30 06 – Page 2 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

A .30 06 Mk V Weatherby…

After a couple of months of not being able to shoot because the creek was too high, good buddy Greg and I were finally able to get out to the range this weekend. It was sorely-needed range time, and I brought along two rifles. One was the .375 H&H Safari Grade Remington you read about a few blogs down; the other was a very nice Weatherby Mk V you haven’t heard about yet. It’s the one you see in the photo above.

This particular rifle is a bit unusual. It’s a Mk V Weatherby (Weatherby’s top of the line bolt action rifle), but it’s not chambered in a Weatherby magnum cartridge. This is one of the very few rifles Weatherby has offered over the years in a standard chambering, and in this instance, it’s the mighty .30 06 Springfield. You’ve read about the .30 06 on these pages in earlier Tales of the Gun blogs. It’s one of the all-time great cartridges and it’s my personal all-time favorite.

So, back to the Weatherby. There were four things that made this rifle particularly attractive to me when I first spotted it on the rack in a local Turner’s gun store: The stock was finished in their satin oil finish (not the typical Weatherby high gloss urethane finish), the rifle had an original 3×9 Weatherby scope, the .30 06 chambering, and the price. It checked all the boxes for me. Those early Weatherby scopes are collectible in their own right. I like an oil finished stock. And the price…wow.

The Weatherby was something I knew I had to have the instant I saw it, and (get this) it was priced at only $750. This is a rig that today, new, would sell for somewhere around $2500.

The shop had this Weatherby on consignment at $750. It would have been a steal at that price; I got it for $650.

Pretty walnut on both sides. Weatherby builds a fine rifle.

Back in 2008, when the Great Recession was going full tilt and still gaining steam, there were fabulous firearms deals to be had if you knew what you wanted and you weren’t addicted to black plastic guns. Nope, none of that black plastic silliness here. For me, it’s all about elegant walnut and blue steel. I carried a black plastic rifle for a living a few decades ago. Been there, done that, don’t need any more of it.

When I spotted the Weatherby I asked the store manager about it. She told me it was a consignment gun, and when I asked if there was any room in the price (it’s a habit; I would have paid what they were asking), she asked me to make an offer. So I did. $650 had a nice ring to it, I thought.

“Let me call the owner,” the manager said. She disappeared and returned a few minutes later. “$650 is good.” Wow. I couldn’t believe I scored like this. I felt a bit guilty and asked her if I was taking advantage of the guy who had put it on consignment, and she told me not to worry. He needed the money, I needed the rifle, and the price was good for both of us.

The Weatherby had a few minor dings in the stock and the finish was a bit worn in a few places, but the metal was perfect. Because it was an oil finished stock, it was a simple matter to steel wool it down and add a few coats of TruOil, and the Weatherby was a brand new rifle again.

TruOil and fine walnut…a marriage made in Heaven. TruOil really brings out the grain. You can leave it glossy, or knock it down to a luxurious subdued satin finish with 0000 steel wool (which is what I did on this rifle).

I’ve shot this rifle quite a bit over the last 10 years and I knew it shot well, but I hadn’t recorded which load shot best. I had several loads I’ve developed for other .30 06 rifles over the last few decades (like I said above, it’s my favorite), and I grabbed three that have worked well in other rifles. The good news is the Weatherby isn’t fussy. It shot all three well. The bad news is…well, there isn’t any bad news. It’s all good.

A few favorite 30 06 loads developed for other rifles. They all worked well in the Weatherby, too, as you can see below.

The Weatherby did well with all three loads. All were fired at 100 yards. If you’re going to develop loads for your rifle, start lower than these and work up. These loads worked well in my rifle; you need to roll your own to learn what works well in your rifle.

