Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Bolt action 30-30

Glad to hear that! (Mine's actually a custom mould an old compatriot named Sid Musselman designed and had made by Saeco a coon's age ago, back around 1980.) I've noticed that virtually same design show up in other catalogs since then. He was another one of those know it all but unassuming old guys who took a wealth of cast bullet knowledge with himself to the grave. The mould drops bullets cast of WW's+tin at exactly .310" in the body and .301" on the nose. Serendipitously the throats of the guns I use it in are .310 and .309" so it's a good fit, and the .301" nose is ever so lightly engraved by the tops of the lands which greatly enables it to have a straight passage down the barrel.

I'm here to tell anybody not nailed down that if you want a real wood's thumper of a .30-30 get a good bolt gun or single shot and stuff it with heavy soft lead bullets. An added benefit is you can thumb your nose at the bullet companies, and shoot the thing at a small fraction of the cost of factory stuff and/or jacketed handloads. What's not to like?

Kinda wanted to do that with my 308

Sounds fun. I'm watching the local shops for a Savage 340 30-30. I had a beauty of one last year but somebody was willing to pay me twice what I had into it.

Those old 340's were really some accurate rifle once you figured out how the trigger works(heavy but predictable).

Don't think you can use just any pointed bullet for deer hunting with it just because you can due to the magazine. Not all pointed (spitzer) bullets will perform well at 30-30 speeds, so I'd stick with tried and true bullets. There are some pointed bullets for the bolt action 30-30 out there, but you'll have to do some homework.

The other factor is that even at "enhanced" .30-30 velocities, spitzers don't prove much (if any) advantage at traditional .30- ranges, say out to 200 yards or a little more.

As a kid, I was always a little intrigued by the 340 Savages I saw. They had a sort of industrial look to them. A couple of my friends, two brothers , had them. Their dad had bought them those as their first deer rifles rather than 94 Winchester’s, his stated logic being cocking the Winchester hammer made too much noise and could scare a deer.

I’ve seen it stated that part of the reason 30-30’s work so well is that the bullets made for them are made for that cartridge alone, so they are able to be tailored for very specific performance parameters. Other bullets, who knows? Will it be used in a .300 Savage or a .300 WM; a .250 Savage or a .257 Weatherby? There don’t have to be any compromises with 170 grain, 30 caliber roundnose bullets.

I rehabbed one a couple of years ago but have yet to hunt with it. I need to get it in the woods. I like the idea of those heavy cast bullets.
I have given some consideration to having Jess rebore it to 38-55.

Beautiful gun! I shot my first deer with a bolt action 30-30. It looked exactly like the Savage 340 but if I remember right it was made by Stevens or Revelation. I made the dumb decision to sell it and "upgrade" to a 270 bolt gun. I still miss that old 30-30 and always keep my eye out for one at the right price. It was a solid shooter and I still regret that decision. I shot a lot of deer with that 270 and it will never go anywhere but miss my 30-30. My dad made me break it down and refinish the stock and clean it everywhere. I was dumb and lost one of the scope caps and had to use an old breakfast syrup cap instead.

I remember reading a Ken Waters Pet Loads column on bolt-action 30-30s. His position was pretty much the same as everyone here: keep pressures low because of the brass, use softer bullets, and enjoy the accuracy.


Okie John

I used to load 170 grain Remington RNCL component bullets in the 300 Savage for shooting whitetails in northern New England woodlots, the thought being that since they were designed to work at 30-30 speeds they would expand more quickly/violently at higher 300 Savage speeds.

My Speer number 9 manual has a bolt action .30-30 section starting on page 223, and a thorough introduction. Nothing too earth shaking but would help you get a start including data for 100, 110, 130, and 150 grain pointed bullets.

If you cant find a Speer number 9 PM me with your address and I will send you mine.....

