308 or 30-06??????

Ok. I just got 2 308's and I have buddy's that live and die by the 06 an trash talk the 308. Does the 308 have the same knock down at 100 yards as an 06? I understand the 308 is more accurate but what are the pros and cons of each?

No cartridge has "Knock down". The animal feels the same force when hit, that you feel when you fire the weapon.....i'd hope the firing of a rifle doesnt "knock" you down. Look at ballistics. LB FT of energy is what you are looking for...

Accuracy is also subjective.

.270

Both catridges will take down anything in Texas.

.308 is just fine. 30-06 has a bit more speed & may have a small advantage with heavier bullets, but not enough to worry about.

The .308 can be had in a shorter, handier rifle, usually. I would be more concerned with the actual rifle & how it handles & feels, than the cartridge it is chambered in.

308 best all around

They shoot the same bullet so what i would look for is speed. Speed usally translates into down range trajectory( flatter shooting). The -06 has the advantage there. But its all realitive.

No advantage/disadvantage that you'll see in the field..I have both and things die just as quickly with either.

It may have to do with where you hunt. If you only hunted out of a tree blind in deep woods then like said above you can usually find a lightweight, short, easy handling 308. If I hunted anywhere other than that particular situation and there were no other considerations then I would say 30-06.

Many years ago I hunted deep woods from a tree stand and had a Winchester composite stocked Model 70 Lightweight Carbine in 30-06. I should have never sold it and I haven't seen one since then. Maybe they were rare.

Now that I finally have a 308 after owning 4 30-06 (and still do), I can honestly say that if I would've bought a 308 first I probably wouldn't have bought another caliber. It certainly is easier to shoot as far as recoil goes and deliver same result (DRTed a nice fat nanny last season). I still love my 06 but don't think you'll go wrong choosing either one of them. My dilemma now is in choosing which one to take between them and my other favorite 30 caliber, a 300WM, for the opening day. It'll probably boil down to a series of coin flips (best 2 out of 3) as I'm leaving the truck to head to the stand; I always have at least 2 rifles in the truck cause that's just how I roll:).

both are excellent rifles that will kill the deer if you do your part. No wrong answer here.

I never met a 30.06 I wanted to spend more than 30 or so shots at the range with, but with my 308 I can shoot all day and never feel uncomfortable. Some people don't feel the recoil much, I'm not one of them I guess.

.308 was made to replace it.

While the 30-06 does have a slight numerical edge thumping the pages of ballistics charts, using projectiles up to 180gr you would be very hard pressed to prove any difference in true terminal performance in actual field conditions. Where the difference comes into play is above 180gr bullets where the 30-06 does have the edge with its additional powder capacity.

Get a couple boxes of hornady superformance 150 grain SST's for your 308,,,, should stop the trash talk. 3000 FPS!!!!

true but for shorter bolt cycle, for faster follow up shots, not because it outperforms it. You will probably never see the difference hunting, but the '06 would be just a little better suited for hunting

i am a fan of both hunting deer and hog with right bullet they want know the differents , pick the rifle that best suits your type of hunting and get the cal you want all are great texas rounds,

I do like my .30-06s and I have 6 of them and no .308s and no desire to get one. Having said that, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a .308 as long as you never want to go with a bullet heavier than 180 gr. Very few people will ever want to do that. The .30-06 and .308 are almost identical in performance. The .308 does have the advantage of being a "short action" cartridge. Other than this, flip a coin.

The reason I do not want a .308 is that why should I add another caliber to my ammo inventory that does exactly what my .30-06s do? I gues another advantage in today's market could be the availability of cheaper military surplus ammo in .308 (7.62x51MM)than compared to .30-06. Most of the milsurp .30-06 supply is drying up now.

are the 308 accelerator rounds still available, if so ,than you could also varmint hunt with the 308

I went with a 30-06 based on All-Around performance and abundant ammo availability... Both the 308 and the 30-06 were developed for military use and adapted to hunting, so the difference in performance is minimal at best. I am looking into the 308 as far as an AR platform, but would not buy a hunting rifle as I have one in 30-06

What 30378 said X's 10000000%
With bullets under 180gr's the diff in MV is less than 100fps in a 308 with the SAME LENGTH BARREL AS A 30'06.

OVER BULLET WEIGHTS OF 180GR'S the heavier the bullet is the more the slight increase in a 30'06's MV will become. IE: a 30'06 shooting 220 gr'ers will be faster by a larger margin over a 308 than the same two rifles shooting 180's.
OBTW the diff between a 308 and a 30'06 is less than the diff between a 30'06 and a 300Wmg in the same bullet...for the same reason. The larger the case is ...it allows more powder and can better use a slower burning & potentially more powerful powder.

In my Speer #13 Reloading Manual on page 281 is a sidebar article that notes that in their 308 & 30'06 test rifles that in 150 gr bullets the the 308 was actually faster than their 30'06 was, and about even in 165 gr'ers...and that this is a product of the individual rifles. The author also references an article "Why Ballisticians Get Gray" in the manuals handgun section for further explanantion.

