Honestly, I love 30.06 just for the simple fact I reload for it and I have several guns in 30.06. Some of them are 100 years old (literally), but it’s just a good old round and if you get the right mix of magic, it can be a beautiful thing inside 300 yards. And typically, I don’t shoot much further than that.
My favorite two rifles with scopes that I shoot nowadays are a Ruger m77 mkII in 7.62x39 (yeah, it’s a rare bird lol) and damned old Parker Hale 30.06 JC Penney rifle that is still wearing the JC Penney 4 power scope it came with lol. I can literally “shoot a smiley face” at 100 yards with my old Ruger. The old JC Penney gun is fun to whack some 1/2 pound tannerite at 200 (which is pretty much the limit of that old scope). The Ruger has a “Swift” scope (its silver to match the stainless barrel and receiver, probably came with the gun back in 1992) and is 3-9x.
After those two, I have several old military rifles (Remington 1903 from May 1942), an Eddystone m1917 (like the 1903, still has its original barrel, 5 groove, dated September of 1918), and an M1 Garand that’s been reparked and re-barreled, Korean War era. The oldest of those, the Eddystone, is remarkable at 100-200 yards with its original barrel.
I also have like 500 rounds of WW2 and Korean War armor piercing 30.06 ammo with 280 rounds still in the original 30 caliber can, still inside their enbloc clips and cardboard. Most of that was given to me a buddy that didn’t want it anymore for some reason, and he knew I loved collecting old wartime guns and ammo.
Anyway, I know when it comes to ballistics that the 30.06 is a dinosaur, but it’s still fun to load those torpedoes into a chamber and crank them down range. My dream gun? A full auto BAR....but I just don’t have an extra $75,000 laying around to get one...