Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles When have you found .30-30 to be a poor choice?

Its range is not a problem for me, but the dearth of rifles, especially new ones, that appeal to me is. I have no problem finding .308s and have a lots and lots of brass. There are a couple of .30/30s that I’d like to have, but they seldom show up.

I understood perfectly what you originally posted but the above rambling is beyond comprehension.

Try a 190 grain cast bullet if you really want to make a .30-30 sing. Made soft enough to guarantee expansion, and driven at an even 2000fps (out of a Winchester M54 24" barrel, more like 1900 fps out of a 20" carbine) it's sweet. When you stop and consider it's within 30 grains of the weight of the old standard .30-40 Krag bullet, at the same velocity, and the reputation that one earned as a slayer of big game, well, you do the figuring.

I have two 30-30's. One for cast and one for jacket bullets. Both have bolts and are just fine for the why, what and where I use em.

It was exactly the wrong choice for me the day I left camp in the morning with my Savage 99 30/30 and my .308 ammo pouch.

Absolutely every caliber/chambering/ammo has limitations. Its up to the ethical hunter to know the round, gun, and his own limitations.

About the only exception is hunting private land with no clearcuts and you don't plan to leave the property. But I hunt places like that with a revolver.

You're right about the gun writers leading people astray. I once hunted Roosevelt elk in the rain forest with a guy from Idaho who showed up with a 35 Whelen. The only shot he got was around 300 yards and he passed it up. He knew the cartridge was capable of making that shot but he wasn't sure that he could make it.


Okie John

For me as a 13 year old deer hunter when a 400 lb. black bear stood up on his hind legs about 50 feet away. Still think about that one and i'm in my 80's

As a young teenager I dropped my first buck with a borrowed M64 .30-30 and he just rolled down the hill stone dead. Then as a 16 year old when I was "all grown up", a .30-30 just wasn't harry chested enough for me because every grown up knew that a person needed a .30-06 to properly hunt deer. In later years when lighter seemed righter when I was driving green swamps for the old guys, a lever action .30-30 just didn't shoulder as well as say my 99F or my 141, 760 or 742. A couple guys in camp never got the memo that there might be something else better, so they bought those Trapper M94's that we called the "Daisy deer rifles". Fast forward to driving a nice buck out in front of Bob with his short sighting radius, open sighted Daisy and he only winged it low just in front of the hind leg. Half a day, a mile and a stream crossing later I caught up with it running out the stream bottom and smote the 11 pointer correctly with my .308. I always figured that I could shoot a close deer with a rifle that shot far, but that I couldn't shoot a far deer with a rifle that shot close.

I grew up with a Mod 94 Classic Carbine. SE Texas, we used the 150 corlokt factory loads. Our deer were small ( even a "huge" buck went about 140 pounds, most went around 90pounds. We shot hogs behind the ear or through the shoulders if further out. "The rifle" the 30-30 was in was unsuitable for me for shots over 100yds. Its chamber was oval ( a factory Friday night gun) brass had a distinctive bulge. I could shoot the head off a squirrel at 30 yds and hit a Skoal can at 50, but only get 6" groups at 100 from a rest (pickup hood) and only "nicked: an MT antifreeze jug, from the sit, at 150yds...with 5 shots! I saw my uncle shoot/kill a doe right at 300yds with his M94/irons, so the round is just fine....the platform is limited is all. I have always found the Marlins to be more accurate with any bullet weight. I've loaded 110 30 carbine bullets to 190 Hawks in them. Plus, you can put a Wild West Happy Trigger in the Marlin, and scope it! Now your talking 300yd shots if one can shoot. I don't have one now as Life is too short, I MUST play with something new! ha

As a boat gun when the boat sucked under a log jam... but I did shoot dead my first moose with it. M336. Lost the rifle of course..

Currently my walk-about piece is my Dad's '94. Thinking strongly of taking it caribou hunting again this year- I know where I will sit with it if I do, should get me a shot under 100 yards if the bous co-operate. Aperture sighted. Took it last year and first day I had to use the .260 my son was carrying for a 294 shot to kill a (other hunter's) wounded caribou as it came back past us. Next day I used a scoped 70 to kill a caribou in the fog at 15 yards.

So I might try it again - I haven't killed anything with the '94 since my first white-tail back in 1966. It's due.

[okie john/]
You're right about the gun writers leading people astray. I once hunted Roosevelt elk in the rain forest with a guy from Idaho who showed up with a 35 Whelen. The only shot he got was around 300 yards and he passed it up. He knew the cartridge was capable of making that shot but he wasn't sure that he could make it.


Okie John [quote]

YEP. "THEY", gun writers, in the 70s-80s were responsible for my concept of 300 Mag--338 Mag being the normal or
minimum for hunting Elk.

I HAD 1 338 WM in Ruger 77 O G tanger -> Hardest Kicking Sum Buck I have EVER shot. 375 HH is tame compared. That Tanger 338 went down the road so fast it raised dust ! ! !

My 8mm RM (yep G Ws) shoots more powder and 5 grain less bullet wt. FASTER than the 338 and is pleasant compared to that.
I still have the 8 Mag. The stock is the diff.


Windfall said above ^^^ "I could shoot a close deer with a rifle that shot far, but that I couldn't shoot a far deer with a rifle that shot close".

There are NO truer words.

I have hunted swamps and other thickets and there is always open territory either going to or coming from such.
Even the Indians thru down the bow/arrow for rifles. Principle is the same.

Jerry

If used within its performance envelope it is a very capable medium game cartridge and with tougher bullets, capable of taking elk and moose with properly placed shots. As with most situations, proper placement of a proper projectile will do the job.

Very few deer are out of range for my 30-30 where I hunt.. Very few but not all.

For that reason I prefer the 7mm-08.

g

Nice to know I'm not alone in doing things like that.

The only time I regretted it I had a .30-30 with a 4 X scope in my hands and saw an honest 32" mule deer buck a tad over 300 yards away...out of my comfort zone with that rifle, and he walked out of my life forever...

Killed more critters with the .30-30 than all the rest combined. Everything has limitations, even the Creed.

The owner of a deer camp I used to go to called the 30-30 a "sharp stick". When I asked him why, he replied that if you were looking over a large clear cut with one in hand and there was a nice deer on the far side at 300yds, you might as well be standing there with a sharp stick in you hands.

He was right.

That can be said about any bow, handgun, or rifle chambered in any cartridge where the target is “out of range”. There is a limit to a person shooting any of them.

my savage 99 is a 3030. really great shooting gun. my 94s are 45 colt trapper, no ugly safety , and one made In 1897 in 3855 use the savage so much the others don't get to play.