30-06 for long range elk moose

[Kurt505]

If a 180gr bullet is leaving the pipe at 2750fps, what would it be at 1000yds?

1200fps maybe?

What type of bullet performs correctly at 1200fps?

It's one thing to hit a target at that distance, the big issue with that caliber and that weight of bullet to get the BC you'll require, you'll need the powder behind it to allow the bullet to perform correctly.

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Norwest Alta

150-200 fps gonna make noticeable difference? In my real world not much.

..not under 300 yds it won't. The OP was talking 400 plus.

[shooter12]

If a 180gr bullet is leaving the pipe at 2750fps, what would it be at 1000yds?

1200fps maybe?

What type of bullet performs correctly at 1200fps?

It's one thing to hit a target at that distance, the big issue with that caliber and that weight of bullet to get the BC you'll require, you'll need the powder behind it to allow the bullet to perform correctly.

The only bullet that is up to the task is 178 eldx the way I see it , pushed at 2750-2800fps.

I would like to see tipped Sierras designed for long range hunting , but the have only for targets .

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by shooter12

If a 180gr bullet is leaving the pipe at 2750fps, what would it be at 1000yds?

1200fps maybe?

What type of bullet performs correctly at 1200fps?

It's one thing to hit a target at that distance, the big issue with that caliber and that weight of bullet to get the BC you'll require, you'll need the powder behind it to allow the bullet to perform correctly.

The only bullet that is up to the task is 178 eldx the way I see it , pushed at 2750-2800fps.

What's the minimum performance speed rating on that? 1800fps? That'll probably put you back to 600yds.

If you want to shoot large animals at that range with that caliber, I'd suggest sticking with the magnums.

[Bushrat]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

It can be done of course, I don't know of a lot of people capable of doing it that would try it, especially with a sporter weight '06- and I know more than a few people capable of doing it
Cat

Yup, the more experienced and accomplished they are at shooting 1000yds on a target range and at match competitions the less likely they are to attempt shooting game at distances they practice and compete at. They know all about what can go wrong when your guessing angles, wind, etc.

[Norwest Alta]

Originally Posted by Salavee

..not under 300 yds it won't. The OP was talking 400 plus.

I thought he was looking to reach 1000 yards. Seems to me that 200 fps difference is not much. I don't have the quickload or whatever many are using but I can't see it making much difference in ft/lbs of energy at 1000 yards or 500 for that matter.

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Norwest Alta

I thought he was looking to reach 1000 yards. Seems to me that 200 fps difference is not much. I don't have the quickload or whatever many are using but I can't see it making much difference in ft/lbs of energy at 1000 yards or 500 for that matter.

Run the numbers on a .30-06 with a 165 gr bullet against the .300 WSM with a 180. Either way, neither one is a good choice at 1000 yds as I see it.

[Norwest Alta]

Originally Posted by Salavee

Run the numbers on a .30-06 with a 165 gr bullet against the .300 WSM with a 180. Either way, neither one is a good choice at 1000 yds as I see it.

I was figuring a 180 out of both. Ya I wouldn't choose one of those either. Lol

[Don_Parsons]

Originally Posted by chuck

Who here will volunteer to stand in front of a 30-06 at 1000 yards? I know I certainly wouldn’t and given the choice I don’t think an elk would either.

I don't think anyone on the forum or their right mind would try this.

I mention on another thread about impact at distance of 400, 800, and 900 meters.

Here was the observation working the butt / back stop.

At 400 meters the 223, 6.5 Creedmoor, 260's and 308's along with the other calibers had good impact into the clay back stop at that distance,,, purhaps 1000 ft-lbs energy on the 223's and maybe 1500 on up to 1800 ft-lbs energy on the 30 cal and 6.5's.

The trajectories where sinking about 3 1/2" to 4" into the clay bank with a definite WACK !!!

At 800m's the impact was still there,,, not as of aggressive 400 meters, but it would "lets say" 20 or 30% less wack for this range.

I was humbled to get a chance to see what this 900M clay banks looked and sounded like.

The first thing one sees is the poof of clay where the bullet hit.
The 223's are launching those 50 and 55gr'ers at max from the muzzle,,, same for the 140gr 6.5 and the 180 to 200+ gr form the 308's.

This Wack is much less then the awesome 400 meter hit and the not to shabby 800 meter,,, but it is not the best when we see it in real time.

The post on this back then suggested for those that are "truely interested" if they "choose to,"
Come to a F Class Shoot to listen and see these impacts.

Yes, those trajectories are still clipping along, but they all slow down at some point.

Maybe we will put up 5 to 10 chunks of stretched tight thick canvas next year to see if we can catch one of those bullets.