The first load is one with a lighter bullet that has worked well on Texas jackrabbits in a single-shot Ruger No. 1. I found that load back in the 1970s when I spent entirely too much time chasing rabbits in the desert east of El Paso. It’s the 130 grain jacketed soft point Hornady with a max load (52.0 grains) of IMR 4320 powder. Yeah, the first two groups were larger than I would have liked, but don’t forget that I had not been on the rifle range for a couple of months. Folks think that shooting off a rest eliminates the human element, but it does not. I was getting my sea legs back with those first two groups. It’s the third group that tells the story here, and that one was a tiny 0.680 inches. If I worked on this load a bit and shot a bit more, this is a sub-minute-of-angle rifle.

The next load is the hog load I used in a Winchester Model 70 on our Arizona boar hunt last year. That one uses a 150 grain Hornady jacketed soft point with 48.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder. It shot well in the Model 70 and it shoots well in the Weatherby, too. The Weatherby averaged 1.401 inches at 100 yards with this load. The point of impact was about 3 inches lower than the 130 grain load described above.

The third and final load I tried this weekend was with a heavier 180 grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet. I had originally developed this as the accuracy load for an older Browning B-78 single shot rifle (I’ll have to do a blog on that one of these days; it, too, has stunning wood). This is a near max load (48.0 grains of IMR 4064 propellant) and with those heavier 180 grain bullets, recoil was attention-getting. But it was still tolerable, and the average group size hung right in there with the 150 gr load. It averaged 1.456 3-shot groups at 100 yards. Like they say, that’s close enough for government work. Another cool thing…the 180 grain load point of impact was the same height above point of aim as the 130 grain load, but the group centers were about three inches to the left of center.

There’s one last thing I wanted to share with you before signing off today. Good buddy Greg is an accuracy chaser like me. He was out there with his rifles this weekend trying a few of his loads. When I measure group size, I always use a caliper. Greg has an app on his iPhone (it’s called SubMOA and it’s free) that allows him to simply take a photo of the target and it computes group size and a bunch of other good data. I always wondered if the results from Greg’s iPhone app were as good as the real thing, so I asked him to take photos of two of my targets and tell me what the iPhone app felt the group sizes were. He did.

I measured this group size with a caliper and found it to be 0.680 inches; the SubMOA iPhone app clocked it at 0.640 inches. That’s a 0.04 inch difference, or 5.8%. That’s pretty close, I think.

I measured this group size to be 1.245 inches; SubMOA found it to be 1.200 inches. That’s a 0.045 inch difference, or 3.6%. In both cases, the SubMOA program found the group size to be smaller than my measurements.

So there you have it. If you’d like to read more of our Tales of the Gun Stories, you will find them here.

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The Rifleman’s rifle…

This is a cool story that goes like this…several years ago I decided I wanted to hunt pigs. I had last chased hogs in the woods about 30 years earlier, but I never got one. That was a character flaw I wanted to correct. It was just something I needed to do, but there were consulting gigs overseas, lots of travel, a few epic motorcycle rides, and, well, you know how it goes. Pig hunting stayed tucked away in my mind but I hadn’t acted on it. Then another thing happened: I stopped in a gunshop in northern California and saw a rifle I just had to have. It’s the one at the top of this blog. Specifically, a Supergrade Model 70 Winchester in God’s caliber, the mighty .30 06.

Okay, back to the pig thing. Back in the 1910s folks imported Russian boar into California so rich guys could hunt them without having to spring for a boat ticket to Russia. I guess that worked out okay, but what happened next surprised everybody. The Russian boars loved it over here and I guess they felt right at home. They bred like rabbits. Then, being pigs, they crossbred with domestic hogs. The bottom line? Today, the US has a runaway wild pig problem. If you think you don’t have wild pigs, you either just don’t know it (the more likely case), or you don’t have them in your neighborhood yet (the less likely case, but if you don’t have them yet, you will). Wild pigs are everywhere and they’re destructive. Farmers know they’ll tear up an acre every night looking for food. That’s a problem that guys like me and my good friend Paul are only too happy to help solve.

