Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 30/30 Overkill?????

I knew there was something weird about you.

Here in Pennsylvania, The only big game I hunt is Deer.....with a bear thrown in there once in a while.

I currently have 3 rifles....A Winchester 94 in 30-30, a Glenfield 30AS also in 30-30 and a Remington 760 Carbine in 30/06.

For the area I hunt and the critters I may have the opportunity on, the 30-30 is really all I need. However, the '06 does offer a degree of comfort when bear are on the menu

That must be where the word polelaxed came from. Hopefully the Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals does not find out about the 30-30.

I have a 340 that is very accurate with the 170 gr. jacketed soft points. It prefers the Monarch/Privi loads.

They make "dillars" explode!

I use 7.62x39 bolt rifles more than any others. I can load 'em down or pretty much dupe the .30-30 150gr. loads.

.30/30 class rifles were standard moose, deer, and black bear medicine in the North woods for resident hunters for years. Not flashy, but for those who stalk close and pick their shots, it's enough.

That doesn't make it a good choice for most of us.

Famous guide Field Johnson carried a .30/30 when guiding JOC on a griz hunt, and after wounding a bear with an '06, I believe, and discovering he had left his spare ammo in camp, Jack took the .30/30 from Field and started after the bear. The bear let out a roar from cover, and both hunters changed their mind and came back the next day for the bear, which was dead.

Johnson was later killed by a griz while hunting moose with, guess what, a .30/30.

I have a Marlin 336 30-30 and while it almost never is used, I feel that there should be one in every gun safe. And though it is seldom used it would be adequate for the vast majority of hunting I do.

I've whacked tons of critters with the .30-30. Mostly with a 94 Trapper. Receiver sights rock. So does something around 170-180 grains, jacketed or cast. The Contender is fond of 150 gr spitzers. Praise Zeus, it only takes one shot to kill chitt with it.

I love the 30-30 and owned three at the moment two Winchester 94's and one Marlin. If more people hunted with the 30-30 they would be better hunters and Big Game Shots .

I have come to the conclusion that i could kill anything with a 22LR if I could find some ammo!!!!

Skip to about 24 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xZsgwPlLM0

I've seen them drop in their tracks when shot with a 50 grain .223 in the chest, same with 30-30's and many other cartridges.. moose are not hard to kill. Ive seen them take as many as 8 300 ultra mag rounds before they die but that's cause idiot shooting was hitting everywhere but where he should have. Id far rather be in the woods tracking a wounded grizzly with someone who knew how to use a 30-30 than someone with a 338 mag who didn't. The 30-30 has killed untold boxcar loads full of moose, elk, deer, polar, griz and black bears, buffalo, you name it over the past 100 or so years. If all I had to hunt with was a 30-30 I would have been able to kill every animal I've ever shot with other calibers just as fast and effectively with the little 30-30.

As someone who has been hunting for close to 50 years, I am often amazed at the stupidity of some posters here and other boards. You spend too much time debating the best bullet, powder or cartridge and too little time actually hunting. The 30-30 is a time tested, proven performer on various game animals in many countries.

One of the things that most of you forget is that we hunt in different parts of the world - plains, forests, hills, etc. Geography decides what's needed. Many of you post about the 30-30 or other cartridges based on extremely limited experience. Many of you feel that if it isn't any good where you hunt, it isn't worth the powder to blow it to hell. Opinions are like a$$holes, everybody has one. Unfortunately, these opinions are poorly thought out.

There's a lot of narrow minded thinking here.

That said, It's heartening to see that a few of you realize time afield, shot placement, patience and tracking are more important than the latest cartridge, powder, or bullet pushed by advertisers. You realize that hunting in Maine is different than Saskatchewan. Sadly, you are in the minority.

How many of you have taken a moose with a 30-30, 303 British or 300 Savage? How many of you have been bushwahed into thinking that these cartridges are incapable of dropping a deer or a moose?

Say good night Gracie...

Good night Gracie. Ahh memories. I miss that cigar-smoking, Coke-bottle-bottom-glasses-wearing guy.

