Home Forums Lever Action Central Marlin 336 Lever Actions What's your fave bullet weight in 30-30

Mine is 170 gr. The 150s don't group well. I also like Varget, 32.5 gr. and it groups well.

my 336 seems to prefer 170s too.

170 gr. rem core-loc or 160 gr. Horn ftx..

Doc

My M94 really, really likes the Hornady 170 fp, so I feed it a constant diet of that.

160gr FTX

Hornady is my choice, too.

170 gr. on top of WW748 powder.

I hand-load 170-grain Core-Lokts.

I've never hand-loaded any 150s in any of my .30-30s but the Federal 150-grain factory load seems to shoot well in my current Marlin 336.

170 grain Core-lokts

My 336 shoots 170 gr. into little groups, I use either the Partition, some old Silvertips I have, or the Speer bullet. My model 64 only shoots 150 speers. I don't believe the deer can tell the difference.

I've always leaned toward 170gr... but I have boxes of 150gr. also...My Texan is not to finicky...

For planned distances beyond 175 yards or so, the Sierra spitzer is both accurate and hard hitting. One cartridge in the magazine and one in the chamber makes for a safe two shot outfit. But loading more than one spitzer cartridge into the magazine is a serious safety concern.

I like the accurasy and performance of Winchester Power Points in 170 grain. FEDERAL also builds an accurate 170 grain loading.

Remington's 150 grain factory load is a fast opening soft tip that has toppled coutless scores of animals. Hits hard like a hollow tip but I've rarely detected an exit wound. This may or may not be a concern for some hunters.

I've handloaded Hornday's 180 grain round nose bullet and formed a flat tip with draw file. But wound channel is narrow compared to 170 grain. This is likely due to thicker jacket since this bullet is designed for faster cartridges such as 300 Savage, .308, and 30-06.

I handloaded a 220 grain bullet into 30-30 but accurasy was poor. No doubt a narrow wound channel would be produced but I've not hunted with this handload. This experiment was a waste of time.

Hope this is helpful.
TR

170gr silver tip

150 Speer FP, 170 Hornady FP or 160 FTX. All with Reloder 15.

Mine literally shoots 1" with factory 150 Winchesters. Opened up to about 3.5" at 180 yards. Couldnt quite get back to 200 yards where I was shooting. I was astounded with the accuracy. I havent loaded it yet, but saving the brass.

My Marlins like 170 gr. bullets best for accuracy but I think I like 150 gr. (Core-lokts) better for deer sized game.

PC

170 gn. Nosler Partitions and RL-15.

Gunner

Mine would be 170 gr. Speer F.N.'s and IMR-3031 although I recently found that those 160 gr. Hornady FTX's are real nice when using BL-C2. Before that my Marlin didn't seem to like the FTX's until I started in with the BL-C2.

My Marlin is happy with either 150 or 170 grain Federal loads.
But my 1960 Winchester M94 really prefers 150 grain coreloks over Winchester 748.

Deer seem suitably impressed with either bullet weight.