Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles The .30-30 Winchester. Love it or hate it?

A gunwriter (Hagel?) once wrote about two Cowboys sitting around a campfire after a hard days hunt. The first cowboy commented "the thutty thutty has killed more game than all other cartridges combined". To which the second replied "Yep. Wounded more too".

That pretty much sums up the two camps on the .30-30. Now hunters were much more passionate about this issue when I began hunting.You either loved it or hated it. And the hate ran deep. Opinions do not seem nearly as strong today in favor of or against the .30-30, but we'll see.

It's a damned good deer cartridge in the hands of a hunter that can shoot worth a schit. In the hands of someone who can't shoot worth schit, the .30-30 (and most others) isn't worth a damn.

It could be said that any cartridge wounds as well as it kills. Used within the parameters of it's design and purpose and used intelligently it does its job just fine.

Love it. If I were relegated to but on caliber from here on out I wouldn't mind it being the .30-30. (Mind you most of my shooting is plinking and target work with cast bullets, and the occasional hunting foray, so my needs are modest.) My main deer hunting companion this past year was a Winchester .30-30 M54 bolt gun, receiver sights and 190 grain soft flat nosed cast bullets at 1900fps. For me a wonderful three gun battery would be a single shot target rifle (preferably a Winchester HiWall) , lever action hunting rifle (make it a M1899 Savage, please), and a bolt gun (Winchester 54 of course just for the heckuvit)- all in .30-30.

I don't see myself ever again scurrying around the plains, crawling over mountains, or diving into the Alaskan/African bush after dangerous game, so the .30-30 suits me to a Tee.

The furthest I have ever shot a Whitetail is 250 yards, with a .243, and the second furthest is 236 yards, with a .30-30. Given the terrain I hunt, I could get by with just a .30-30.

Not sure (grin).

gnoahhh

I have your 3 gun battery.

My fathers Savage 340 with peep sights is the bolt gun . Though it may go return to wearing an older 4x Leupold.

Marlin 336A waffle top with a lyman steel receiver site is the lever .

Ruger 1A is the falling block with a 3x9 Leupold.

Have shot the first two a lot, especially the 336A .

At one of the clubs I was a member of we used to shoot IMHSA handgun silhouette targets with lever actions rifles.

Rifles had to be tube fed, metallic sights, cast bullets only and all shots were standing off hand. At the time I would not have hesitated to take a shot at a deer at 200 yds.

Flyer

Old Jack said that the reason the .30/30 wounded so many animals is that so many people used it; a simple matter of more shots fired equals more wounded. He also said that many .30/30 users were indifferent rifleman that only used their rifles for hunting and seldom practiced.

I've only taken one deer with a .30/30, a Savage 24, but the Core lokt passed through and trashed the innards. What more can be asked?

One of my pipedream rifles is a lightweight .30/30 built on a low wall action of some sort. Seems like it would make a fine woods gun for an old fat man. A Contender carbine would be an economical alternative.

The 30-30 had been obsolete 3 years before it was introduced. But even though it was a step backwards in cartridge development it works very well if used within it's limitations. But I've never understood why I'd want to limit myself.

It may be a 200 yard cartridge, but a 308 will have 2X-3X more energy at 500 yards than a 30-30 at 200. My bolt guns are lighter, more compact and far more accurate with about the same recoil.

I do not usually hunt with a 30-30. But... When I have to chase down a wounded deer, that's what I grab. Like my father, I only consider it a 100 yard gun, but realize that with the right loads I can double that. I've never shot a deer at even 100, and don't remember one that was just standing when I shot it. I think they've all been moving. Been a real long time since I shot one with it that was not already hit, gotta be at least forty years.

Put me in the love 'em category, for what I do and have done with them a Marlin 336 is hard to beat.

Bullet failure does not seem to be a problem for the 30-30.
Seems everyone can make a bullet that works at that velocity.

I have no use for the 30-30. Literally.

For many many years I have been hunting in areas where shots can/could be up to 500 + yds. That has not all been in the same area.

