So shaman, you wait 30 years to buy a rifle. Why is it a 30-06?

Oh, that’s an easy one.  First off, think back to 1984 and imagine a young, impressionable 20-something.  I had fallen in with a particularly hard-core cell of the vast right-wing conspiracy.  I was the kid of the group by about 20 years. There were a bunch of other guys, but among the principles were:

Big Bob: A retired gun editor, good friends with Bill Ruger, Elmer Keith and the likes.

Jerry: A ex-marine armorer with his own gun store.

John: A veteran of The Bulge

Around them various lesser stars. In 1983 I went hunting with Jerry for the first time, and bought a used Remington 742 in ’06 from him for that purpose. At the time, I didn’t know squat about rifles or bullets or much of anything.  All I knew was that I did not want to get eaten by a boar. Jerry helped me to load a bunch of shoulder-busting rounds, and when boar showed up, I managed to plug one and I found the results satisfyingly devastating.  Within a year, I was a Life Member of the NRA and seriously digesting every piece of information I could about deer, deer hunting and deer rifles. Soon my head was spinning.

“So,” I said one night, “Is this rifle going to be right for deer?”

Jerry started in on the ballistics of the 30-06 in comparison to the 270 Winchester and the 308 Winchester.  John infused a story of the terminal ballistics on a company of SS Troops they caught infiltrating their lines one night. The story was completely tangential and left John, with a 20-mile stare and shaking with PTSD-induced tremors. A lot of John’s stories ended that way. He excused himself and went to the can to pop a Valium.

Bob waited until the rest of the hoo-haw had damped out, and said “Let it be said that the 30-06, although a tad overpowering on the average whitetail deer, is a reasonable choice for any game on the North American continent, save perhaps the largest bears.”

“. . . and for that, ” added Jerry, “A 35 Whelen will probably do you.”

“Well,” I replied. “You mentioned a 270 Winchester.”

“- And you have a 30-06.” replied Bob. “Tell me what a 270 Winchester will buy you over a 30-06.”

I regurgitated some stuff I had picked up from a lifetime of reading Outdoor Life.

“Completely inconsequential inside 200 yards!” said Bob, “And if you do manage to see a deer, it probably WILL be inside of 100 yards, because that is about how far you can see in the woods just about anywhere east of the Mississippi.  When you read all these guys in magazines, look at where they are hunting.  Most of them are out West. There?  I can see why someone might want to start out with a 270.”

“But what if I manage to see something further out?”

Jerry chimed back in, ” If you see something further out, pick yourself up and get closer, because unless you spend a lot more time practicing, you won’t be able to hit anything that far out. How far was that boar away from you when you shot him?”

“Maybe 20 yards.”

“. . . and you were probably shaking like a leaf.”

And so it went.  For the next few years, I had my head stuffed with the shared wisdom of old farts like that. I learned many times over that before went and pounced on a new rifle, I should seriously compare it to what I had in my closet already.  With a nice 30-06 there, it was hard to justify anything else.  I learned that most of what was written about rifles was meant to get you to buy a new rifle. I learned that with whitetail deer, it was best to keep firing until they could no longer shoot back– or was that Germans? Oh well, with John the two somehow merged into a single menacing force.  I found out that 30-06 was good.  270 WIN was bad, if for no other reason than it was not a 30-06.  308 WIN was bad, because it replaced the 30-06.  35 Whelen was good, because it was different from a 30-06, but in a good way– it was bigger and badder.  I learned that I should endeavor to shoot deer at close range.  I guess I got it right, because when I finally did shoot a deer, it was at 5 yards– with a 30-06.

Jerry was the first to die. Cancer got him in 1992.  John assumed ambient temperature between the Sebring and Daytona races at a campground in Florida in 1997. Bob’s legs went about 20 years ago, and I can’t get him to come out hunting anymore.  Eventually, I broke out of the mold, but not before owning a  half-dozen rifles in 30-06. In 2003 I bought a used Savage 99 in 308 WIN, but not before conferring with Bob for absolution. Bob approved, saying that a 308 WIN was a better  bet than a 300 Savage, because he did not know if the brass supply would hold out for the latter.   I load my 308 WIN to 300 Savage levels, partly because it makes a nice light-recoiling load and partly out of memory to my friends.

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