And YES the 308 was designed to replace the 30'06 as the military uses 150 gr bullets primarily.
Ron

It has already been covered; the .308 vs. the .30-06 in down range hunting performance by folks who have killed many more deer than me. The perfomance is about the same. However!

I shot at the NTRP Vortex Trinity Valley Shootout this weekend, and I'm speculating here but, I know there were many, many .308's in the match and probably zero .30-06's.

That explains it all right there!

The .30-06 gets my vote, it's the granddaddy of 'em all. BUT, someone else said something that shouldn't be discounted: if you find a rifle in .308 that just knocks yer socks off, go for it. The '06 will have a definite edge with the heaviest bullets, though (handloader's perspective).

If I NEEDED to shoot sumpin with 200 & 220 gr'ers I would NOT choose a 30'06...since I regularly shoot WTails and when I can find'em bigger stuff with 180's & 200's out of a 300WMg that works like a PB&J sammitch, or 250 & 270 gr boolitz out of a 9.3x62 when I want to get a FO Sure DRT in deep brush without the Win Manglers owie on the shoulder.

No flys on a 30'06 for a ONE Gun hunter...just most of us have more tools to work with than a single screwdriver.
Ron

Right, if you need to shoot a .30 cal bullet that is heavier than 180 gr. use a better cartridge such as a .300 Win Mag or .300 RUM.

Where did you learn that a .308 is more accurate?

What you say is true, but the discussion is ".308 or .30-06." The '06 is just more versatile than the .308 Winchester because of its larger case. Some of us see little use for belted mags (and I am in that group), but that's not the subject here either.

That's just a fact of life. The sun rises in the east and the .308 has had better accuracy than the .30-06 since it was introduced almost 60 years ago.

Hell my 06 will shoot a 1 inch group at 300 yards. I can't shoot any better than that no matter what gun I am using.

I don't believe the .308 is inherently more accurate I believe it has more to do with the legth of the barrel versus the burn rate of the powder. The 06 uses slower burning powder therefore it needs a longer barrel to preform up to standards, I feel that during the burn time there is more room for shooter error to either move a lil off target or slightly flinch. The .308 on the other hand shines with shorter barrels and faster powders there for time of bullet time in the barrel is reduced leaving less room for shooter error.

I have both calibers and prefer the 308 but both are very close to each other.

In hunting rifles, any accuracy superiority of the .308 over the .30-06 would be difficult to conclusively demonstrate.

I believe the same can be said in a heavy target configuration as well, the main downside to the 06 is that in several stock designs proper cheek wield is interupted ( a big no no in target shooting) due to the longer bolt travel.

the 308 is indeed more accurate, when it came out it smoked the 06 to a 1000 yds and in between so much so the target size was cut in half because of the 308 and the 06 was left at home like a red headed step child

According to one of my sierra manuals the 06 has won more than once at camp Perry since the inception of the 308 win, leaving me to believe other wise. I believe it's probally still being used at this day and time as well but it and the 308 have been left playing catch up to the 6.5-284, 6XC and the big 7's.

http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/AccuracyFacts.asp

And yet all the info in the article is anywhere from 30-60 years old, back when barrels and actions were bedded all the way down the stock and highly acclaimed M70 had a tension screw on the barrel. Nothing in that article is relivant to today.

This debate has been raging for better than 50 years. It certainly isn't going to get settled here!

Amen! Shoot what you like. Both are do-all cartridges in North America, and do well for all but the largest game all over the world. If you want to shoot competition or hunt in the mountains, then I would probably lean .308, but for average Texas hunting situations both are effectively equal.

.308

150 Swift Sirocco 24" barrel

Feet Per Second Muzzle 2820 100 yards 2611

Foot Lbs of Energy Muzzle 2648 100 Yards 2269

.30-06

150 Swift Sirocco

Feet per Second Muzzle 2910 100 Yards 2696

Foot lbs of Energy Muzzle 2820 100 Yards 2421

The difference isn't that much. There has been a lot more technology into .308 because that used to be the standard 1000 yard match cartridge.

It's a short action and provides 30-06 like ballistics. It does trail the 30-06 by 100fps on most loads and maybe 100 ft lbs of energy....

But the animal will not know the difference.

When the '06 is loaded up to the same pressure as the .308, it'll outshine it more than that. The trick is not overdoing it on the '06. But then again, not everyone handloads, do they? But you're right. For real practical purposes there's not a whole lot of difference.

There's something sexy about a .300 Whelen, though.

as said for most hunting there would be no differents shoot the rifle and scope that fit you best in the one you just perfer

This is a 200 yard group.



And here is a 300 yard group. Just a stock Browning A-bolt with hand loads. And I didn't even experiment with powder amount. This is just after trying different seating depths.

In The Corps... Hands on.. I've had the chance to shoot both and we had much better performance from the 308..

Flip a coin. I can say that using one rifle (Sig SHR976) and swapping the barrels back and forth (.308 and -06) I personally can't tell the difference.