If I only hunted woods and/or shorter ranges, the 30-30 would do fine. But I refuse to limit myself to a cartridge that can't handle those longer shots.

***Some know how and use the 30-30 at extended ranges BUT IMO those are few hunters.***


Jerry

Love it.

My buddy wounded 3 bucks in 3 years with his M94. Pissed him off so he went and bought a 30-06. Guess what, he wounded 3 more deer, including one this year. Isn't the tool.

I'm a fan. Never have had a failure with the cartridge. I feel like I'm living good when I can take a walkabout through forestland with one of my Winchesters or Marlins.

Growing up in the '40's and '50's, I watched my dad bring a deer home most years. His only centerfire rifle was a Winchester Model '94. So there was better than a .30-30 chance that I would wind up with one. Owned a pair of '94's built in '43 (my birth year). But now have the 1971 Marlin 336C and a pre-'64 Model 70 FWT in .30-06.

I'll take that bet. You're sub MOA with a 5# rifle, is that what you're saying?



You're crackin' me up fella.

One of the other barrels is a .30-30. It shoots 150 spitzers just dandy and I'll spot you a few hundred FPS at the muzzle but that's about it.




As noted above, it isn't the tool that makes things work, it's the jerk behind the trigger.

Up here a huge majority of kids start with it so I think the numbers are horribly skewed because of it. Until a decade or two ago there weren't many low recoil choices for kids and in a cheap package.

W

I have 4 .30-30 rifles currently, '68/336 RC, Savage 340, TC 23" carbine and the latest an Uberti 1871 rolling block.

For the hills of East Ky. or the East Tx. Piney woods I love the thutty-thutty or .357/.44 mag carbines.

Since the first shot till now I've never had a bullet fail or needed more than one shot on deer or hogs. I've taken deer from 15' to 200 yds. with that old Marlin.

If I can limit myself to 35 yds. with a long bow or 50 with a compound why can't I hunt within the limit of a cartridge.

Oh! Oh! me too Dan...... my latest .30-30........................

[img:center][/img]

I love it. It becomes way more 'ideal' in small, short, light packages, where it'll do any 308 work, with the recoil of a 243, and less blast than Either in short tubes.

I believe that most of the wounding of deer with the .30-30 over time has been due to the fact that the rifles themselves came with crappy open sights, which people attempted to use out to 200 yards. Such a distance is in fact within the cartridges effective range, but not within the skill of 99% of hunters.

Seeing a deer out there, they just couldn't resist taking free-hand shots, using their butt heavy carbines, and launching poorly aimed bullets. After the first miss, the deer probably ran, and they probably kept levering and firing the remaining 6 to 10 rounds, crippling and maiming.

A good set of open peep sights, or a good 4x scope, turns the average 30-30 into a consistent killer out to 200.

One poster asked why limit yourself to the range and power of a .30-30 when you could use a 30-06 or .308 which is good out to 500.

Here's why, especially if you hunt east of the Mississippi.

At short ranges, being 75 yard and under, I have seen in my 55 years of deer hunting far more deer lost to high powered rifles than to the .30-30. I have personally seen 150 grain corelokts fired from the .30-06 and .308, and 140 grain corelokts from a 7 Mag, pass straight through deer at that range, with little or no expansion, even on great shots. The deer then run, and run hard, for a long time. Sometimes you can find them, and sometimes you can't. Depends on terrain, brush, time of day. That little .30 hole generally provides little or no blood trail, and if they run just 300 yards or so at sunset, you probably have a lost deer. The coyotes have it by morning.

In contrast, at point blank and up to 75 yards, where the vast majority of whitetails are shot, a solid hit with a .30-30 is a dead deer. Yes, they will prance along for 100 feet or so, but then they drop stone dead. Here is where the lower velocity .30-30 really really shines. (Same is true for the .35 Remington). Perfect bullet performance at those distances, and generally beyond.

Just my experience.

Mannyrock