Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Buying a 30-30 was a crazy idea.

Although it took me decades to get one, I've always felt a collection of hunting rifles is never quite complete without a lever-action Marlin or Winchester .30-30.

None of my bolt guns provide the shooting pleasure I get from shooting my levers and the .30-30 is the most pleasurable of all.

Well, except maybe for my .45-70 shooting 300-350g plinking loads at 1167fps and 1097fps respectively using 13.5g HS-6 as the propellant. These are powerful loads with much less recoil than standard .30-30 loads (about 7 ft-lbs). My girls and I love to shoot these loads and they are dirt cheap to build. Guess I could do something similar with the .30-30 if I had a mind to do so as Hodgdon lists a 160g LFN load at 997fps that would generate less than 2ft-lbs recoil. Those would be fun, cheap and hard on rabbits.