benchmark [bench-mahrk] –noun 1. a standard of excellence, achievement, etc., against which similar things must be measured or judged. 2. any standard or reference by which others can be measured or judged.

In the sporting world there are some cartridges against which all others can be measured. Those cartridges are particularly useful in setting standards by which others are judged. The .22 Long Rifle is one of those cartridges. Many of us began our shooting experience with the .22 Long Rifle. It is as common as dirt and is seen by some as a commodity, a standard item of any household.

Another is the .357 magnum revolver cartridge. A direct descendant of the .38 special, it ranks as one of the premier cartridges of our age. Many pistol cartridges are measured against the standard set by the .357, both as a police round and as a sporting cartridge. The .45 ACP is another round that is accepted as a benchmark. Used in the incomparable Colt 1911, all semi-auto pistol cartridges are measured against it.

In rifle cartridges, there is one that stands above all the others as a benchmark for performance. The .30-06. Originally developed as the Ball Cartridge, caliber .30, Model of 1906, it was a modification of an earlier design, the .30-03. The .30-06 employed a spitzer bullet, then a new development first used in the 7X57 and the 8X57 cartridges used by the Imperial German Army. The .30-06 was originally issued with a 150 grain jacketed spitzer bullet with a velocity of 2700 fps. The doughboys of WW1 used the cartridge in the Model 1903 Springfield and the Model 1917 Enfield.

The returning GIs learned to use the round as a sporting cartridge and it was maintained as the primary battle cartridge of the United States until 1954, when it was replaced by the 7.62 NATO (.308 Winchester) round. The old warhorse .30-06 continued in service as a machine gun cartridge until the early 1970s. Surplus ammo was available for sportsmen in the 1950s and 1960s. Sold in M1 Garand enbloc clips, or Springfield strippers, it was common on the civilian market for many years. As a young boy, I was an employee of the McBride Rod and Gun Club, the local club at England Air Force Base. It was primarily a trap and skeet club and I had my first regularly paid job there in the mid 196-'s as a trap boy. The club needed boys to fill the traps during the intramural season for the princely sum of 50 cents per hour. A twelve hour day netted $6.00.

I remember being in the reloading room at the clubhouse and seeing grizzled old veterans using big Hensley and Gibbs molds to cast wadcutters for .38 Special, and I remember stacks of GI surplus .30-06 ball ammunition. All full-jacketed ammo, they sold it to the club members. Being a young boy, I didn't understand why the ammo was all in short metal clips, but a few tentative questions earned me the knowledge that the ammo was packaged for the 1903 Springfield rifle and was WWII surplus stock. There were piles of it stacked in the reloading room and they didn't reload .30-06 ammo because it was so plentiful.

Because it was so well known by American GIs of three wars, and readily available on the open market, the .30-06 soon became the cartridge against which all others were measured. Even today, the old cartridge isn't the fastest, nor the most powerful, but it is perhaps the most common performance standard. All North American game has fallen to it and the original ballistics are still quite useful in determining game field usefulness. The cartridge is now 103 years old and is still one of the most popular chamberings of American rifle manufacturers.

In early 2006 I realized that I didn't own a .30-06, and that seemed a travesty. Commercial .30-06 rifles are easy to find and I started looking for one to add to my battery. Frugal Outdoorsman readers will know that I am a fan of Savage rifles. They are sturdy, plain, work guns. The fact that they are accurate right out of the box is compelling, but they have other benefits, not the least of which is their popular pricing.

So, in February 2006, I was driving past a local sporting goods store and the sign out front advertised a rifle sale. I stopped in and saw a Savage Model 110, in .30-06 on the shelf. It was on sale, so I put it on layaway. That rifle had the Accutrigger, a design first released in the spring of 2002 on the Savage law enforcement rifles. The Accutrigger uses the center lever to positively block the sear. As your trigger finger moves the center lever, the sear block moves away from the sear and the trigger is free to fire. With this trigger, Savage was able to manufacture a good trigger that is safe to use. There is no danger of accidental discharge with the Accutrigger.

In 2005 I had purchased a Weaver K6 scope, almost as an impulse buy. I've owned variable scopes, but I've never liked them. I seldom use the variable option. I usually set the scope on about 4 or 6 power and leave it alone. One day in 2005 I had noticed that Midway had the Weaver K6 on sale, so I clicked on it. I wanted the scope for some future project. The Weaver K4 and K6 scopes are fixed power scopes that have a long-earned reputation for durability and simplicity. The six power of the K6 makes it a good scope for a pipeline hunting rifle. It has no bells nor whistles, it just works. When it came in, it lay on my bench unopened for over a year. When I put the new Savage on layaway, I knew that I didn't need a scope, because the K6 was destined to sit on that rifle.

Savage rifles come in three basic flavors. Long action or short action, heavy barreled or sporter taper, wood or synthetic stocks. With these three basic choices, Savage markets a bewildering variety of models, but they are pretty much all the same rifle. The action is a basic push-feed with the extractor in the bolt face. While some purists insist on the Mauser claw extractor, I have owned rifles that push feed and have never had any problem with reliability. Savage barrels are button-rifled and enjoy an enviable reputation for accuracy. The barrels are free-floated in the stock and the action is pillar bedded on two aluminum bedding blocks. Almost every Savage rifle I have ever shot is capable of honest minute-of-angle accuracy right out of the box. They are popularly priced, most under $600.00, and can normally be bought for much less than that. I paid $427.00 for this rifle.