Steve, over the last couple years, I've been loading my 30-06 with cast bullets to the power levels you mention. I won't be shooting a moose anytime soon, but I know it is really easy to shoot well with 30-30, 303 Brit, and 300 Savage noise and recoil. I haven't hunted with these loads, but that is as much the animals' fault as anything. Range is the only limitation. Certainly not effectiveness on animals. I pine for the time when a 300 RUM was not in the hands of 1/2 of the yayhoos I see out hunting during elk season. Maybe that is 100% of the yayhoos who are carrying the RUM.

A 30-30 is not the best for cross canyon shots, or any other longer range affair. It is entirely adequate for the closer ranges most deer and many other animals are taken. For a period of 6 or 7 years a 94 Winchester in 30-30 was what I used for deer hunting here at home, not because I didn't have a "better" rifle but because I liked hunting with home cast bullets. In that length of time I killed several deer including some nice bucks with a Lyman 311041GC bullet and never had one go over 30 yards after the shot. One buck was hit from the front in the chest, the bullet cut diagonally through, coming to rest under the hide of the opposite "ham". Full length penetration from a cast lead bullet running just under 2000 fps at the muzzle. The buck tried to whirl around, lost his footing and fell, kicked a couple times and that was it. Blood shot meat was at a minimum on all those deer, not sure why I went back to more "modern" arms. Sold that 94 because it had the most god awful trigger I'd ever used. Maybe I need a decent Marlin, I've still got quite a few of those cast bullets left.

Save those cast bullets for a Winchester or a Savage. The Marlin micro-groove rifling makes for a challenging proposition when making cast bullets work. It can be done, of course, but not without some cast bullet skullduggery. Now, the Ballard-style rifling in some Marlins is another story.

Not a writer.....

I had read all the BS about the .30-30 not being enough gun. In the seventies, I was part of an investigation team working a double murder where the victims were ambushed by an assailant using a .30-30. The notes are long gone into the archives. I don't recall the brand/grain bullets, and the distance was about 45 yards.

I was the officer attending the autopsies. What I saw gave me a totally new respect for the round. True enough, it is not a long range round partially due to round or flat nosed bullets, but be assured the bullets are perfectly matched to the velocity within normal ranges. Victim 1 was almost decapitated and never knew what happened. Victim 2 looked like a small grenade exploded in his chest cavity and could not have retained consciousness for more than several seconds.

Today, I own four, all in different Marlin configurations.

jack

Yep, seen a lot of moose and elk dropped with a 30-30 not to mention black bears and deer including huge northern BC mule deer.

Never crossed my mind that it wasn't enough gun. Amused and slightly surprised is my response to anyone who thinks the 30-30 isn't up to cleanly killing N. America's largest animals.

My dad bought me a 30-30 Savage 340 in 1958 or '59. Open sights, good shooter. Killed my first deer and first elk with it. Both of my two sons killed their first big game with it, a mule deer and a black bear. I won't get it back.

Question (and not trying to be contentious): Wouldn't bullet design for the .30-30 be just about perfected after 100+ years?

Steve, I also very much appreciate your reminder that our individual hunting environment is an essential element in what works for us (or doesn't). I've posted before my beef with some of the professional gunscribes making blanket comments about what works or doesn't, minimum calibers, etc., without ever taking the environment into account.

I think bullets for the 30-30 have been good'nuf for most of that 100+ years. The exposed lead flat and round nosed cup&cores are ideal for open sighted guns (short ranges) and modest velocities. Certainly the 30-30 benefits from more modern bullets, but it doesn't need them to be all that it can be.

I've never been a big fan of the .30-30.....nor have I particularly disliked it either. It performs very well, if unspectacularly.

The .30-30 gained it's reputation, not because of it's outstanding ballistics, but more because of the firearms it was chambered in. My problem is that there are better (in my mind) rounds available in ther same guns. In traditional lever rifles I much prefer the .35 Remington, .375 Winchester and even the .32 Special over the more commom .30-30. I do own a few .30-30 rifles and certainly don't feel unarmed with guns so chambered.....but it isn't my first choice.