It's "old school" all right, but so am I.
Jrboltaction,
The .30-'06 Springfield is far and away my all-time favorite cartridge. In my view, it offers the perfect blend of manageable recoil, flat trajectory, accuracy, flexability, reloading ease, and downrange thump, all in one commonly available package.
Over the years, I've taken everything from rabbits to eland with the cartridge, and never wanted the animals that I've harvested to die any deader than they did when hit with a 180 grain Barnes "X" bullet or a 220 grain Barnes "solid", which I used in Africa, where solids are legal.
Yeah, it's "old school." But so am I. I don't need a cartridge that's capable of dropping game at ranges farther than I care to shoot it. I don't need any more accuracy in the field than my current rifle in .30-'06 can deliver. And so far, I haven't needed any more thump than the '06 can provide.
I took my old Griffin and Howe Springfield to Africa and used it to take eland and kudu. While I don't have enough African experience (yet!!) to be anything remotely close to an expert on the subject, I do believe that we don't have any any non-dangerous game on this continent that can match an eland for sheer tenacity of life. Yet the old '06 got the job done for me, and I expect that it will do so again on my next visit to Africa -or my next caribou hunt, or my next moose hunt, or elk hunt, or.....
If I can't get the job done with my .30-'06, then it is probably one that I don't have any interest in doing in the first place, and if it is, I'll want something with more punch than any 7mm or.30 caliber magnum has to offer. Something on the order of a 9.3X62mm or a .375 H&H.
They are pretty "old school," too. But they are still viable rounds that are just as useful today as they were decades ago. So it is with the .30-'06.
-JP