Here piggy, piggy, piggy... — Here piggy, piggy, piggy…

So who’s Paul? Well, I’ve known Paul all my life. We were next-door neighbors back in rural New Jersey in the days when you could set up a range and shoot in your back yard. And we did. We fooled around with guns, we hunted, we fished, we rode bikes…we did the kinds of things kids did 60 or 70 years ago, before they invented ADHD drugs, safe spaces, cell phones, computers, social media, and all the stuff kids today get to struggle with. Rural New Jersey in the 1950s was a good time and a good place to grow up.

There’s more to the story: Our fathers were outdoorsmen, so Paul and I were, too. Both of our fathers were competitive shooters and hunters. Paul’s Dad had a Model 70 in .270 Winchester and my Dad had a Model 70 in .243. In their day, those two cartridges were the hottest and best things going. There have been newer cartridges and newer rifles since, but both the .270 and the .243 are still dynamite chamberings. And the Model 70 Winchester was (and I still think still is) the ultimate rifle. It’s been called the Rifleman’s Rifle. It’s that good. And it’s what our fathers shot.

So when I saw that new maple Model 70, I bought it. Just like that. I knew I would hunt pigs with it. It’s one of the finest rifles I’ve ever handled.

I suggested a pig hunt to Paul, and hey, who could turn down an offer like that? I took the Model 70 you see above, and Paul had his magnificent pre-’64 Model 70 in .270 Winchester. Paul’s Model 70 has a real pedigree: It was handed down to Paul by his father, and this particular Model 70 is rifle royalty. It doesn’t get any better than Paul’s pre-’64 Model 70, and the .270 Winchester cartridge is the quintessential chambering for it. Google Jack O’Connor, the guy who put the Model 70 and the .270 Winchester cartridge on the map, and you’ll see what I mean. O’Connor wrote a book (The Rifle), in which he explains his reasons for the .270’s superiority. I have O’Connor’s book and it’s a great read. That said, I just like the .30 06, but they’re both great cartridges.

Paul’s particular Model 70 (this very rifle, the one Paul used on our hunt) was my first exposure to high-powered, long-distance marksmanship a cool 60 years ago. Paul’s Dad used to fire that rifle across the fields behind our homes in the 1950s. We lived in a rural part of the state, and you could do that in those days. Before Paul’s Dad would send rounds downrange, though, little Pauly would always knock on our door to tell us all hell was about to break loose. That was mighty neighborly, as an unexpected bark from a .270 Winchester would have scared the bejesus out of us (I’m not sure what bejesus is, but I like the word so I’m using it here).

So, back to the more recent past. In preparation for our pig hunt, I worked up a load for my Model 70 and I found the Holy Grail..a load that was both hard-hitting and accurate. Two of them, actually. Here’s how it worked out…

Model 70 magic... — 100-yard Model 70 magic…

The deal on reloading and these cartridge development efforts is that you experiment with different powders, primers, bullets, and propellant charge weights to find an individual rifle’s sweet spot, and like I said, I found two. Over the course of two days, I fired all of the above loads (at 100 yards), and the bottom one in yellow is the one I used for our hunt. That load uses a 150-grain Winchester jacketed soft point bullet with 48.0 grains of IMR 4320 propellant. I bought a bunch of the 150 grain jacketed Winchester bullets about 10 years ago when it looked liked reloading components might dry up altogether (shooting-gear-related shortages are cyclical, always coinciding with whoever has just moved into public housing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). After I settled on my preferred load, I’ve shot even tighter groups with it. I once shot a 0.244-inch 3-shot group with my Model 70 with the same load. For the targets we would be shooting (hogs, which get big), that’s good enough for government work.

While I was doing all of the above, Paul had a similar load development effort underway with his .270 Winchester. I found the secret sauce for my Model 70, and Paul found the right recipe for his. We were ready.

