I was raised in a household where both my father and grandfather shot a .308 Winchester. Though my first centerfire rifle was a .30-30 Win., I soon graduated to the cartridge my forefathers embraced for its accuracy and striking power. Even in the early 1990s, the .308 Winchester was considered the “newfangled .30-06 replacement” in some circles, and the comparisons still run rampant.
News flash: Both cartridges are amazing, and both are wonderfully effective.
Despite the changing technology of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, I was privileged to hunt with some gentlemen my grandfather’s age, who fielded all sorts of rifles and shotguns for our deer season each fall. For some reason, I was immediately drawn to the diversity of those cartridges, as well as the statistics associated with them. I’d see surplus military rifles and cartridges like the 8x57mm Mauser, lever guns in not just .30-30 Winchester but fancy Model 71s in .348 Winchester, and Model 1894s in .38-55 and .32 Winchester Special, as well as those Savage 99s in .300 Savage and .250-3000 Savage. The odd .30-40 Krag would be seen during the annual sight-in the weekend before season, and there’d be the odd 6.5x55 Swede and 7x57 Mauser of some obscure pedigree.
This was the fertile field of the mind I reveled in, asking the odd question and then soaking up the numerous answers like a sponge. Back in those days, the 7mm Remington