Would it work,,, that I can't say since I haven't tried it yet.

The above is only a thought / observation for those that ponder trajectories at distance.

I sure appreciate seeing what I seen back then as I now have a small peace of the "learning curve" that only "I can take away from."

Don

[elkhunter11]

Originally Posted by Don_Parsons

I don't think anyone on the forum or their right mind would try this.

I mention on another thread about impact at distance of 400, 800, and 900 meters.

Here was the observation working the butt / back stop.

At 400 meters the 223, 6.5 Creedmoor, 260's and 308's along with the other calibers had good impact into the clay back stop at that distance,,, purhaps 1000 ft-lbs energy on the 223's and maybe 1500 on up to 1800 ft-lbs energy on the 30 cal and 6.5's.

The trajectories where sinking about 3 1/2" to 4" into the clay bank with a definite WACK !!!

At 800m's the impact was still there,,, not as of aggressive 400 meters, but it would "lets say" 20 or 30% less wack for this range.

I was humbled to get a chance to see what this 900M clay banks looked and sounded like.

The first thing one sees is the poof of clay where the bullet hit.
The 223's are launching those 50 and 55gr'ers at max from the muzzle,,, same for the 140gr 6.5 and the 180 to 200+ gr form the 308's.

This Wack is much less then the awesome 400 meter hit and the not to shabby 800 meter,,, but it is not the best when we see it in real time.

The post on this back then suggested for those that are "truely interested" if they "choose to,"
Come to a F Class Shoot to listen and see these impacts.

Yes, those trajectories are still clipping along, but they all slow down at some point.

Maybe we will put up 5 to 10 chunks of stretched tight thick canvas next year to see if we can catch one of those bullets.

Would it work,,, that I can't say since I haven't tried it yet.

The above is only a thought / observation for those that ponder trajectories at distance.

I sure appreciate seeing what I seen back then as I now have a small peace of the "learning curve" that only "I can take away from."

Don

How far away would you stretch out a piece of canvas, in an attempt to catch a .308" bullet out of a 30-06?

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by Salavee

Here's an option .. A man sized target at 1000 yds. - Shoot 10 rounds with a hunting rifle in field conditions, your choice of cartridge.

I give you $100.00 for every hit in the vitals .. you give me $20.00 for every miss.

Another member asked me to post this for him.

This 10" target was shot from 1000m using a Palma 308 and I believe a Remington heavy barrel police type 308 with a 20" heavy barrel.

155 and 175gr bullets

Hitting the target at that distance is definitely doable, but as the member who asked me to post this pic agrees, it has to be moving fast enough for the bullet to perform as designed.

I doubt a bullet coming out of a 30-06 would still have the energy to break a shoulder bone, let alone expand at that distance.

[bobtodrick]

In my work I've got to hang out with, and practice with a number of military and LE snipers.
None that I have spoken to would consider 1000yrds in a hunting scenario.
In their profession a wound that takes someone out of the picture is as good as a kill...and at 1000yds most of their hits will wound.

[petew]

A sad reality of the long range shooting at animals is the amount of lost animals that don't fall down on the hit. I can't count the number of dead critters I have found just inside the bush lines at the back side of fields.
Unfortunately it seems far to many poke and hope shots are never followed up on . If the animal doesn't drop the shooter doesn't go out there across that field clearcut or down that cutline to look for blood and hair.

This year I found a nice moose being eaten by ravens, bears and coyotes 10 feet from the edge of a lease in a clump of spruce .

We read about the F class guys being able to make these shots, but can they do it in the field , in field hunting conditions ? Snow, cold, uneven ground, etc?
Even the best rangefinders can loose accuracy big time with temp and humidity , let alove some grass/willow between you and the animal.
save the long range for paper .

[Don_Parsons]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

How far away would you stretch out a piece of canvas, in an attempt to catch a .308" bullet out of a 30-06?

The box to support the 5 to 10 peaces of canvas would be 24" square.

Each chunk of stretched canvas would be behind one another with a 2" to 3" space to slow the bullet down.

Hopefully the back sections of canvas will catch the bullet.

Maybe we could all guess how many chunks it would take to catch a X weigth bullet at X ft-per second at muzzle to POI at 900m's.

LOL.

My guess would be 7 layers of stretched canvas to apprehend a 308 180gr bullet launched at 2550 ft-per second over the 900 meters. LOL.

I hope it would punch threw all of them,,, but I won't know till I give it a go.

I have some brand new thick canvas at the farm, so I'll give it a go this weekend.

I'll make sure I wrap the staple edges of the canvas on the back side of the frames to give it extra strength.

The better the stretched canvas betters the chances of catching a bullet.

