How close does .303 compare to 30-06 which is the best?

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Originally Posted by dkf

Pretty much.

Trying to kill African "big gam"e with a round not even up to 30-06 ballistic standards is like hunting deer with a .22. Sounds like something the Brits would do really. Guess the .303 didn't work out so great or large caliber rifles (which look more like beefy shotguns) would have never been developed. Guess they got tired of shooting something a dozen times to kill it.

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I am compelled to respond to a 9 yr old post for historical and topical significance.

"Walter Dalrymple Maitland "Karamojo" Bell (1880–1954) was a Scottish, soldier, fighter pilot, adventurer and elephant hunter. Arriving in Africa at the end of the 19th century, from 1902 Bell hunted elephant in Kenya, Uganda, Abyssinia, Sudan, the Lado Enclave (one of the few to do so there legally), French Ivory Coast, Liberia, French Congo and the Belgian Congo. During his hunting career, Bell shot 1,011 elephants and numerous other game including 25 lions, 16 leopards, 4 white rhinoceros, 67 black rhinoceros and between 600 and 700 buffalo. Bell was an exceptional shot who preferred to hunt with smaller calibre bolt actioned rifles than large bore double rifles, around 800 of his elephants were killed with a .275 Rigby. Bell published two books on his time in Africa, The wanderings of an elephant hunter in 1923 and Karamojo safari in 1949, along with a number of articles. Bell is considered one of the most successful of Africa's professional elephant hunters.

The .275 Rigby is the British designation for the 7mm Mauser.

Noah

I also heard he used some type of solid bullet. Probably with a Mauser action.

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Originally Posted by Gunplummer

Oh yeah, I have split a 30-06 case to check use for a 7.7 Japanese case. Absolutely heavier in both the military and commercial brands. Nothing hard about re-barreling a Mark III. You simply use it single shot. Go ahead, try it. Don't even re-barrel, just re-cut the chamber to 30-06 and let it rip. I would heat up the loads in my 8MMx50 Berthier before I would trust to do it in a .303. Stop talking and start doing.

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If your idea of "doing" is to take a repeating rifle made for one cartridge, and turn it into a single-shot rifle made for another, longer, higher-pressure, different bullet diameter, different base and extractor type other cartridge by "just re-cut(ting) the chamber . . . and let(ting) it rip," then I would suggest that you stop doing and take more time talking beforehand.

That's the first material comment I've seen in response to my post. It advances the notion that a "difference" has some quantitative character, so that the issue is how much constitutes "different." A couple of hundred feet per second may well be where that transition point happens, and while I'd agree that most would not equate a .300 Win Mag with a .30-06, the reason may well have more to do with noise, recoil, and marketing hype than with any actual effect of the rounds on game - just as you've cited in the case of the .30-30. I'm not sure, however, that there's a hunting situation in which a .30-06 would result in a materially different outcome from that of a .303 British. There are certainly, as I've said elsewhere, other differences - in fact, ones worth mentioning, like availability of a wide range of bullet weights, rifles so chambered, brass, etc. that put the .30-06 at an advantage over the .303. That's part of the answer. But in terms of results in a field, my question - challenge, really - was to encourage some out of the box thinking about what constitutes a real difference between different calibers. You seem to be willing to answer materially; others seem to want the question to go away. Thanks for the answer.

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Originally Posted by USMC3531

So your arguement is because the both have bullets and can be fired from a gun they are the same. Since we aren't allowed to use science or measure anything about their size or performance.......

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No - in fact, it's exactly science and measuring something that I was asking about in order to find out where "the same" ends and "different" begins. That is, in exactly what circumstance would a .303 be inadequate, but a .30-06 be just fine? Range, game, wind - where's the threshold? My sense is that there isn't really one; that they are enough alike that they can be considered the same. That's the point of the challenge. I really like .30-06 - I have 3 of them: a Garand, a Browning, and a Remington. I thought it might be interesting to hear from others what they thought about the difference between the two, and where one would outshine the other because of some material difference, just as a part of a conversation about shooting and hunting. How about this - you can blow a .303 case out and use it as a brass-cased .410 round. OK, there's a difference, for sure. But I was really focusing on the effect on game, looking for the experience of members to come to what I think is a reasonable conclusion: that they really aren't different from one another in any material sense.

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Originally Posted by gsteele531

No - in fact, it's exactly science and measuring something that I was asking about in order to find out where "the same" ends and "different" begins. That is, in exactly what circumstance would a .303 be inadequate, but a .30-06 be just fine? Range, game, wind - where's the threshold? My sense is that there isn't really one; that they are enough alike that they can be considered the same. That's the point of the challenge. I really like .30-06 - I have 3 of them: a Garand, a Browning, and a Remington. I thought it might be interesting to hear from others what they thought about the difference between the two, and where one would outshine the other because of some material difference, just as a part of a conversation about shooting and hunting. How about this - you can blow a .303 case out and use it as a brass-cased .410 round. OK, there's a difference, for sure. But I was really focusing on the effect on game, looking for the experience of members to come to what I think is a reasonable conclusion: that they really aren't different from one another in any material sense.

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Very well reasoned. Here's one situation I can think of the 06 having an advantage: bullets in the 210gr class for long range target or elk/moose/bear loads. A bit more case capacity for more powder to drive the heavier bullets and barrels that have the correct twist rate to use that bullet weight more effectively would most likely yield better results. I'm not sure how much data there is on doing this with the .303. I have a .30-06 which I exclusively use for distance with heavy loads, currently using Hornady 208's. I've seen options for the bullet weight in that diameter but always figured that was for the 7.62x54R.

Something tells me it would be unwise to run hot heavy loads in a vintage Enfield, but I wonder if anyone has purposefully had a barrel chambered for something contemporary in the .303 because it's their preferred round. Now that would be an interesting question, wouldn't it? Who actually chooses the .303 when they're barreling something afresh and can have anything? People do choose the 7x57 and 6.5x55 on new rifles because they like the performance which is in fact very good.