What is the deal with 30-30?

[COSteve]

Originally Posted by stagpanther

You inspired me COSteve--I just ordered a Lyman tang sight for my Henry big boy 45-70.

Good for you. It's actually a lot more fun shooting a levergun at longer ranges as it takes practice, patience, and paying attention. But the payoff is always a huge smile when one of those pesky bowling pins or clay pigeons gets smacked at 200yds.

For me, shooting is about enjoying myself. I'm not 'practicing for the coming armageddon' as I'll leave that to you younger folks. No, I go out shooting to impress no one but myself. To enjoy the outdoors, fresh air, and shooting with my self tuned firearms and my handloaded ammo. No scopes, not much paper targets (except sighting in), only reactive targets at longer ranges.

Nope, I go out to have fun. To put a smile on my face and forget about all of life's other issues. We've been naturally 'social distancing' at our range since 1956 as the shooting stations are some 7' apart and being outdoors it's a great way to enjoy the outdoors. Yes, we have to shut down the range at times when the herd of elk or one of the herds of deer who we share the space with wander in but all-in-all it's great times.

I recently added a bolt top peep sight to my 20" Rossi .357mag carbine and with the .042" target aperture and the increase to a 22" sight radius, I'm now able to use it for 200yd bowling pins. Yes, it's harder than with the 30" sight radius rifle but that's a good thing!! So the 24" rifle is now for 300yds pins.





BTW, I've tried the pins with my Mossberg 464 30-30 but my older eyes just can't see the front sight and target clearly without the aide of the target aperture close to my eye and it's resultant increase in Depth of Field. I'm considering adding a Skinner Lo-Pro rear peep sight much like the one on my Rossi with a target aperture but I don't know for sure it I will. I have developed a plinking load that's pretty accurate as my son with much younger and better eyes has tried it on the pins with decent success.

[Rebelson137]

Academy sports has 30-30 announced well at least in my area

[musicmatty]

I traveled from Maryland to Pennsylvania yesterday making six stops which included three Walmarts and three gun shops. I was only able to find one box of 3030 ammo at a Walmart.

[stagpanther]

I traveled from Maryland to Pennsylvania yesterday making six stops which included three Walmarts and three gun shops. I was only able to find one box of 3030 ammo at a Walmart.

A wild guess--hunting season is about to open? Seriously, a vet I know who works at the local Wally World tells me they made an administrative decision to pull most of the ammo from shelves; as well as guns, in fear of a pandemic apocalypse crowd overwhelming them and breaking into their stash resulting in D-Day USA.

[stagpanther]

Well Steve, the tang sight came in and I had to do some heavy soul-searching, the hardest part of the install was deciding whether or not to drill and tap the Henry receiver, cause once the drilling starts there's no turning back (so to speak). In the final analysis, I think I paid all of $675 for it at wallyworld so I went for it. I sure as heck hope it actually works.

[COSteve]

Don't be worried about getting your eye up close, the recoil with not cause it to smack you as your head will move with the stock because you have a good cheek weld. Don't shoot with sunglasses, in fact, yellow tinted shooting glasses will give you the best results as they help with edge clarity. Use the smallest aperture possible under the conditions for the largest DoF increase and you'll find that you're more comfortable with your thumb laying along side your tang rather than laying over it.

[COSteve]

BTW, I got a Skinner Lo-Pro peep sight for my Mossy 30-30 recently and when I took it out to the range the 'fuzz' on the front sight and targets was magically gone. I sighted it in at 200yds with full power loads which gives me 150yds with my plinkers and the fun is in.

Being able to actually see the sight is wonderful and in bright light I can use either the .040" target aperture or the .070" general purpose one as well so I'm going to use the .070" to start.

[ammo.crafter]

If the 44 mag is lacking for you, pick up a 444 Marlin.

If you have any interest, PM me.

[stagpanther]

Don't be worried about getting your eye up close, the recoil with not cause it to smack you as your head will move with the stock because you have a good cheek weld. Don't shoot with sunglasses, in fact, yellow tinted shooting glasses will give you the best results as they help with edge clarity. Use the smallest aperture possible under the conditions for the largest DoF increase and you'll find that you're more comfortable with your thumb laying along side your tang rather than laying over it.

I'm not worried about muzzle flip. Even with the target aperture the rear hole looks pretty big close to the eye, but the sight radius on a 22" barrel is nice--though I do get a bit of "the fuzzies" like you say. Thumb parallel is how I try to shoot all my bolt guns though it's a bit of a challenge with the heavy trigger pull ones.

[stagpanther]

Well, this is what happens when you (me) are massively stupid and don't check for fitment and operational functionality BEFORE installing! Despite having read that the Lyman # 2 sight will work on my model of Henry--clearly it does not clear the bolt. So all I did was waste time and money ruining the value of the receiver for my carelessness.



Clearly this will be good for some laughs at least.

[Henneman]

Turn the sight 180° and it should clear.

[stagpanther]

Turn the sight 180° and it should clear.

Thought about that--but configured that way the sight can't retract.

[Henneman]

It should fold forward and then the peep should be reversed too.

[tdoyka]

when i was a young lad, my grandpappy gave to me a 1972 winchester m94 in 30-30. we killed at of deer with it. when i was 18yo, i bought a rem m700 mountain rifle in '06 and a lyman reloader set. the poor 30-30 went into the safe. fast forward about 25+years and i sent my m94 to JES Reboring and he did a 35/30-30. i use 200gr fn gc with 2400/dacron and it goes 1726fps. then i bought a williams fp aperture sight and i fell in love......again.