Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Van Zwoll & 30-30 on elk

In the latest Petersen's Hunting Wayne Van Zwoll, an author I've always greatly admired, wrote about an elk he'd wounded and lost using a .30-30 at 200 yards. I've never hunted elk, but isn't using a 30-30 on elk at 200 yards asking for a lost animal?

With the fabulous choices of calibers we have in today's world, using a 30/30 on elk suggests poor judgement. In this instance, poor judgement is verified by the decision to take a 200 yard shot.
Van Zwoll has been around long enough to understand Hagel's rule.

The 30-30 is a fine elk cartridge fishdog, you just have to be reasonable with your shots.

The problem wasn't the .30-30, it was the 200 yards. The .30-30 has taken tons of elk, but the shooter has to know both his and the cartridge's limitations.

30-30 at one time was considered to be a very powerful cartridge suitable for pretty much anything in NA. That being said, the cartridge has some limits, just as every other cartridge dose. While a 200 yard shot is doable, its not the smartest thing to do. I was not there nor Have I read the artical mentioned. 30-30's took truck loads of elk moose deer sheep and what have you over the years. I had a Marlin 336 so chambered and it was fine, killed a lot of game with it, but I found I was better able to place bullets better when shooting under 150 yards, 125 was my limit. Peep sights and I wore glasses at the time. With a scope maybe a few yards more, I don't know I never put a scope on any of the lever action rifles I owned or played with, I liked the light flat easy carry lines the Marlin had, and puting a scope on it would defeat that purpose. The 170 gr Bullets that are loaded in the 30-30 do way more that what paper says they should.

Jeez, where does all this stupid talk come from?

The thuty-thuty will work just fine on elk. It will kill just as effective as a 308 at that distance using a cup & core.

And who gives a rip what Haglel's rule is whatever that is.

I'm with SU35 on this. If an elk is hit right at 200 yards with a 170-grain .30-30 bullet, it's gonna kill the elk, I don't care how "wimpy" the .30-30 seems.

The ballistics of a 170 RN at 200 yards aren't very different from a 180 spitzer at 600 from a .300 WSM or Winchester factory load. Yet a lot of hunters would take a crack at an elk at 600 yards with either of those .300 magnums, where shot placement is a lot more difficult than at 200 with any sort of rifle.

I'm thinking that poor bullet placement would be the cause for losing the Elk. No one is a perfect shooter. Something went wrong for Mr van Zwoll. I also think that the audience pressure of being a gun writer could be what tips someone into taking an iffy shot. Or perhaps Dr van Zwoll just had a bad day like we all do.

just my opinions...

And with Hornady's Leverlution ammo its even better.

Wow! Being a gunwriter is getting to be more and more like being a cop, huh? You're a public figure held to an artificially high standard of abilities and pilloried when revealed as human or your equipment fails to perform like a magazine ad.

If you've never made a bad shot or missed entirely, you've not been hunting or shooting much...or are extraordinarily lucky.

I've taken deer several times that have been wounded by other hunters. How many of those guys do you think told their friends about the one that dropped then ran away when they were halfway out of the stand?

Takes an honest man to admit it in nationwide print. Perhaps so that others may learn?

BTW, any caliber the state game department deems legal is suitable. We all have the right to pay our money and take our choice.

We need to ensure that remains the norm and that we are not all legislated into having but one .30-'06 and 10 rounds of 180 grain softpoints per year issued to us at the state store.

Or maybe we'll simply be told that hunting is wrong and no longer allowed.

Let's all hang together, boys and girls.

A Speer 170g running 2160fps at the muzzle will still have about 1723fps/1121fpe at 200 yards. A 170g Parition running 2200fps will have 1635fps/1009fpe.

Zeroed for MPBR for a 6" diameter target, both wil be down less than 3" at 200 yards.

For me the questio is will the bullets expand reliably at that range. I tend to put more faith in the Partition RN.

Would I take a shot at an elk at that range? Under the right conditions, probably so. Would I hit what I aimed at? Probably so - my Marlin is scoped and MPBR zeroed for slightly over 200 yards.

The .30 WCF works wonderfully on elk. Actually, it kills elk way better than the uninformed would ever frackin' believe.

Dr. Wayne PhD wasted an elk and it ran off to feed the buzzards & coyotes. His shame, not that of the cartridge.

The nut behind the buttplate makes all the difference. In this case the nut was loose and rattling.

Steve

I shot a cow elk end to end in the sage at 185 yards with a 45-70 Marlin 1895 equipped with Ashley Outdoors (now XS) sights. 400 grain flat point Speer with a velocity of 1750 fps 15 feet from the muzzle. One step and dove off a 50' very steep slope. Was using a cartridge older than the 30-30 at that range a mistake?

I'll wait to hear the expert opinion of folks who've never seen a live elk.

Laffin' here. Yeah, we'd like to hear that!!!

One of our wranglers used a .30-30 a lot, when he wasn't killing the schit out of elk with his .250-3000. He swore that the .30-30 was a much better killer, not that there was a damn thing wrong with the .250, because "the bullet goes through an elk sloooowly and just kills the stinkin' bastards DEAD, DEAD, DEAD."

Having seen Hank kill a passel of elk with his .30-30 carbine and having done a half-dozen myself, I'm not about to question any of his countyboy wisdom.

Steve

Steve,

A lot of plain, old fashioned wisdom here from you. No surprise there!

Good on 'ya. Glad you are at the 'Fire.

(another)Steve

Why anyone would think that 200 yards with a 30-30 on Elk is out of the question?
I am glad to see Steve, SU, and JB step in on this one.

Haven't seen the article. No longer subscribe to the SOS. Any of them.

Having carried (and not shot but one deer and my first moose with) a .30-30 for the last 45 years, I'd call it poor bullet placement, tho personally, 200 yards is pushing the .30-30's capability on elk IMO. Pushing, not exceeding. With good placement at that range, it should do the job. I suspect a .300 Mag in this instance would have achieved the same result- placement is placement, and a bad hit sucks.

I killed my one and only elk with a .260, bang-flop, at 150 yards, several years ago.

That isn't 'sposed to happen either.

My "walkaout' rifle here in Alaska is a '94 Winchester - my father's. Been carrying it around for over 20 years, never had to use it. I'm just not that curious on how it would do against a charging brown bear either!

On paper, it's better than a .44 Mag handgun.

No need to wait just look around, many easterners (not all of you) lecturing the who, what, when and where about elk around here.

/rant

As one who has read and admired Wayne for many years, his reputation is one of using modest cartridges at reasonable ranges, with an emphasis on accuracy. I have not read this latest article yet, but I doubt Van Zwoll would take a shot that did not have a high probability of success. Certainly he could use more caliber, but that's his choice. If it was good enough for Wayne, it's good enough for me. He is one of the good guys.

I'm from the East and some people I know use 30-30 on Moose. Bottom line is if you know how to hunt and shoot and have chosen the right bullet (170gr nosler partition) I just don't see how it's not going to be effective on any elk at 200 yards or less. Now, I'm not saying that people here can't hunt/shoot, but you know what I'm talking about.

CLB