I have a Sears Model 53 .30-06 that my grandpa gave me about 6 years ago, that he bought in the early 70's. It is basically a Model 70 Winchester with the Sears name on it. I shot my first two deer with it and then haven't really shot it since. It had a Tasco 4x scope on it that was hard to see out of, so I chucked that. It now has the original open sights.

I plan now to use it for mountain lion. Since the shots will be very close <30 yds, and a quick follow up shot may be necessary, I think it would fill the bill nicely.

What bullet would be good for this kind of situation? I am thinking of either a Hornady, Speer, or Sierra 180 round nose. Possibly even a cast bullet at lower velocities? Any thoughts? Thanks!

Mountain lions aren't difficult to kill.....I usually hunt them with my M-92 Winchester in .25-20. Most guides recommend a .30-30 and the .30-06 can be loaded to the .30-30 specs. However to reduce the pelt damage I'd use a Hornady 180 round nose behind 38 grains of IMR 4064. This yields about 2200'/sec which is equivalent to the .30-30 velocity with the 170 flat nose. The 180 should hold together better and do less pelt damage.

Some guides use a .22 WRM on the cats and the .30-30 load is a heck of a lot more than that.

What about a hornady 220 gr rn??? They work good on close shots at deer too.

Never really thought about reducing jacketed bullet velocities down, or using 220 grn bullets... hmmm... will have to do some more reading my manuals, and see what might work... thanks for the ideas.

Hogdon and Speer publish reduced load data, check out either of their reloading manuals.

Remington has come out with Managed Recoil loads. I'm sure if they are cut down on recoil they are not loaded hot and probally won't tear up the hide at all. You also could handload a 220gr. jacketed round nose bullet made for dangerous game. Its not going to open up like a standard hunting bullet. It would take a mountain lion straight to the ground at 30yds.

The 170 grain Hornady Flat nose does a hell of a job out of the 06. Hornady recommends keeping it to 2500 fps as that bullet is made to expand at 30-30 velocity. I have used it several times for woods hunting. Just to try something different.

Thanks guys for the input. I think I am going to go with some 180 or 200 grain cast lead flat point bullets. I know there are some places where I can get them prelubed and sized. I do have another question, though... I am planning to use a fast burning pistol powder for the bullets to keep the velocities in the 1600 fps range. I am thinking Unique or Blue Dot. I read somewhere that the small amount of powder may not ignite consistently because of the low load density. I saw that they used some kind of filler material. I was thinking of possibly using cotton balls to serve as a spacer and keep the powder in place. Would this work? Has anybody ever tried this with reduced loads? Any more comments would be wonderful! Thanks again for the replies.

P.S. I also thought about the 250 grain Barnes Original. Thought that might be fun to mess around with also, but it appears they have discontinued that bullet in .308.

Try RL 2400- this stuff is supposed to be relatively not sensitive to its position in the case for ignition and burning properties.

a 110 Gr. JHP would work nice and only leave a 30 cal hole on one side.. load it to about 3400 FPS.. it will totally come apart after it hits.. the 110 Gr. were designed for the M1 carbine.. loading them that fast makes them very lethel at under 100 yards..