Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 30-30 Win. 150 TSX

Gents,

It was pre-rut in Alabama this past weekend (still a couple weeks away) so we were getting a few does culled... win-win for herd management and the freezer. Was in an elevated stand over a food plot. A button buck came and piddled around in the plot for about an hour before a lone fawn burst out and nearly ran him off. (A hawk almost ran him off before that.) Don't know if the fawn is an orphan or already left mom... but based on all the other doe/fawn pairs we're seeing, I'm guessing mom didn't make it. Not long after the first dawn showed up, I had a deer blowing about 100 yards east of the plot. Both deer turned to check it out and the button buck actually squared up in that direction and started stamping. A few minutes later, another doe with twin fawns came out. She looked ragged... definitely still feeding them... barely bigger than the fawns. Then five minutes later, another, much larger/healthier looking doe, came out. She arrived from the opposite direction of the original fawn and kept her distance from the others. (I don't think this was mom.) Shot from about 80 yards. Slightly quartering away. She froze at the shot and bolted to the closest wood line. I had sight of her tail about 10 yards back in the trees and it almost looks like she was circling (think of a dog trying to nip its down tail) then all sound stopped. The button buck and second adult doe bailed but the three fawns stood around for a minute then went back to feeding for another 10-15 minutes. I waited for them to leave naturally before climbing down. The target doe was situated diagonally between the only two trees in the plot, so it was very simple to find exactly where she was standing. There was blood, but I was a little surprised not to find more. A consistent trail led led about 12 yards into the woods (it was a steady drip with occasional blotches of heavier bleeding) then the path veered sharp left and then wound to the right about another 25 yards into the thicker briars. Blood trail remained consistent, but now we found a few bigger smears and more of the blood was thick and clearly from a lung hit. Found her piled up in the thorns. As it turned out, the bullet had passed through. The entry was right where I thought, a few inches behind the shoulder -- and exit right behind the shoulder on the opposite side (quartering away -- photo below shows entry wound). The exit wound was about the size of a nickel and a shard of rib was sort of floating in it (broken but still attached inside). This seemed to explain the blood situation. The steady trickle of blood we followed was likely coming from the exit wound and the larger sign was what got coughed up as the lungs flooded. Hard to tell if that piece of rib "plugged" the exit wound some... it bled pretty freely though when poked it. I really can't complain about a pass through and a dead deer, but I'll confess that the size of the exit surprised me a bit. I'd just assumed that hollow point would take more with it on the way out. Regardless, the Marlin 336 got it done and looked good doing it!

Congratulations, meat for the freezer

Congrats.. You're right, the 336 looks darned good!

Congrats! Factory Vortx ammo or handload?

Factory loads from Federal. (Just the Barnes TSX not the Trophy Copper.) After the LEVERevolution didn't group at all, I tried these because I just happened to have them, and they did so well I never even fooled with developing my own load.

I still think cartridges like the 30-30, 35 Rem, 300 BLK, etc perform better with softer cup and core bullets than monolithic bullets. Barnes bullets need every fps they can get to perform their best. Expansion is nice but hydrostatic shock is better, IMO.

try the barnes 110 or 120 made for the black out. expands well and holds together retaining almost 100 % weight. you need to load 1 in chamber and only 1 in magazine. big difference in 3030 . hogs hate it and deer as well.

Congrats on making meat.

30-30 getting it done, yet again.

Guy

Congratulations. Me, my oldest son, and my nephew all shoot Marlin 30-30s. They both shoot 150 grain core lokts and I shoot 150 grain power points. Good blood trails and dead deer consistently. I tried leverevolutions in my rifles and groups sucked so we stuck with the old stuff.

Congratulations. Me, my oldest son, and my nephew all shoot Marlin 30-30s. They both shoot 150 grain core lokts and I shoot 150 grain power points. Good blood trails and dead deer consistently. I tried leverevolutions in my rifles and groups sucked so we stuck with the old stuff.

The 135gr FTX might be worth a try too.

Congratulations on the nice doe! My brother and I have some 170 grain .355 TSX bullets for the 350 legend to test out in the spring. All the reports I’ve seen look positive.

Ron

Yeah, same here. They've been making bullets for the .30 WCF for nearly 130 years now, they've got them figured out. I don't see the point in "premium" bullets for whitetails, anyway.

Well there are places where the gooberment says you can't use a cup & core and a mono is it or nothing. Thankfully my state hasn't got that retarded yet.

Have either of you actually looked at that specific Barnes 150 gr that's designed specifically for 30-30 velocities? The hollow point is a freaking cavern and they are a sledge hammer.

I would have been fascinated to see what my bullet looked like after passing through. At 80 yards it was still moving at a good clip on impact, too.

I'm quite familiar with that bullet and the similarly designed 35cal 180gr Barnes. Like I said above, expansion is fine and all but hydrostatic shock is king.

I'm not at all surprised to read about a TSX out of near anything leaving a minimal size exit wound. That has been my experience with them as well on several deer. Near any bullet will kill deer with a good shot placement, but in real world hunting good hits don't always happen. I want a bullet to do a lot of internal damage and exit with a large enough exit wound to provide a good blood trail and drt is even better. If a bullet fails to exit, that is a fail to my way of thinking. A quarter size hole through both lungs instead of lung mush with a 140 grain TSX should have told me something, but it didn't register with me until I lost a nice one using that bullet. Faster opening, larger mushrooming bullets have done way better and I'd be reluctant to try a Barnes anything again. Barnes didn't come out with the TTSX and LRX because the TSX was working well on lighter frame animals.

that'll do ...

We have shot the Barnes Hollow Flat point....I believe TSX....anyways, we've shot it for about 15 years in our 30-30's. It performs way beyond what a 30-30 should do. We hunt on foot in N.MN and shoulder shoot, if possible, our bucks. Many 200#+ animals have both shoulders broken....most all of our shooting is 125 yards or less. They are also accurate in our Pre 64, Model 94 carbines. Great combination.

Lol......