.30-06 shooters, what type of comercial ammo shoots best through your rifles?

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I'd like to get into handloading one of these days, but just don't have the time or money at the moment. Next hunting rifle I plan on getting will more than likely be in .30-06 and was curious as to what you guys use if you use commercial rounds and what's the most accurate out of your rifles. I know every rifle is different and some handle different ammo differently.
 
I use hand loads, but before I developed a load, I used Remington Core-lokt 150 grain.
 
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For hunting, my non-handload of choice for .30-06 is Hornady Superformance SST in either 150gr or 180gr.
 
I have a REMINGTON 700. It likes 150 grain (1/2 group at a 100yd with CoreLokts) and gets less accurate as you go up (about 1.5 inch with 165 grain and about 3 inch with 180 and 220 grain). I notice a difference in ammo weight more than brand. I like Federal ammo best overall but the Remington CoreLokts are the standard for hunting loads.
 
My rifle likes Remington core lokts. I have used the Hornady Superformance SST also & seemed to get slightly larger groups than I did with the Remington but I was having some trouble with my rest that day so it might have been me. Either would work well in my opinion.
 
The good news is most commercial ammo is heads above that which was available even 20 years ago. Most manufacturers have a line of ammo with premium bullets and most available is accurate.

I suggest you try and find the ammo that shoots best in your rifle and not worry too much about brands.

Before I handloaded I liked Remington Core-Lokt ammo in either 165gr or 180gr.

Federal Premium ammo is also high quality and accurate too.
For heavy game Federal Premium Vital-Shok Ammo is available with a Nosler Partition bullet, very good stuff...

Hornady ammo is very accurate and they use their own premium bullets for loading.

Years ago if you wanted to hunt with a premium bullet you had to load your own. Ammo has come a long way and for the casual hunter there is really no reason for them to reload since most casual hunter don't even shoot a box of ammo a year.
 
The good news is most commercial ammo is heads above that which was available even 20 years ago. Most manufacturers have a line of ammo with premium bullets and most available is accurate.

I suggest you try and find the ammo that shoots best in your rifle and not worry too much about brands.

Before I handloaded I liked Remington Core-Lokt ammo in either 165gr or 180gr.

Federal Premium ammo is also high quality and accurate too.
For heavy game Federal Premium Vital-Shok Ammo is available with a Nosler Partition bullet, very good stuff...

Hornady ammo is very accurate and they use their own premium bullets for loading.

Years ago if you wanted to hunt with a premium bullet you had to load your own. Ammo has come a long way and for the casual hunter there is really no reason for them to reload since most casual hunter don't even shoot a box of ammo a year.
Ditto.
 
Federal Premium 165 Grain in a Savage Axis and Rem 700 BDL. They are about $45 a box but one box lasts me two years.
 
My Remington 760 is not particularly accurate with any load I have found. It's about 2 inches at 100 with both 150 gr Core Lots and Sierra Game king BTSP. The good thing is they are interchangeable as far as sighting in, so I use the expensive stuff on deer and the cheap stuff on hogs.
 
I've shot precious little factory ammo through cf rifles over the last 40yrs.
The last I shot any significant amount of was Norma 150gr Spt-BT and some Norma 220gr RN that was bought for $4 box in 1975 when a True Value hardware store was going out of business.
That ammo was spectacular in my MkX Mauser. The 220gr chrono'd over 2,500fps. Never shot anything but paper with it to get the brass.
I killed my first deer with the 150gr SemiPt-BT bullets. Go figure why they put the bt on that bullet. It was unspectacular in punching a small hole through the deer, but would on demand shoot a 3-shot one hole group. I still have ~half box of that I shot the deer with. Indeed chrono'd 3,000+fps as claimed on the box.

Now days, If forced to use factory ammo, for game performance I'd choose Remington Corlokts for "usual deer". For mule deer, antelope at extended range, something with a Sierra GameKing (Federal Premium).
For elk or moose, I'd choose something with a Nosler or Swift partition.

I've chrono'd some Winchester and gotten good velocities (ie: .270win for brass ran an honest 3,100fps from my rifle (130gr PowerPoints). However, from my experience as a field enforcement officer, it was among the worst for failure to penetrate/separated cores. Accuracy was often mediocre, also.

Hornady makes good ammo, but most is $$$.

I've actually had some good performance from the Prvi-Partisan bullets. I'd say for inexpensive deer-bustin or hogs, it'd be hard to improve on.
Accuracy is about like the Winchester, mediocre, but for shooting deer white-tail deer at less than 300yds, you don't need match grade accuracy.
 
Before I started handloading, the regular plain ol' Federal blue box 150 grain soft points gave me the best accuracy of the 4 or 5 different ones I tried.
They would shoot under 1" all day long, providing I didn't suck.
 
Normally I don't ever shoot factory ammo, but last weekend I helped a couple friends sight their Rem. 700's in for their up coming deer and elk hunts. They brought about 100 rounds each of 165 gr. Rem. Corloks, good glass on their rifles, and those dog gone Corloks shot about 1.5" groups for them. So based on that, I would say go with the Rem Corlok, or Core Lock, or how ever it's spelled, I dunna know.

GS
 
I found that Federal Premium High Energy loads with the Sierra 165-grain HPBT are sub-MOA in my rifle. Right at being as tight-group as my handloads.

Art is dead on right there. Federal sells my favorite load as the 'vital shok'. My handloads are designed to mimic that 165gr Sierra Game King offering from Federal.
 
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Remington Core-Lokt 165 gr. in my Savage 110. No doubt about it. I've shot pretty much every brand of ammo I could find through it and I have tried just about every weight too. I keep some 220 gr. ammo for it too because it shoots almost as accurate and hits considerably harder.
 
So what I'm gather from all this, the Remington Core-Lokt seems to be the way to go. I've never used it in any rifle I've had, I've owned a R700 synthetic ADL in .270 and a Savage 11/111 Hunter in .300 Win Mag and always shot Winchester ammo through them (130gr Super X for the .270 and 150gr Super X for the .300 Win Mag)
 
Core lokt is pretty hard to beat. Only rifle I own that doesn't like them is my Remington car 308. My BAR 30.06 loves them. Accuracy wise it does just as good with the soft point federal cheap stuff but I know what a core lokt will do when it hits so I usually stick with them.
 
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