I went to the club today with three different factory loads partially to check my deer hunting zero with a previously chosen load and partly to find out if I could use this rifle on a baited black bear hunt out to 75 yards or so without having to change the scope setting. The answer to both questions was POSITIVE.
See the photo of my hastily put together target below. Starting at the left of the target, the first orange sticker was Federal's 150 grain power Shok factory load at 75 yards. The middle target is the load for which the gun has been sighted in for (Winchester's 150 grain Power Point) and the one on the right is Remington's round nose soft point Core Lokt 180 grain load.
The gun is certainly good to go as is out to 200 yards (previously tested last summer with same scope setting) with the Winchester 150 grain Power Points. The surprise came at 75 yards with the 180 grain round nose Core Lokt which would make a DANDY black bear over bait load. Actually most baited bear sites are closer to the tree stand or ground blind than 75 yards. The farthest black bear hunt bait site I have been at was with Carey Outfitters in Maine about 3 years ago and that was exactly 50 yards.
Take a look:
RANGE CONDITIONS 6/11/2013: Raining moderately hard and steady and light gusting winds
FROM left to right, the caliber and bullet weight, velocity, bullet ballistic coefficient, 100 yards, 200 yards and Midrange trajectory (maximum yardage where the point of impact does NOT rise more than or hit lower than 3 inches from line of sight. From the charts, you can see that there isn't a nickel's worth of difference out to 269 yards (which is farther than MOST of us shoot) and has NO bearing at all on a "Baited black bear hunt" which is the topic here.
| .308 Win. (180 Sp 2610) | .483 | +2.8" | +1.2" | 3"@125 259 |
| .30-06 (180 Sp at 2700) | .483 | +2.7" | +1.5" | 3"@125 | 269 |
I have NO particular problem with the 30:06 per se, except ONE. My own personal experience has been that having owned (3) different 30:06 rifles over the years and also (3) different .308 rifles over the years, the .308 Win IN MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.......Your's may vary......is more accurate with various bullet weights than the 30:06.
NO black bear that ever lived (IF possible) would send you an email, indicating that they could tell the difference between a well placed bullet with a .308 Win and a 30:06. From 75 yards in, back to your tree stand or ground blind, I would pick the most accurate of either rifle and for my experience it has always been the .308 Win.
In the target below the left side (2) shots at 75 yards of Federal 150 grain Power Shok's went into 1/2 inch center to center. The middle target with the Winchester 150 grain PP went into 1/4 inch center to center and the Remington 180 grain Core Lokt round nose loads (far right target) went into 13/16 center to center.
Having owned (3) previous rifles in BOTH 30:06 and .308, my experience indicates it is RARE to find a rifle that will handle any three different factory loads this well. IF I wanted to switch to the Federal Power Shok load for hunting, a simple 3 clicks right and perhaps 6 clicks down would put me right where I need to be. I have to admit that the accu-trigger set up on the Savage no doubt adds to this rifle's accuracy.
Dan
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