My Model 70 is a current production rifle and it’s awesome. The Supergrade Model 70s are glass-bedded and free-floated from the factory, the bluing is deeply polished, and the fiddleback maple figure on mine is exhibition grade. It’s not the kind of a rifle you would ordinarily take on a hunt and some folks have told me it’s too pretty to shoot, but I didn’t buy it just to look at the thing. It’s a shooter and it’s very, very accurate. I actually think the quality of the modern Model 70 rifles is better than the pre-’64 rifles (which are generally regarded as Winchester’s best ever), but don’t tell that to Paul.

Our happy hunting grounds at dusk, east of Kingman, Arizona.

So how did we do? Well, it was one of the best weekends ever. We rolled out to a hilly desert area east of Kingman, Arizona (we were well out in the boonies) and our hunt was hugely successful. Paul got a monster hog the first night out, and I nailed one a bit smaller the next morning. I have great photos of Paul and me posing with our pigs, but if I posted them here it would generate the inevitable comments from folks whose BVDs contract into tight knots over such things. You know, the folks who hate guns and hunting…people who assume their hamburgers come from suicidal cows or whatever. So you’ll have to use your imagination. But they are great photos.

Paul and I both ate pork for a year after that. Roast pork. Barbequed pork. Pork chili. Pork meatballs (pretty good, actually). Pork sandwiches. Pork breakfast sausage (also very good). A special pork/wild mushroom/barley casserole (my favorite). But no bacon. Bacon comes from belly fat and wild hogs are lean, so there is no belly fat. Yep, we had over a hundred pounds of dressed-out pork after our hunt. I came home with a whole cooler full, and I had the little pig. When we figured the cost of the rifles, the ammo, our travel, and the hunt, that pork worked out to about $34 per pound. And it was worth every cent. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

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The Rimfire Series: A tale of two Springfields…

Good buddy Greg admiring my M1922 Springfield on the range this past weekend. This rifle is about as old as Greg is, but it looks like it left the factory last week. It’s super collectible.

So, what’s this all about? A tale of two Springfields? Well, the topic is Springfield rifles, and specifically, the 1903 Springfield and its variants. I own two, and I think they are two of the finest firearms ever made. One is a 1903A1 with a scant stock (more on that in a bit). It’s a recent acquisition of a century-old rifle, and mine is essentially in as-new condition. It was gunsmithed from selected components so it’s not an original rifle, but I don’t care. I bought it to shoot it, and that’s what I’m doing. My other Springfield is an M1922, a special number chambered in .22 Long Rifle. It’s a magnificent rifle, it’s one I inherited from my father, and it is an amazing firearm. It’s in pristine condition, and boy oh boy, can it shoot!

The challenge here is to keep this blog short. There’s just so much to tell when the topic is the 1903 Springfield rifle and its variants. I’ll do my best to keep it manageable.

The M1903A1 Springfield, chambered in the mighty .30 06 cartridge.

The M1922 Springfield, which shoots the much smaller .22 Long Rifle cartridge.

The Reader’s Digest version of the story goes like this…although we won the Spanish American War (and its Battle of San Juan Hill probably put Teddy Roosevelt in the White House), we very nearly got our butts kicked by the Spaniards. We were armed with antiquated, big-bore, rainbow-trajectory, single-shot rifles. The Spaniards had modern 7mm Mauser bolt action rifles, which were flatter shooting, faster (both in terms of reloading time and bullet velocity), and far more accurate. It was a dicey victory for us, and shortly after, the US Army incorporated the 1898 Krag rifle. We had to keep up with the Spanish Joneses.

While the Krag was a bolt-action rifle, it was not without problems, and we quickly developed a new rifle based on a modernized Mauser action initially chambered in a round called the .30 03. It fired a .308-inch diameter bullet (which is where the .30 part of the .30 03 name came from) and it was adopted in 1903 (which is where the 03 came from). We then improved the cartridge a bit in 1906 and it became the .30 06, or simply, the ’06. The ’06 is one of the world’s premier hunting cartridges, and many folks think is the best all-around cartridge on the planet. I’m one of them, but I digress. One more photo, and then back to the story.

A modern Winchester Model 70, chambered in the 102-year-old .30 06 cartridge. That wild boar, late of Arizona, fed us for a year!

