3006 with 1/12 twist

[danny pay]

Hi
my beloved hysky 640 has a twist rate of 1/12 inches. my question is am i limited to 180 grain or i can use heavy 220 grain hornady or woodleigh too? can a 1/12 stabilise long 220 grain bullets like nosler or woodleigh?
regards
danny

[Catfish]

I think that the 1 in 10 twist is the most common in the 06 which means that your is designed for liter bullets. I doubt that you would be able to come close to stablizeing the 220 gr. bullets.

[PJgunner]

Well, the 1 in 12" twist won't stabilize heavy bullet horse puckey is up for another round.

Tell you what. Go buy a box of Sierra Pro-Hunter 220 gr. round nose bullets, load some up and try them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

This goes along with that line of bovine excrement that says the .308 Win. does not have enough velocity to make 200 and 220 gr. bullets worth shooting. Take the above mentioned Sierra Pro-Hunters over a charge of W-760 and 2300 FPS is a pretty easy do. The rifle was a Winchester M70 featherweight with a 1 in 12" twist. groups at 100 yards ranged from .375" to .50" with no signs whatsoever of unstability.

I would imagine that if a 1 in 12" twist in a .308 willstabilize the 220 RN,a 30-06 that will deliver even more velocity should do just as good. I do have one custom 30-06 that has a 1 in 12" twist. I only tried one 220 gr. bullet load in it about ten years ago, more out of curiosity than anything else. The group, as I recall, was about 1.25" average. The load was H-4831 as I recall and it picked out of the middle of the data from the Sierra manual. The rifle was built more for shooting cast bullets so the test wasn't carried any further.
If current 220 gr. 30-06 ammo is anything like some 180 gr. ammo I tested a while back, I wouldn't expect more than maybe 2300 FPS from Winchester brand. The 180 gr. ammo was running over 100 FPS slower than the advertised 2700 FPS.
The Noslers and Woodleighs might be a bit too long to stabilize, but the Hornady and Sierra round noses should work OK based on my tests with the .308. However, a 220 gr. bullet at roughly 2500 FPS, give or take a few FPS, should work just fine. After all that's what they used before all those high priced premium bullets hit the market.

My take is go ahead and buy a box of the Sierras or Hornadys and try them. Every rifle is different so yours will either love 'em or hate 'em. There is only one way to find out. Shoot 'em.
Paul B.