Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 30-30 at MV 3,000fps

As they say in the drag racing biz, there ain't no substitute for cubic inches except more of them.

don't have LVR in my Quickload so I used the next one down Varget.

Note all the top velocity loads listed by Hodgdon are already compressed.

Bringing Varget up to 3000fps, with Varget would need 132% fill and generate 97K PSI.

no replacement for displacement.

No substitution for cubic inches is a good way to describe it.
I have a 22” .308 Marlin Express. The 130 grain Speer will break 2,900 fps with 43.0 grains of IMR 3031, that is a stiff load – the rifle and the brass do not seem to know the difference.
For the 22” barrel .308 Marlin Express and the 20” barrel .307 Winchester the practical maximum for the 130 grain bullets is a bit over 2,800 fps.
Its good performance from a lever action rifle but it is not 3,000fps.

Speed might matter when you can hit what you're aiming at...maybe. Can you prove it?



16" barrel on a 94 Trapper, 125's run 2500 +/- a wee bit, 150's in the 2200+ range and 170's at 2100+ Stuff dies...even with book max loads or -gasp- a little less. Simple piece of mayhem it is actually. Short, light, Williams receiver sight that has whacked deer, pigs, 'yotes and a bobcat. Deep woods is were it thrives with this still hunter and it has actually been used out to as much as 75 yards on a few occasions.

Question I have is why the fascination for trying to make something it ain't? Need more speed for some reason? Try another cartridge in another gun. Fella can't be a genuine Loony with just one gun ya know.

Instead of “trying another cartridge in another gun”, why not load the 30-30 to its potential or be happy the manufacturers are keeping it alive.

When you guys talk about “displacement” I hope you are referring to diameter and weight, not the velocity fallacy.


More 30-30 choices is a good thang !

Well,..if it will do it, it ain't "ain't". It is. And a 6.5 lb lever rifle that can accurately spit a 150 at 2500 is a handy utensil.

my first rifle at about age ll was a winchester 94 in 30.30. pretty much a traditional saddle gun at the time.
Last year i picked up something i have been wanting for a long time, a savage 30.30 bolt action. Where i can load spitzer bullets.
Pretty popular in the late 40's and early 50's where i grew up.
I am sure it's perfectly aedequate at ranges it was meant to perform at.

The way I see it, it's all about the quality of steel and the new propellants. Some of the listed data for the 30-06 has it pushing 150's in excess 3000 fps these days,..and I bet it's safely capable of a bit more than that with the right combination of components.

But you can't do it with the clone of 4895 that the original 30-06 was loaded with,...which produced about 2800 fps. with 150s.

Having killed deer with a .30-30, a .250 Savage, a .300 Savage, a .270 Winchester and a .280 Remington and seen other guys in camp do the same with a .35 Remington, a .243, a .308, a .30-06 and a 7mm Remington Magnum, I'm always baffled at the whole bigger, faster, heavier desire in hunting cartridges. Every single one of those deer was dead immediately if hit in a vital zone, even if it ran 50 yards or so. None of those deer shot in a non-vital zone dropped dead without another round being placed in a vital zone.

Admittedly, most of my hunting is in places where a long shot is less than 200 yards and many shots are under 50 yards, but the time and energy expended in looking for the perfect cartridge or the means to supercharge a cartridge would be better spent loading and practicing shots at a reasonable distance.

Kilt my first moose with a Marlin 336, Factory 170's, at about 150 yards, boiler room shot - exited. He ran about 150 yards more or less toward me, dying in a small clump of spruce 30 yards to my left, the closest cover he had.

Dead is dead... as was the one I killed with a 12 ga slug at 30-40 yards, running. He went about 100 yards with a perforated large artery just under his backbone. All bled out- whitest moose meat I've ever et....

Placement, placement, placement. Velocity doesn't mean crap for killing, within reason, under most hunting conditions. Sometimes it makes the placement a little easier tho, or the possible range longer.

I prefer firearms to archery.....

Looks like they corrected the velocity as it now says 2,400fps and 1,791ft/lbs ME. That's more believable and nothing special for a 140grn bullet in a 30-30.

According to Hodgdon's current web site, the highest velocity you can get with a 30-30 and 140 grain bullet is 2436 fps. It is listed as 39,700 psi and LVR powder. That's from a 24" barrel.

As for 3000 fps with any 30-30 hunting rifle, FUGGEDABOUDIT!

Factory velocity of a 30-06 with 150 grain bullets was listed as 2970 fps in 1960. Sierra's handbook listed 3000 fps using 60.0 grains of IMR4350.

I get 2400 FPS across my Chrony out of 35.5 grains of LeverEvolution and Barnes 150 TSXs. I quit there instead of pushing it to the 38.5 grain Max of LVR because 2400 and 3/4 inch triangles is plenty OK for a 30-30 by my standards.

sometimes with archery they twitch and go about their business until they fall over. Same place. Amazing how lethal archery is. And its same as gun. Location, location location

Accelerators? IIRC should have been possible.

I was referring to its ballistics at its inception.

Yeah but not with a 140 grain bullet. I should have clarified.

Incidentally, I thought that Remington accelerators were a good idea. Too bad they didn't get much of a market.

But, But You already have the 307 to do that. Just saying!! Cheers NC