30-06 VS .308 Better??

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It all boils down to opinion. I like the .30-06, but I've no experience with .308, so I couldn't say.
 
not a heckuva lot of difference. one goes a little faster than the other or can spit a heavier bullet at the same speed, and one has a longer action than the other. both are easy to reload and have good factory ammo available too. both are chambered in the same lines of hunting rifles and even some semi-autos.

i think it more boils down to what do you want to do with it and do you want a long action or short action?

i surely wouldn't turn up my nose at either, though i did just buy a .308 last weekend.

Bobby
 
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I've ran a lot of 30-06 through rifles in my time and have nothing but good to say about the cartridge and its performance.

For the most part I guess one would be served well with either, but I still give the 06 as a winner by a nose.
 
For about 90% of applications, you can't tell a real difference. I like .308 myself though, almost purely for sentimental ideals. For a modern bottleneck, it just strikes me as such a modest, well-proportioned, and well-behaved round. I know it's silly, but I find it very pleasing to the eye.
 
strikes me as such a modest, well-proportioned, and well-behaved round. I know it's silly, but I find it very pleasing to the eye
Click to expand...

Same here...

To answer the OP's question...the 30-06 can shoot heavier bullets faster than the 308...on game performance is identical.

Short, handy rifles are the 308's advantages...a 308 with a 20" barrel is still a 308, a 30-06 with a 20" barrel is also a 308 (ballistics), with much more flash and bang.
 
I have a 30-06, but the .308 is more versatile. The 30-06 is mostly found in boring, excessively accurate bolt-action rifles like I have. If it was a .308, I could use the same ammo to feed anything from an old Savage 99 lever action, to an AR-10, both of which I would like to have some day.
 
It really comes down to preference, but if you plan on doing a lot of shooting, you can find .308 considerably cheaper than '06. Plus, there are SO many more rifles of all shapes, sizes, and actions in .308. If you want a semi-auto, you're basically limited to a Garand, or a few modern hunting/sporting rifles, save for a few belt-fed machine guns and the BAR with the '06, while the .308 has everything from ARs, to the M1A/M14, FN FAL, CETME, Saiga .308 and other AK platform variants, FNAR, Kel-Tec RFB, and the list goes on and on.

If you handload, the .30-06 has more case capacity, which expands the versatility beyond that of the .308, but for all practical purposes, there isn't THAT much of a difference out to several hundred yards.

This is coming from someone with no bias, who has never owned a gun in either caliber, but has had plenty of experience with both calibers. I love the '06 as much as the next guy, but the .308 can do most of what the '06 can do up to a certain point, and once you pass that threshold, you're already pushing the ability of the '06 near its limits, and if you reach that point on a regular basis, you should probably be using a more powerful round anyway.

Hope this helps!
 
The 06 will get you 100 yards further than a 308 will. It will also push heavier bullets out there than a 308 reliably.

That said, if a 308 won't get the job done, a 30-06 isn't much better, so you need a 300 WM or 300 RUM.

In terms of most "real world" shooting, a 308 is just fine especially under 600 yards.
 
Which you think is better??
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Better for WHAT?

As a general purpose machinegun cartridge? .308.

As a 1,000 yard match rifle cartridge with heavy bullets? .30-06. It throws a 200gr. Sierra Matchking faster with lower chamber pressures. Use the .30-06 Improved and you do even better.
 
If you handload, the .30-06 has more case capacity, which expands the versatility beyond that of the .308, but for all practical purposes, there isn't THAT much of a difference out to several hundred yards.
Click to expand...
But there's a LOT of difference at 600 and 1,000 yards, and I NEVER shoot rifle closer than 600 yards.
 
There's a ton of equivocation here, but the hands-down fact is that head-to-head, the .30-06 as pure cartridge, independent of platform, is capable of more peformance than a .308. It can also be, in bolt actions, down-loaded by the hand loader with light bullets and charges and used for small game. .308 autoloaders aren't easily capable of this.

I'll take a .30-06 any day unless someone starts putting limits on it like "only in an autoloader" or "only with factory ammo." But the OP didn't state those conditions.
 
I would take a 30-06 case cut it down to a 308 length, then neck the shorter case to .308. Then find some 308 bullets instead of 30-06 bullets. and there you have it. 7.62 bullets might work also.:cool:


The difference between the two rounds is 100 fps.
 
BOTH are good, BOTH work, I have them and reload them. .308 is just my favorate, no real reason why. Try doing a search there are tons of threads on this.
 
30-06 VS .308 Better

Not much difference for most practical purposes. The short action on the 308 is a good feature. The 30-06 is better with the heavier bullets.

Outside of those factors, take your pick.
 
This question was all hashed out 50 years ago ! Are you new shooters ?
 
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