I'll try one at the 1 km mark.

I'll use my 178gr 30/06 Harvesting loads to see what we end up with.

I'm guessing the target will need to be tipped about 15 or 25 degrees to catch the bullet head on.

LOL. Always good times trying stuff out side the norm

Don

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Another member asked me to post this for him.

This 10" target was shot from 1000m using a Palma 308 and I believe a Remington heavy barrel police type 308 with a 20" heavy barrel.

155 and 175gr bullets

Hitting the target at that distance is definitely doable, but as the member who asked me to post this pic agrees, it has to be moving fast enough for the bullet to perform as designed.

I doubt a bullet coming out of a 30-06 would still have the energy to break a shoulder bone, let alone expand at that distance.

That is great shooting... Could it be done with a Tikka T-3 ?

[Nyksta]

Delete

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by Salavee

That is great shooting... Could it be done with a Tikka T-3 ?

No idea, but I do know that lots of guys use the Remington 700 police rifle for hunting.
Dick 284 and Ruger Single shot several deer last year with Dick's Palma rifle as well, not nearly at 1K mind you, and the rifle was scoped rested, not shot with sling and irons prone like the Palma rifle that shot the target in that pic.
The Police gun was shot from a rest with a Zeiss scope.
hard to tell now which ones are from the police and which ones were from the Savage, both rifles zeroes were shot at 600m first then the sight settings changed to 1K and both rifles were first round hits at 1K- the dead center one being the Palma rifle.
The bull is 10" or very close to 1MOA BTW, the white part of the target is 3" or close to 3MOA.
Cat

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

You are misinterpreting my post. I wouldn't shoot any cartridge at a big game animal at 1000 yards.



Forget the man sized target, male the target the vital zone of a big game animal.

It takes a bullet placed in the vitals with enough remaining velocity to expand , to make a clean kill on a big game animal, and the number of people that could get this done consistently, wouldn't be very large. I can only wonder how many people would place their pay check on accomplishing this 90% of the time with the first shot.

And you are misrepresenting mine.

[elkdump]

Anyone so hopelessly desperate to get a shot a big game animal , that they consider taking a shot a ridiculous distances ? ? Like 700, 800, 1000 yards ?? Needs a sucker punch to side of their head , much less the likely wounding of the animal , with a Hail Mary Full of Poop attitude,

The unsafe consideration for persons and property that can be present in that 3000 feet of no-mans-land that a shooter is responsible for ,

so to NOT endangering others !

[Homesteader]

Originally Posted by Salavee

That is great shooting... Could it be done with a Tikka T-3 ?

What can't be done with a Tikka T3, lol. This thread is entertaining if nothing else

Here's a random load that should be relatively good for retaining velocity, and cheating the wind a bit.

http://gundata.org/blog/post/30-06-ballistics-chart/


Here's a better one with a 180 Accubond, with 10 mph cross wind, 2500', at 0 deg C.

Range, Drop (inches), Velocity, Energy, Wind drift (inches), Time (milliseconds)

0 -1.4900, 2700, 2913, 0.0326 0
100 1.9968 2520 2538 0.7246 115
200 -0.0039 2346 2199 2.8870 239
300 -8.3327 2180 1899 6.6795 371
400 -23.9934 2020 1631 12.2859 514
500 -48.1910 1868 1394 19.9133 669
600 -82.3753 1724 1188 29.7904 836
700 -128.2893 1588 1008 42.1589 1017
800 -188.0166 1463 855 57.2628 1214
900 -264.0248 1348 726 75.3318 1428
1000 -359.1773 1247 621 96.5277 1660


Both start to look pretty sketchy out around the 700 yd mark. Obviously anything hit in the vitals would likely die.

What was the original question? Haha, oh yeah.......Answer) Yes the 30-06 can to it at least part of the way, but most shooters can't.

If an individual can put the bullet on the mark good on him, but I'd say most would need an awful lot of luck on their side. Out to 5, and even 600 most all of us can target shoot just fine. I can more often then not put 5 rounds in 6" at 600yds shooting prone, problem is I can't confidently say where that 6" group will be. As the last $100 from my wallet can attest, haha. Better luck next year for me.

[catnthehat]

If one takes a look at that target, there are almost half of this bullet strikes that would be very marginal at the least as far as the vitals go , depending on which way the critter was standing it could be disastrous to say the least as far as wounding and not recovering the animal .
These are not the types of shots on live animals we should be promoting IMO, but many people will still try it I am sure
Cat

[Don_Parsons]

Yes, shooting a 1 km mark with the F Class set-up on a well built hunting/ Varmint class rig.

