Savage 30:06 With 150 Grain and 165 Grain Loads

I went to the club today to do a little shooting with various factory loads in the Savage 30:06. The gun wears a Muller Red Dot 3X9X40 scope with 1/8 minute windage and elevation settings. The red dot would be invaluable for hunting bear over bait or any dark woods situation. The red dot works off a battery with 11 rheostat settings and gives you a perfect aiming point against a black bear in low light. Most baited bear situations or 50 yards and under and the gun will put a number of different loads into one ragged hole at 50 yards.

I fired around 35 rounds total today in about 1 hour while letting the barrel cool between 2 or 3 shot groups and swabbing the bore with Hoppes #9 solvent 4 or 5 times during the entire process. I tried a couple different 180 grain loads which ran just over 2 inches at 100 yards.

Best loads used today were the Federal 165 grain Power Shoks, the Hornady 150 grain Interbond load and runner up was the Remington 150 grain PSP Corelokt.

Any of these loads would be more than adequate for whitetails and the 165 grain Power Shoks would be great for bear hunting over bait.

All three loads shot 1.5 inches center to center at 100 yards for 3 shot groups and the Hornady 150 Grain Interbond load shot right at one inch for 3 shots. Groups were on the order of 2 inches high at 100 yards.

At 50 yards both the 165 grain Power Shoks and the 150 grain Interbonds cut one ragged hole with the final 2 shot groups.

The rifle is certainly accurate enough and the Mueller red dot scope with 1/8 min clicks makes precise adjustments easy with 8 clicks to the inch at 100 yards. The gun simply is not the equal of my Ruger mdl 77 Mark II .270 Win or my Savage Weather Warrior in .308 Win  from an ergonomics standpoint. Off the sand bags or over a makeshift rest, it really doesn't matter. When and if you have to take an off hand shot or bring the gun into play quickly, the gun just doesn't handle as well FOR ME. My arms are a little shorter than a lot of guys and I have had to modify other rifles and my Ithaca 12 GA Deerslayer II Storm model by having the length of pull shortened slightly. I wanted to leave the Savage 30:06 as it is since my son Jeremy also uses it and it fits him well as it is.The Savage .308 is an extension of my hand and if making a snap shot or a running shot, I would much prefer that rifle to my 30:06. I have always believed that the .308 Win is 90% of what the 30:06 is anyway...................maybe 95% depending on the individual load.

ALL of that being said,  most guys find the length of pull on the Savage 30:06 fits them very well.

In any event, it was a nice day here in central NY for a change and I had the club to myself so I enjoyed the outing.

Dan