In August, I got the rifle off layaway. It was a naked rifle, it had no sights, neither iron nor glass. I immediately ordered dies and bullets from Midway USA and got out the Brownell's catalog for scope rings and bases.

The .30-06 requires a long action. Most bolt action rifles are built in one of two action lengths. Long and Short. The long action is for those cartridges like the .30-06, .270 Winchester, and any of the magnum length cartridges. At one time, some manufacturers made a magnum length action, but the marketplace has dictated that the rifle companies make actions in as few flavors as possible. Most companies have settled on short action and long. Some pundits have said that there is nothing in the universe as long as a Savage long action. I learned that trying to mount a scope on the rifle while maintaining good eye relief required extended bases and rings. I finally used Leupold extended bases and Redfield extended rings. The folks at Brownell's were very helpful and patient as I ordered, rejected, and sent back several different bases and rings. The result may dismay a purist, but the mounting is solid and I can see through the scope with proper eye relief.

Once the scope was mounted, I began working up loads for the rifle. The .30-06 shines with a number of powders and can use bullets from 110 to 220 grains. Most folks use bullets in the 150 to 170 grain range. I ordered some Hornady A-Max bullets in 150 grain and some Sierra Gameking bullets in 168 grain. I also ordered some Sierra Matchkings in both 155 and 168 grain.

IMR 4895 is a standard powder for the .30-06. 4895 was designed for the cartridge and was loaded in GI ammunition. I happen to like 4895 and keep it on my shelf. Hornady makes a 4895, but lists it as a different burning rate. They are not the same powder. They are made in different factories and while they share a common number, they're different. Hodgdon bought the rights to IMR powder a few years ago and they market both powders. Hodgdon also markets Winchester powder.

There are several good powders for the .30-06, including both IMR and Hodgdon 4350, IMR and Hodgdon 4895, Alliant Reloder 19 and Reloder 22, just to name a few. Prudent handloaders might use any of these powders with good results. Follow safe handloading procedures, follow published recipes, and you'll be fine.

Of course, every major ammunition manufacturer makes .30-06 ammunition and it is available everywhere ammo is sold. With the ammo crunch of the winter of 2008, lots of ammo flew off dealer shelves. Today, supplies are stabilizing and .30-06 ammo is available just about everywhere ammo is sold.

But, back to my rifle. It was a plain-jane Savage with the plastic (tupperware) stock. Durable, steady, inexpensive. I'm not going to bore you with tables or graphs and charts. This is a hunting rifle and it acted like a hunting rifle. It shot everything relatively well, 150 bullets, 168 bullets, IMR powder, Alliant powder, it didn't really matter. It shot everything into just over an inch at 100 yards. I spent over $100.00 on bullets and probably that much on powder and found nothing that really shined. Sure, some groups were tantalizingly small, a couple of them fell under an inch, but I'm not a benchrest shooter and this is not a benchrest rifle. It's a hunting arm, plainly and simply.

In 2007, tragedy struck. I was in a tripod stand, about 12 feet off the ground, watching a couple of deer trails crossing a petroleum pipeline. By noon, I hadn't seen anything and decided to go to the camp for lunch. I had a rope on that stand so that I could lower the rifle to the ground. I unloaded the rifle, tied it to the rope and lowered it over the side of the stand. The knot turned loose and the rifle fell to the ground, breaking the stock at the wrist. Dammit!

Nothing left to do that season, but retire the rifle for the time being and hunt with other arms. Come the spring of 2008 I ordered a Wood Plus walnut stock from Brownell's, along with a steel trigger guard. They arrived in the mail within days and I began the process of installing the stock and adding sling studs, floating the barrel, and bedding the action. I took the nearly completed rifle to my gunsmith, who added a Limbsaver recoil pad. By early summer I was ready to start the process of working up loads again. When you change a rifle you change the way it recoils and the harmonics of the barrel. With a new stock, everything changes. But, to my surprise, the rifle liked the same ammo and shot it to very nearly the same point of impact.

I think it's a good looking rifle. It fits me well, is easy to use and has a distinctive look without being flashy. It weighs in at 8 lbs, which is a good weight for a hunting rifle. The extra pound of that walnut stock helps to soak up recoil. It still shoots a variety of ammo to just over an inch at 100 yards. With a more powerful scope and better benchrest technique, I'm sure I could improve on that, but this is a hunting rifle.

And that's the beauty of the .30-06 cartridge. It's a very common chambering, manufactured by most of the sporting arms makers. Just off the top of my head, Marlin, Savage, Remington, Ruger, Sako, CZ, Howa, and H&R all make rifles in that caliber. Ammo is available anywhere ammunition is sold.

The .30-06 has enough power for the average hunter without excessive recoil. Rifles for it are relatively inexpensive, whether bought new or off the used gun racks. Some models are availble new for under $500.00, and if you're looking for a good clean used rifle you can have your pick of the litter for that amount. It's an old cartridge, 103 years as of this writing, but it's a good cartridge. It may not do all the things that the new whiz-bang cartridges do, but they are all measued against it.

There is a lot to like in the .30-06.