Heavy barrel, Jewel trigger, Remple bypod, ammo and optics along with a firm bag.

Range from 400 on out to the mark is normally how I get those bullets onto the mark.

It's not a walk in the park "at least for me since I need to buckle down doing the k. It comes easy for some folks that have years of shooting under their belts.

Wind is what I'm up against, the mine needs to be in the game.
I have yet in my return to firearms have ever steped onto the range, and hit anything past 600m's.

Very rare that I'm onto the big gong at that range on the first few shots,,, 1 km is 2 to 3 X's more challenging.

Shooting this range at still targets with flags blowing in the wind is tuff,,, doing it in field is even harder.

No claim to fame as l'm the most UN-likely candidate to even hit a 24"x24" box made of canvas. LOL.

My odds of hitting the frame is higher than actually hitting the canvas.

Won't know till this weekend.

Don

[agentsmith]

Also consider this: unless you get an instantly lethal hit and the animal drops dead on the spot, how confident are you that you can walk even 500 yards and locate the exact spot it was standing on to find the blood trail, let alone 1000 yards?

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by agentsmith

Also consider this: unless you get an instantly lethal hit and the animal drops dead on the spot, how confident are you that you can walk even 500 yards and locate the exact spot it was standing on to find the blood trail, let alone 1000 yards?

Another factor that many do not consider is the time of flight for a bullet to get that far out.
For a 308 at 1,000 meters it would be close to 1.5 seconds I think, I IIRC my 6.5WSM with a 140 and the big 338 lapua with a 250 grain bullet both had a TOF about 1.3 seconds at 1K.
An animal can decide to make one or two steps in that time , result is another wounded critter.
Cat

[Beeman3]

First off I think most on here are recommending to light of a bullet. I ran some numbers for my custom 300 Win Mag:
Distance is 1000 yds
Pressure-30.21
Temp- 32F
Humidity-40%
Wind- 10 mph
Wind angle 90 degrees
Spin drift on
Elevation needed: 248.7 inches or 23.8 MOA
Drift: 51.9 inches or 5.0 MOA
Impact velocity: 1716.6 fps
Energy: 1406.7 ft-lbs
TOF: 1.326 second
This rifle shoots 215 bergers right at 3000 fps. A good long range combo. But as mentioned, 1000 yds is a long way. It’s doable under the right conditions. So as you can see you won’t get much better numbers than this combo unless you get into the 338’s.

[JD848]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

if one takes a look at that target, there are almost half of this bullet strikes that would be very marginal at the least as far as the vitals go , depending on which way the critter was standing it could be disastrous to say the least as far as wounding and not recovering the animal .
These are not the types of shots on live animals we should be promoting imo, but many people will still try it i am sure
Cat

x100

[JD848]

Originally Posted by chuck

People need to shoot stuff instead of theorizing.

People like yourself that does plenty of shooting,but the guy how has the same box of shells from the year before,no way.It doesn't take much brains to shoot something,but it takes brains to shoot it right,your comment is the type I would expect from you.Your theory is a very bad example ,including a texas heart shot at that range.

[4570]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Another factor that many do not consider is the time of flight for a bullet to get that far out.
For a 308 at 1,000 meters it would be close to 1.5 seconds I think, I IIRC my 6.5WSM with a 140 and the big 338 lapua with a 250 grain bullet both had a TOF about 1.3 seconds at 1K.
An animal can decide to make one or two steps in that time , result is another wounded critter.
Cat

I.66 sec listed in the chart above, close estimation Cat...
Add on time from the brain to trigger finger then lock time...

2 sec for most guys...

[Tarmac]

Originally Posted by shooter12

Hello guys!
Was wondering if anyone had experience using 30-06 to bring down big animals like elk and moose at extended ranges.
By extended I mean 600-1000 yards .
What bullets did you use ?
What was your scope ?
I am familiar with 300 mags performance well enough .

But what about 30-06?
Is it up to the task or I should throw it out of my head and go back to 300 mags?

Thanks in advance.
S12

I am personally not a proponent of attempting to take out an animal at 1000 yards as I want my first shot to kill instantly. I've seen too many variables and many hunters end up wounding and not killing their animal.
However, if you are going to reach out that far, you want a lot of energy behind that bullet. I recommend a 300 Win Mag in 220 grain. This way you still have instant knock down power and zero guilt!

[Norwest Alta]

I don't know where one would have to hunt that would make a 1000 yard shot the norm. Most of the places I've seen elk shot you're lucky if you've got 500 yards 600 at max of visibility. Not saying it doesn't happen or it won't happen but I think it rarely happens. So not much sense getting ones panties in a knot because in all likely hood it won't happen and the op is just having a pipe dream.