Like I said, the original Springfield rifle was cambered for the .30 03 and the rifle was designed as the Model 1903. The .30 03 only lasted a short time and all of the 1903 rifles chambered for it were recut for the improved .30 06, but the rifle’s name remained the Model 1903. These early ones were cool, with straight grip stocks and elegant (but complex) rear sights. Then the rifle got a pistol grip stock, which I think looked cooler, and they became the 1903A1 rifles. Then they were made with stocks that were supposed to be straight grip stocks, but the Army wanted the pistol grip and the arsenal’s walnut blanks did not have enough meat to allow for a full pistol grip. The solution was to get as close as possible to a pistol grip from a straight grip walnut blank, which resulted in a shallow pistol grip; these became the “scant” stocks (presumably so named because the wood was too scant to allow a full pistol grip).

The 1903A1 “scant” stock. Note the relaxed pistol grip aft of the trigger, and on this particular rifle, the crisp Springfield Armory cartouche stamped into the walnut.

Check out the 1903’s early, complex, adjustable rear sight. There’s was a lot of machine time and money there. The Army needed something less expensive.

Load development for the 1903A1. These were cast bullets loaded with IMR 3031 powder. This particular rifle prefers jacked bullets with IMR4320 powder.

Later, the Army realized that the 1903’s fancy rear sight and other features were overly-expensive for a standard-issue battle rifle, so the ’03 was “value engineered” to make it less costly to manufacture. These became the Model 1903A3 rifles, often referred to simply as the ‘03A3.

Somewhere while all this was going on, the Army introduced versions of this rifle chambered in .22 Long Rifle. They were intended to be trainers, but they proved to be exceptionally accurate and the Army’s shooting teams (and others) competed with them.

The .22 Long Rifle cartridge (fired in the M1922 rifle), and the .30 06 Springfield cartridge (fired in the Model 1903).

The M1922s are phenomenal rifles, they are rare, and they are expensive in those rare instances they come on the market. My Dad bought one released through the Civilian Marksmanship Program 60 years ago for $25. Today, when one changes hands, you can bet the price is somewhere around $3,000. They’re that rare, and they’re that good.

The starboard side of the M1922. It is an elegant rifle.

Lyman competition aperture sights on the M1922.

The M1922’s Lyman aperture front sight. This rifle has “peep-to-peep” sights; both the rear and the front sights have holes to allow “peeping” at the target. They work very, very well.

You might be wondering: How do these rifles shoot?

Very well, thank you.

The M1922’s results at 50 yards. On the first bullseye on the left, the lone shot out of the black (at the 12:30 position) was the first shot of the day, fired from a cold and wet barrel.

Targets shot with the Model 1903A1. The one on the left was terrible; I shot it with cast bullets at velocities too high for the bullet (the lead smeared in the barrel and the bullets wouldn’t group). The remaining four were shot with one of my favorite .30 06 loads (a 130 grain Hornady jacketed soft point bullet and 52.0 grains of IMR 4320 powder).

So, what happened to the 1903 as a military rifle? It served in World War I (although we couldn’t make them fast enough, so another rifle, the Model 1917, accounted for more than half the US battle rifles during the Great War). By the 1930s, we were already hard at work developing the Garand (that rifle fired the same .30 06 cartridge, and it was a semi-auto). The Garand became the US Army’s standard rifle in World War II. Interestingly, the US Marines stuck with the 1903 going into World War II, but they, too, soon switched to the Garand. The 1903 evolved into a specialty item. It was still recognized as phenomenally accurate and it became our sniper rifle in World War II (with a telescopic sight, it became the 1903A4).

Like I said, all of the above is the Reader’s Digest version of the story behind the Model 1903 rifle. The definitive reference on the 1903-series Springfield rifles is Joe Poyer’s The Model 1903 Springfield Rifle and Its Variations, and if you have a deeper interest in these historic and fine rifles, it is a book you should own. You can find it on Amazon.