Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions Do I really need a 30-30 ?

Randy, at that price you can't go wrong. At the very least thay are a good inveestment as long as thay are in good condition. I thought the same way as you did at one time. I did not think I needed a 30-30 when I had bigger guns in the rack. What I found out was that I was missing out. Now I have two of them. Thay are really great with cast bullets.

100% agree with this!

My dad tried other chamberings, but the only one that stuck was his older Marlin 336. While deer, turkey, and varmints were his targets, it served him well. He quit deer hunting in the seventies, so got him a .scoped 22-250. After a few months, he gave it to his grandson and kept on using the .30-30. I never thought of it as a varmint gun, but ask the coyotes that fell to it. Jack

Buy the rifle, this pass year I got to shoot my neighbors 336 and well I am itching to find one. I will in time and I am going to put an Aimpoint on it. They are good rifles I am so sorry that I sold the one I had in 1974 I should have kept it but I was young stupid and well wanted more, I should have just kept that one and the Remington 700 and not do all the collecting and trading I did over the last 45 years. You learn with age. And youth is wasted on the young!

buy it. It won't take up much room in your house and won't eat anything. You'll always be able to get ammo for it.

when the world ends, there will be cockroaches, Cher, and the 30-30..........

I've killed deer with lots of different calibers, but never a .30-30. I fixed that this past season.
Bob

Are you sure that deer is just as dead as if you shot it with a .300 win mag? Is he merely dead, or most sincerely dead?

Nice job Bob! Good looking rifle AND deer!

Another. Two cents. First deer was killed with a borrowed .30-30. Heart shot at about 75 yards, a nice buck ran about fifty yards and bled out. Field dressing showed a blown up heart.

I read that the .30-30 was not enough gun, so i got bigger, faster, and meaner rifles. I have killed a goodly number of deer over the last fifty plus years with a lot of cartridges. The only DRT kills interrupt the central nervous system. Heart lung shots give a short run, ruin little meat, no matter if it is a .243 one a .338.

I suppose I have cone full circle. I have four 336s in different configurations, along with several bolt and semi uto deer rifles. My next (and perhaps the last) deer will likely be killed with one of the .30-30s. Jack

Yes, get a .30-30.

I did.

I wanted a common, american rimmed rifle cartridge that I can use to shoot subsonic with as little powder as possible to steeeeeereeeeeeetch my brass and powder supplies and keep me in small game and plinking at steel targets in perpetuity. Tang peeps on a .30-30 levergun lets you easily adjust for the very loopy trajectory.

Paco Kelly has an article that says he got 53 reloadings from .30-30 cases only loaded up to about 1500 fps. What about 1000 fps loads that will give you well over 1200 rounds per lb of Unique?

I shoot as often as I want, when I want - and it costs about as much as bulk rimfire but with the option to go really hot.

Oh yeah, it's vewy vewy quiet...

With the new leveroulution powder the 30/30 is even better. I am new to marlins but the glenfeild I own has one of the best triggers in my safe! I am gonna for sure get more vintage marlins in my collection. But I also agree if you doubt a caliber why own it? unless you want to re sell it. My uncle once told me it is hard to sell a gun you do not like. True Story!

That rifle is strikingly beautiful

Love the sights on that rifle, too! Are they Lymans?

Ed

The sights were already on the rifle when I saw it on GB.

They are THE reason I bought the gun. They are Sharps Vernier sights with windage adjustable front globe and appear to be of the same vintage as the rifle (manuf 1900 from the SN). Same rust, dirt, patina.

The sights are AWESOME.

alukban, nice rifle. I have 10 modern Marlins, but I keep watching for the "right" 1893 or 1936 to come along. Maybe soon. I have seen a few that Turnbull has done his magic on that were outstanding in both quality and price. The one I want is out there somewhere, I just need to look harder. Jack

Every so often you find "the one" to you on Gunbroker or your other internet meanderings. I got lucky. It could've been a dog. I didn't have the change to spare but sometimes you get the durned thing anyway because otherwise you wonder what the hayul you wake up in the morning for.

It did have few checks in the wood that were easy enough to arrest. The front sight was actually loose in the dovetail but a little persuasion with a hammer made it a tight fit again. The extractor leaf spring was not there at all - all gone. The extractor thus worked sometimes. I was dying to shoot it when I first got it home so the little ol' bean worked a miracle on the spot and I stuffed a very unelegant wad of tissue in the friggin channel in the bolt that holds the extractor. It works beautifully! I have a replacement from Numrich but I'll just hang onto it until the tissue gives out. It tries to sneak out every so often and I just stuff it back in with the reamer of my Cub Scout knife when it does. I tell folks I'm cleaning out the hole in the frizzen A not to precious to shoot rifle with zero bucks home jobbie repairs that ends up with a very accurate, shooting rifle... friggin GLORIOUS!

This one was just too nice to pass up...'57 Marlin 336SC. I added an old (still bright and clear) Lyman 3X, mounted low. Another .30-30 addition. This one will be whacking a pig the end of this month (March). Love the older, '50's-era Marlins.
Bob