30-06 Targets

• All this shooting indicates the Mountain Rifle delivers more than adequate hunting accuracy with the first three bullets fired from a cold barrel. The rifle always fired its first bullet where it was aimed, no matter if the barrel was clean and lightly oiled, fouled, or left fouled for a few days. ~Haviland, 2019

https://www.riflemagazine.com/remington-mountain-rifle

I find this to be true with my experience as well...thus the following...

Notwithstanding the shooting ability of the shooter - It is important to understand that, in general, nearly any out of the box high power rifle will group 2" @ 100 yards with manufactured ammunition. The key is figuring out which one. While one manufacture may group better out of several, more than likely all manufactures will group less than 4" at 100 yards using the same zero-range scope setting. For example, if Remington 150gr ammunition gives me the best group, zero in that group for the bullseye...and any other 150gr factory ammunition should get you within a 4" group from that zero. This may not do you any good at 400 yards, but should be plenty at 100 yards. This is the difference between hunting, long distance hunting, target shooting and precision target shooting. If you require tighter groups, you will have to revert to custom handloads.

The below left target shows about 26 shots representing several different manufactured 150gr loads. Although the Cold-Shots for the Remington cartridges performed best at 1 1/4" groups, all shots grouped less than four inches. After changing out the scope, and using a different bench rest, the target on the right shows the same general 4" group...however, the best cold-shot results are from the 150gr Winchester loads rather than the previous target's Remington loads. The tests are also still ongoing and could change during each session.

All loads are of the 150gr JSP, Soft Point hunting types. Details can be seen on the target charts, or at the provided google docs links further down this page.

3-2-2024:  Hi-Lux M40 Tactical Hunting Scope

The new Hi-Lux made scope is a copy of the original Redfield M40 sniper scope, which was a basic 3x9x40 hunting scope that has a built in range finding feature.  The groups are  a bit different than before with Winchester performing the best. Odd, but we'll  try and continue the tests through the spring weather. I had hoped to have been able to finish during the cooler hunting type temps...but we'll see how the warmer temps compare.

New Groups: 

• Winchester - .888"

• Norma - .1.845"

• Federal - 2.549"

• Remington - 2.690"

As with the 44-40, my notes and information is kept on google docs. Click on the tabs at the bottom of the chart below to surf the data. If the below format is not very good, try a direct link here: 

2-17-2024 (Previous targets using the Tasco scope)

Old Groups:

• Federal - .936"

• Remington - 1.969"

• Norma - 2.149"

• Winchester - 3.612"

 direct link here: 

The Tasco 6-24x42 Target / Varmint VAR624X42M is a tad much for a deer hunting rifle, but is a nice basic target and varmint scope.