Hillbilly Marine
AH veteran
For me my favorite .30 is a .30 Carbine, followed by a .30-30, with a .30-06 in third place. I have never really been a big fan of the 30's preferring smaller and larger bores.
”...jack of all trades master of none..”30-06. Hunting wise, jack of all trades master of none, It just gets the job done in a dependable way. You can buy ammo in most small towns across the country. Handles bullets from light to heavy without punishing recoil. Lots of history WW1, WW2, Korea. Bottom line is it just works.
One dayHuge romantic appeal with the .300 H&H, and it feeds like melting butter, but ballistically it does not offer much (2,800 to 2,900 fps with 180 slugs) over modern .30-06 loads (2,700 to 2,800 fps with 180 slugs), and it requires a magnum-length action. It stands squarely half way between .30-06 and .300 Win (2,900 to 3,000 fps with 180 slugs). I am a bit surprised at how many folks "prefer" it but I would in fact be curious to see how many of those who listed it, actually own a rifle so chambered?
The .300 Win is what it is: the result of Winchester going for the concept of "short magnums" with their .264, .300, .338, .458.
Their big selling point was/is that their shortened .375 H&H cases fit in standard length actions.
Their big challenge is that they are not quite what they could have been on a full length .375 H&H case (200 to 300 fps faster).
Some think they are plenty good enough, some go to their full length cousins. These fly faster and farther, and hit harder, but recoil more, so they represent a different compromise point along the spectrum of performance vs. shootability.