That would put you right at the top of the shelf sir . I may take you up on it and certainly return it .
Got started at 7:30 this morning.
Shot three shot groups with the 340 and 336 .
Got some old 170gr Hornady flat nose , probably 30 yers old , grin .
Anyway set them over 36.5 gr of LVR crimped on the canulure . This gave a COAL of 2.565 .
So I measured the chamber of the 340 and it had an COAL of 2.746 . Wow ! What a throat . I loaded nine fir the 340 on the canulure and nine at 2.740 .
Saw little difference in groups reguardless of COAL , was using one inch squares . Should have taken time to adjust eye ocular as apparently my eyes have changed enough over the years the old Baltur scope made it a struggle to get the post reticle on six o’clock consistent . But managed 1.7-1.9” groups . This was a new load to me so didn’t know what to expect .
Every group had two that were .4-.7” but a flyer wrecked that .
Still plenty good for deer hunting .
336 ran about the same with a much better scope , so not sure it was rifle versus load or shooter versus scope .
But a consistent sight picture was difficult . Magnification unknown , but post was slightly wider than one inch square at 100 yds .
Shot several other calibers throughout the morning with several loads testing under 1/2” in 308 and 243 .
So it seems I wasn’t having a bad day . And as we know a 3-4 hour range morning is a good morning .
Lol , wore the dogs out walking back and forth marking groups . The older one started limping so I put them in .
Kenneth

We used the Sierra 150 spire point flat base and IMR 3031. Accuracy was very good, under 3/4ths of an inch for 5 shots in both rifles. (I think they were 840s, not 340s.) The problem was expansion was limited to non-existent. One time mom plugged one of dad's cows in the neck. The bullet went diagonally through the body and was located in the far ham ... measured 7 feet of penetration. That was not unusual enough .. so one of the reasons we always took head shots on deer.

If I was going to do it today, I'd either stick with a conventional flat point .30-30 bullet meant for the velocity the cartridge generates or I'd look at a Nosler 125 grain ballistic tip or accubond.

So far as data .. stick with what's appropriate for a lever action or Contender. Pressures should be the same. You might find more pointy-bullet data for the TC in the handgun section.

Tom

I stumbled across an old M54 a few months ago in 30WCF. My load as very similar to gnoahh's, a gas checked and powder coated RCBS 180 gr FP and 29 grains of WC846 powder. The RCBS weighs around 185 gr with a soft alloy and the WC846 pushes it to 2075 fps. It's accurate using the Lyman 48 receiver sight. Unfortunately, no deer has cooperated and shown up when I've been carrying this rifle. We have 3 more days of season here in AL, so it could happen yet.

Several years ago, I did some gun trading with a local Amish fellow that I know. He told me that his father had a Winchester 94 in 32 Special, and I was trying hard to trade for it. An Amish kid heard the conversation and asked me if I'd be interested in a 30-30, so I naturally assumed it was also a lever gun.

Wrong, as he said it was a bolt action. I was hoping for a Remington 788, but he shows me a Savage 340, that looks like it had been tied to a truck bumper (or in this case, maybe a buggy bumper) and drug down the road a few miles. He said it needed a "little work", and it certainly looked as if it did. Anyway, he claimed it was a very accurate rifle. I had no desire to find out.

My point being........though I've never had any experience with a bolt action 30-30, I did know someone who had a Remington 788 in one, and swore up and down that it was one the best shooting rifles he ever owned. I know the one I had in 243 certainly was.

I see 340s from time to time, but always in .22 CF of some sort. Have enough of those. The early ones look better, I think.

I just went out and checked my data for my 840 bolt 30-30
150gr FN 31.5 4064
130 Hornady SP 33gr 4064
These put a bullet MOA @100
I likely would not have purchased this rifle but......my lifelong friend passed away and his son came over to the house about 2 weeks after the funeral and gave me a handful of his Dads rifles.

The 840 was beat pretty bad as it could really tell a story, it was well used. I took it apart and re-blued it and prettied the stock up and it is a nice looking good shooter.
A real good rifle for a young shooter to practice with, good luck with yours.