I would second the motion for a .35-30. A quick trip to JES for a rebore and a quick and easy session with a chamber reamer and voilà, a real woods thumper. Been threatening to do one myself since forever.
The easiest way to add oomph to a standard .30-30 is to load it with heavy bullets. Barnes is making their "original" soft copper/pure lead style in the form of a .30 190 grain, and there's the alternative of cast 190 grain lead bullets which can be loaded to that velocity no sweat- making the .30-30 the equivalent of a factory .303 Savage which had a lot of followers back in the day. You would open up a whole new realm of .30-30 performance (not to mention the fun of load development) without the expense/hassle of re-chambering or re-boring.
Since I started loading my .30-30 (and .303 Savage) hunting loads with 190's I haven't looked back.
Last edited by gnoahhh; 02/14/19.
