As stated many times above, the 308 and 30-06 are both good deer guns. Whichever one you get will do a fine job. Pick out a gun you like that feels good, and don't look back. The 308 will have less recoil, but and good recoil pad will tame a 30-06 as well. I have both and hunt with both. Deer shot with either usually go straight down if I do my part. Get the one you like the best.

never been anywhere thats sells ammo that didnt have 30-06 rounds in stock. Can't say the same for the 308

For deer hunting at close to moderate ranges (<400 yards)? Just flip a coin. With bullets up to the 165 grain range the ballistic differences are too close to matter. If you want to go after the big stuff, or hunt deer at longer ranges, the 30-06 has a slight edge, but if I intended to hunt anything bigger than elk or much farther than 400 yards, I'd be looking toward at least a 300 Win Mag for such work.

Mike

Nothing wrong with either of those calibers. I do prefer the less recoil of the .308 over the .06

I have a 7mm/08 and love it for lower recoil. But if I had to chose between the .308/.06 I'd go with .308

well its debateable, but i shoot an old savage 308 lever action. i believe some 30-06s are made cheaper but thats just me.

308 for me cause when I bought my AR-10 the only two choices were 308 or 243 and I have no experience with 243. But I can tell you that I replaced a semi auto 06 when I bought the 308 and can tell no difference in normal range shooting. The recoil, especially with an AR-10 is way less. 308 fine for any North American Game and can be found fairly easily about anywhere. Military surplus rounds are common and cheap for practice shooting too, but many NATO rounds are for practice only and are not allowed for hunting. Hunting rounds are easily found in any big store.

.308 by far-If its good enough for the swat and sniper teams of the Armed forces, its good enough for hunting. Far superior in accuracy than an 06.

There is nothing about the 308 Winchester that makes it any more accurate than the .30-06 given equal quality rifles. The 308 is "good enough" for military snipers because of logistics, not performance. Just about every NATO medium machine gun and many NATO service rifles are chambered for the NATO standard 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. It only makes sense for the military to choose the same cartridge for its general purpose sniper cartridge. For true long range shooting there are better cartridges available (like, say, the 338 Lapua), but you won't find them in every friendly hootch, humvee, tank and fighting hole in the battle area. If the shipment of 338 Lapua ammo doesn't get to the snipers in the field, they're SOL. But if their rifles take 7.62x51mm NATO, in a pinch they need to look no further than the nearest M-60A3 or M240 gunner. Civilian police snipers followed suit simply because they could easily draw on military ballistics and range data, use military 7.62x51mm Match Ball ammo, and there is plenty of real world experience with the cartridge. Every professional sniper in the western world can recite the 308 Win drop table from memory and be real world accurate to within a few inches out to 1000 yards, regardless of ammo variations. Since civilian police SWAT and SRT teams generally hire from these ranks, it saves them tons of time and money to chamber their sniper rifles the same as the military.

It's also important to note that American Marine and army snipers used the .30-06 for 50 years before the 308 Win was adopted to replace it for both service rifles and medium MG's. Again, for logistical reasons.

Mike