

2.) My choice of a Savage 110/111 is still seeming to me the best choice of all the makes. Besides being one of the few makers that produce affordable left-handed guns for people like me, 110s offer the advantage of being easily rebarreled. You can get a 35 Whelan barrel and a gunsmith could put it on with his eyes closed. It would be like a mechanic doing a brake job in terms of difficulty, I'm guessing total cost of $300 or even less, and you have a real bear cartridge certainly useable for deer.

I do not have experience with many of the calibers, especially the large ones and the magnums. The 30-06 will do anything that I need a rifle for. My second rifle would be a decent .22 if we can have two guns.

For only one, all-around, general-purpose big game rifle: 30-06. Any big game animal on the North American continent can be taken with the -06, if you know what you're doing with it.