MTLabrador
Well-known member
When I waste time thinking about what bear and moose rifle I would bring for running away to Alaska, a .35 Whelen is always high on the list.
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30-06 Ackley Improved
- Thread starter Brian in Montana
- Start date
Brian in Montana
Well-known member
I have a 35 Remington I might sell you. 
Losing_Sanity
Well-known member
Brian in Montana
Well-known member
Yep. But it's not for sale. 
p_ham
Well-known member
My dad and I are building a 338-06 for him. That's another cool cartridge.
Or go 6.5x55. You already have a long action. Put a 1 in 8 twist barrel on there and you'd have a great rifle.
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I had one, and I’m not sure it’d be overly fun to shoot from the 6.5 lb Mountain Rifle.
Mine was a standard M70 sporter with wood stock, not exactly a lightweight rifle. 22” barrel. With 185 grain Barnes it had some stiff recoil. Two pounds lighter and/or heavier bullets and I think the fun factor would diminish.
It'll loosen your crowns in a Mauser model b. That's a pretty light rifle.
He has a poodle shooter in the 280. The 6.5 is great, but it's duplicative of the 280.
35 Whelen also comes with swooning women & good scotch, so there.
How many rifles are not relatively duplicative of one another? Plus, a .264 cartridge that doesn't include the word Creedmoor will automatically provide oodles of street cred with the masses of crusty shooters who have blood pressure spikes at the mention of the 6.5 that shall not be named.
TrumpkinTheDwarf
Well-known member
The 06AI is supposedly at its best with 180 or 200 grain bullets if you want some heavier pills.
The 178 Absolute is able to go 3100 in the "regular" .06. mtmuley
TrumpkinTheDwarf
Well-known member
I wonder what it would do with a little more case capacity
NHY moves them at 3500 or so in the RUM. mtmuley
buffybr
Well-known member
Like I've mentioned on other threads, my first centerfire rifle was a .30-06, and it did well for me for about 10 years. Then one day a couple of years after I moved to Montana my hunting partner gave me a .30 Gibbs case.
The looks of that case just about red lined my coolness meter, and after carrying it around in my pocket for a couple of months I had our local gunsmith re-chamber my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs. Les Bauska in Kalispell did the work and he didn't have a Gibbs reamer so he used a .30-06 Ackley reamer and cut the chamber deeper to the dimension of the Gibbs shoulder.
That became my primary elk rifle and it pushed 180 grain Partitions out at 2900+ fps. For 20 some years that cartridge put an elk in my freezer every year along with a couple of Shiras moose and some other critters.
When I had Les chamber my .30 Gibbs I also had him make me a tapered octogen barrel for a .22-250 and he re-chambered a .25-06 to .257 Roberts Ackley Improved for me. That .257 AI has been my primary deer and antelope rifle ever since, and I also used it for my Dall and other Bighorn rams, along with a Mountain caribou and my second best 6x6 bull elk.
Looking back I often wish I would have had Les just re-chamber the .25-06 to AI and to have chambered the .22-250 to AI.
The coolness of the 40* shoulder and minimum body taper of the Ackley Improved cases just makes hunting and shooting rifles with AI cartridges better.
The looks of that case just about red lined my coolness meter, and after carrying it around in my pocket for a couple of months I had our local gunsmith re-chamber my .30-06 to .30 Gibbs. Les Bauska in Kalispell did the work and he didn't have a Gibbs reamer so he used a .30-06 Ackley reamer and cut the chamber deeper to the dimension of the Gibbs shoulder.
That became my primary elk rifle and it pushed 180 grain Partitions out at 2900+ fps. For 20 some years that cartridge put an elk in my freezer every year along with a couple of Shiras moose and some other critters.
When I had Les chamber my .30 Gibbs I also had him make me a tapered octogen barrel for a .22-250 and he re-chambered a .25-06 to .257 Roberts Ackley Improved for me. That .257 AI has been my primary deer and antelope rifle ever since, and I also used it for my Dall and other Bighorn rams, along with a Mountain caribou and my second best 6x6 bull elk.
Looking back I often wish I would have had Les just re-chamber the .25-06 to AI and to have chambered the .22-250 to AI.
The coolness of the 40* shoulder and minimum body taper of the Ackley Improved cases just makes hunting and shooting rifles with AI cartridges better.
Addicting
Well-known member
Selling the mountain rifle and starting over would be better. It’s almost sacrilegious to rebarrel a good 280 to a 30-06. Buy a 30-06 and have it reamed out to the AI.
700 Mountain Rifles sell pretty easy. mtmuley
