Shake my head at so many of your comments...

What? In Modern Warefare 2, the FAL is awesome.

As to the OP's original subject of the "30'06"...there is an excellent albeit very long read titled "Maximazing the 30'06" on www.24HourCampfire.com under the "Talk to the Gun Writers" forum board. This particular board on 24HCF is edited by John Barsness. John is a well known gun & ammunition writer of note, has contributed to several bullet manufacturers reloading manuals - ex: look at his experiences with the 9.3x62 Mauser in the Nosler #6, and an Editor of Handloading Magazine.

As for the venerable 30'06's resurgence in popularity it is and always has been the Great Average Do All bolt action benchmark caliber worldwide after gaining acceptance after WW I.

When I got into the Firearms Industry in the mid 1970's with a Dallas/and later a chain of national based distributor, the 30'06 was viewed as Old News & BTDT or I got all those I want so what else is new and different, and in some markets the 30'06 was hard to sell, while in others like deep East Texas the '06 was a religion not to be discounted. In those days I was selling 7Mg's & 270's by double handfuls and could not stock enough guns to satisfy the orders in some years, and yet could not giveaway 30'06's at any price or discount/terms structure. My sister company in Denver that covered the Rockies from Canada to Arizona was the same way.

A particularly not so funny at the time rememberance I have from 1979 at one of the largest dealers in East Texas, Tony's (Valentino) H&T in Longview, happened when I was writing my companies annual booking order with Tony that had a number of his better customers looking on went ..."and where would a dealer need to be to buy more 270's or 7Mg's than 30'06's? My answer was "in Smith County (Tyler) instead of Gregg County". Tony's customer who was eavesdripping asked "...and why would that be?" and I answered "'cause sometime after WW I some old time gunsmith in either or both Gregg & Smith Counties berated anyone who didn't believe the way they did was an idiot and not to be trusted in Deer Camp". Several of Tony's older customers laughed and began to cite the name and war stories of a few Gregg County gunsmiths going back into the 1920's. Richard "Mac" McBride in Tyler thought it was funny too. We had the exact same scenario again later that day when I wanted Tony to buy more than a few samples of Ruger 77 rifles and cut back a tad on his usual order of 50-100 Remington 742's to stay under his stated budget...he refused 'cause he didn't think Ruger 77's would ever sell in East Texas 'cause they did not have high gloss stocks or came with iron sights... but he did buy a couple dozen 700BDL's instead ...and later that season I sold him close to 50 Ruger's on monthly billing intead of the better long dated due dates where my company floorplanned his booking order to the end of the year...and I was only one of 4-5 distributor gun reps who were selling to Tony at those volumes. Some time later Tony told me he thought that a large number of his gun buyers were still WW II vets who were used to shooting M1 Garands and had trouble adjusting to a bolt action rifle ...but would not admit to it.

I had the same kind of problem with Remington & Winchester ammo...East Texan's would only shoot green box ammo, and folks west of I-35 or south of Dallas would only shoot Winchester...except that Gibsons across the parking lot from Tony's was selling carloads of Red Box Federals at the same price. Case in point...Leo Bradshaw when he still owned Cogdills in Waco bought me totally out of Winchester Shotgun Shells one year by himself when he found out I still had some older Pre Olin packaging. LOL

Everything is perception and your personal history 90% + of the time. I've killed predators and game critters from the Rockies to Finland with a 30'06...but I prefer not to own just one caliber and have been known to use a 5 gun battery of all the same make and model in 5 different calibers so that just like a set of golf clubs all my guns were just exactly the same except for the hole in the end of the barrel...Did it the first time with 6 Ruger 77's and later with 5 SAKO's. Today I do the same thing in fishing reels using 6 Shimano Calcutta's for lures, or 6 Garcia 5500's for live bait reels for Lake Texoma Stripers for the same reasons. Easy to tell "my" reels from my wifes' Quantum's when the topwater action gets hot.

Again, I would advise any and all who are interested in how the 30'06 came to be to find and read the book I mentioned earlier "Mr Rifleman" as it details in depth the career of Colonel Townsend Whelen and his input in to the development of ALL of the US Military Small Arms from WW I thru the Korean Conflict up thru the M-14.

As always in any manmade endeavor, and most especially it seems in the firearms industry ....Success (in a given product or design) Breeds Copycats.
Ron

Funny that you mention it. When i hunted east texas the only ammo anyone ever shot was remington green box core-lokts.

south texas people still shoot remington but winchester ammo is alot more prevalent.

I buck'd the trend and got hooked up with hornady, been happy ever since

We were Winchester & Federal shooting East Texans.

Rifleman...if you were in South East Texas, or east of Victoria you prolly bought ammo from Mike? at Hooks's Shooter Supply or one of his dealers... Last time I saw Hook was at McBrides in Austin still schelepping shotgun reloading stuff.

I wish I had a dime for every box of WW Goose loads I sold to the guy in Eagle Lake...

Federal moved their Regional rep ummm Ralph ??? to the Houston market to make a market impact, and he landed in Conroe, but retired couple years later after getting bit bigtime bad by a copperhead as he got into his car that was parked inside his garage as I remember it. The Remington Rep had opened a great store in Conroe that I could never sell SAKO's in, and Randy Franz in Corsicana was still selling for a Rep Agency last I heard... oh well it's a different world these days for sure....with some of the really good friends like Dudly Grounds, who spent 22 years with Weatherby and took Glock for the SWest on my recomendation in 1988 after I passed on it, passing couple years back.
Ron

I've recently moved to Houston, grew up deep east tx around the Lufkin/Nac area. Still bought the majority of ammo supplies from Carter's. They're were a lot of older guys over the leases where we hunted that were into reloading, had their ranges set up off their back porches and all-in-all good, well educated folks to hang around. They reloaded for me, I spent a week putting in all their food plots. Bc a member had to accompany me on the lease as a minor, I'd go with them and shoot my dad's deer allotment without him being there

Haha