Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 5 Most Underrated Rifle Cartridges for Hunters

I've hunted deer for 31 years now.

I've never met a person, in person, who actually killed a deer with a 30-30. I've never met a person in the field carrying one either.

When I was a kid a .30-30 was about all you ever saw around here (north Mississippi.) Occasionally there was a guy with a .30-06 and all the .30-30 guy's said he was using too much rifle.

Times change

When I started deer hunting 40 years ago, the camp, which I am still a member of, only had one bolt gun on the rack. The rest were lever actions (mostly .30/30), semi-autos (742's in .30/06, .270 and .308) and shotguns of all flavors. Yes, we did run dogs back then. It was all woods; no clear-cuts or ROW's, long shots were 125 yds.. Currently you'll find one or two lever actions, no semi-autos, no shotguns and a butt load of bolt guns (lots of magnums). But the hunting has changed. We don't run dogs anymore, we do have clear-cuts and we now have almost 2 miles of high line ROW running thru our camp. Since I don't hunt the clear-cuts or high line very often I usually take one of my lever guns (lately my 99 in .375 Win.) and a lightweight bolt gun (lately a 6.5x55 or a .308).

At our farm in eastern AR we hunt a big field and fairly small wooded patches. Over there I'm toting a flat shooting bolt or single shot.

Personally I think most of us woods hunters would be better served with one of the modern slug only shotguns.

Different guns/calibers are more popular in different areas of the country. As I understand it, in the northeast the pump and lever action rifle are still very popular. I'm a certified rifle loony so I have a wide selection of calibers in bolt guns, lever actions and single shots.

+1

.35 Rem has become very hard to find and when I do find it cost too much.

I harvested my first buck more than 40 yrs. ago with a .308, that was my cartridge of choice for many years. Twenty or so years ago I had a .30-06 rebored to .35 Whelen and about that time I added a .257 Roberts. They are my current favorite deer rifles.

I grew up in SW Arkansas in the late 1970s and 80s at our camp, there were a few 30-30s, one old man with arthritis used a 742 .243, and everyone else used 742s in 30-06. The kids mostly used shotguns. We hunted clearcuts with dogs and there were some impressively, almost unbelievable in retrospect, long shots made with open sighted 30-30s on running deer. At age 14 in 1984 I brought the first bolt action into camp. It was in the oddball caliber of .270.

I doubt if any animal you shoot with a so called underrated cartridge will feel like it's underrated.

The Amish almost never have bolt guns because they fling lead and kill most anything that moves. Pumps and levers hold more rounds, and can fire them more quickly. Accurate bolt guns don't fit thier style of hunting, around these parts at least.