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I would love that! But I am a 30-30 nut

With a red dot no less!

Wow, Mr. GW.... that 30 WCF German hammer gun is WAY TOO COOL.

That SxS .30-30 hammer gun strikes a lot of the right notes for me: caliber, style, origins.... just so nice.

Don't currently have a .30-30 and all the ones I've had in the past were 94's. I probably won't ever have another, unless the next time I ask my usual question at the LGS, "What caliber is that No. 1 on the consignment rack?" and the answer is .30-30 and the bore is bright and condition very good. Then it will come home with me for no good reason. I already have too many rifles, which I am trying to do something about, and am saving up for another nice Italian shotgun (because I only have enough of those, not too many, and let's not even let S&W revolvers enter into the discussion.) Anyway...

there is no cartridge better than the .30-30 for killing deer in the woods (unless it's the .303 Savage.) The bullets made for it are made for it, not for whatever .308 caliber cartridge they might be loaded into. They've been refined for killing deer from that cartridge for over 100 years. It uses a very little powder, makes very little noise, has very little recoil and just plain works.

You're being far too reasonable.


Okie John

I'm traveling an hour tomorrow morning to buy a Winchester 94 in .32 Special. It will make a great Woods gun if I can scare up loaded ammo or .321" bullets. If!

.321 bullets at LG Outdoors. 165 flex tip or 170 flat tip Hornadys

Thanks

i have a Winchester post '64 m94TE in 35/30. i use 200gr RCBS FN GC with 2400/tuft of Dacron and it goes 1726fps. i put a Williams FP aperture sight because i can't see as good as i used too. i killed two does (25ish yards) and one buck (53 yards). i was going to go 250-260gr WFN GC, but the 200gr FN GC is great. i use 30-30 Starline brass and a CH4D reloading dies.
i have Remington, Winchester and Federal 30-30 brass that i picked up and shot over the years. my son has a Savage m340 in 30-30 so i gave the brass to him.

JES Reboring
sighting it in at 100 yards

Yowsir!


GWB

William iorg wrote….”Sell wrote about the rifle and cartridge in the 1961 Gun Digest article: The 10% Rifle.”

Long time ago, but I actually recall reading that article at that time. The 10% rifle was for the rare cross clearcut shot that he occasionally had to make IIRC. I remember the story he spun was quite interesting. Re-read it many times. Thanks for jogging the memory!

There is a bit of humor associated with the 10% Deer Rifle Article.
In the 1985 Gun Digest Francis Sell wrote the article: Middle Ground Deer Rifles….

I've often wondered what Sell would think of today's array of big game bullets. Back when he was hunting, aside from the Nosler Partition the only bullets readily available were cup-and-cores--which is of course one reason many hunters used lower-velocity cartridges for "woods" hunting": C&C bullets worked most reliably at close range when started at moderate velocities--and ruined less meat, important to Sell when he was hunting for lumber camps.

But today there's a far wider variety of bullets, some of which work very reliably at close range even when started considerably faster--and also ruin less meat, especially "monolithics"--which also penetrate very well even in lighter weights than "traditional" for close-in cartridges. I know this due to actually using them to kill a bunch of game from up close to several hundred yards--as has Eileen. And anymore meat is the main reason we hunt--well, along with liking to hunt. We already have too many inedible big game parts hanging on our walls (and from the garage rafters), and have seen about the same amount of meat damage from lighter-weight monolithics at 3000+ fps as larger, slower cup-and cores started at much slower velocities.

all of my rifles are either the cup-n-core or cast bullets. COWW (clip on wheel weights) with a skosh of tin or Lyman #2 with a skosh of tin kill deer and black bear. you can shoot on the shoulder or behind the shoulder and it will exit the game. C&C bullets are great for deer or black bear too. i, personally, no longer use premium or monolithic bullets. the Nosler BT really wastes meat when the impact is over 2800fps. what the BT does at that speed (2800fps+) is like a hand grenade. it goes in and fragments. lung soup with chunks of heart and little itty bitty bone fragments on the entry shoulder and the BT never exits. if you do 2800fps and under, it will do a perfect mushroom bullet. this is just my experience with the BT bullet (6.5, .277, .284 and .308"). i don't do Nosler BT anymore because of the price went way up. instead, i use Hornady SST and i limit myself to 2800fps because the range of deer/bear is only under 60 yards.

the cast bullets, which i use for hunting, are "eat up to the hole(s)" they will leave. i try to shoot the game behind the shoulder, but every once in a while, i will take a shoulder shot and they will exit the game and "eat up to the exit hole." the wound channel leaves only a hole in muscle tissue (heart or the shoulder), while the lung tissue (permanent and temporary channels ) is destroyed by the cast bullet. the velocity of the cast depends on the caliber of the bullet, but it is 1200 - 2000fps (.512 - .308").

i guess i'm an old timer or a cheap basturd. whatever it is, i still eat deer.

One point Sell made and I find jives with my experience is the ability of certain cartridges to penetrate brush better than others. Like him, I’ve found that velocities between about 2100-2500 do better in this regard than higher velocity loadings. This is total heresy today, but if I was to pick one velocity for all my hunting it would be 2400 or thereabouts.

Many years ago there was a test run by a hunting magazine (Shooting Times or Guns and Ammo) writer, that shot various bullet types, styles, velocities, through a maze of wooden dowel rods. The higher velocity, spritzer bullets actually maintained there initial path better than the bullets accepted as “brush buster” cartridges/ bullets! I think that his conclusion was that the higher bullet rotational speed (gyroscopic effect) helped those bullets remain better stabilized! memtb

tdoyka,
Francis Sell’s thoughts on C&C bullets mirror yours.
In the article, Middle Ground Deer Rifles Sell wrote of C&C bullets shot from magnum rifles blowing up at close range and Sell included the Partition bullets in this thought.
Sell felt C&C bullets performed acceptably at 3,000 fps and below in the 6mm’s, 25’s and 6.5’s.

Sell, in his American Rifleman article on his .25-35 Tomcat wrote that he felt the best velocity for the “Brush Busting bullet” was between 2, 250 and 2,500 fps.
In Rifle Magazine No. 83, September 1982 Sell wrote of his .25-35 Tomcat pushing the 117-grain Hornady round nose bullet to 2,585 fps. It was this article, I believe where Sell wrote he was getting a bit more velocity from his cartridge than originally intended.

Our deer and pigs are not overly large and like you, most everyone I know shoots C&C bullets almost exclusively.
The Hornady FTX bullet is a plastic tip C&C bullet with a reputation for Rapid Expansion inside 75 yards. The FTX bullet, when fired from the .308ME, 307 Win, and .300 Savage is hard on front shoulders, even when the bullet enters just behind them.
Many of us have observed hair blown off the entrance wound in a 1” circle. This is seen with shots taken inside 75 yards. The FTX bullet does kill well but in many respects the tissue damage is smiilar to the 130-grain .270 Win when it is used at close range.
All that bloodshot meat goes to the Ravens. Like a lot of olderguys I would rather it went to me – the old “Cake and Eat It Too’

If I think about what my my perfect deer rifle would have been. It's a past tense, my knees are shot. I'm a sit and wait type, now.
1) weight, I would be packing it in my hands in front.
2) reasonably short for both quick movement and not getting tangled in the bush.
3) stock ergonomics, it would have to come up fast. The subtle shaping of the stock has a big effect, often ignored.
4)sight picture, your eye should line up with the sight, even if it's closed. This is a stock fit question. again often ignored.
5) a single sight to line with the deer would be easier.

I'll leave the cartridge and bullet choice for debate, though I think they are almost irrelevant .