30-30 for trophy hunting?

[Jack O'Conner]

I guess it's true after all. 30-30 has what it takes to put meat on the table and trophies on the wall. A friend sent me these photos. Truthfully, I've never met either of these hunters but thought some of you would enjoy the photos, too.
Jack

[roy reali]

That hunter is lucky he did not confront a California BALCO deer. That .30-30 would have been useless.

[PSE]

axis deer for $2000 a weekend?
w/ a 30-30?
no thanks
Id hate to be sitting there when a trophy walked out a 250 yards and all i have is an iron sighted 30-30. best reserved for whitetail under 150 yards or perfect broadside shots. i dont want to spen half a 2000 buck trip looking for a deer.

[roy reali]

With our deer you had better be inside of one hundred inches with a .30-30.

[Tom Matiska]

Longest string of clean single shot kills I know of belongs to my brother's 30-30 with Win
150gr factory hollow points. That includes bucks that couldn't be laid out in a 6 foot
pickup bed with the tailgate up. More than capable of busting through a heavy shoulder,
almost always enough penetration to exit, and as the post says, "meat on the table", not a
wasteful amount of purple jelly due to massive shock damage.

[loggerhead]

I once read that the 30-30 had killed more deer than anyother caliber in existance. Don;t know how factual that is but stands to reason, since that cartrige has been around for so long. I have one but I do not hunt with it. I carry it at all times in the scabert on the 4-wheeler, just incase I run up on a hog. However, I have shot it enough to know that it would be an effective deer gun out to atleast 200 yards.

[Dirty_Harry]

Timeout, PSE isn't that the point of hunting? An iron sighted .30-30 just adds to the challenge, oh wait thats right our society of hunting has gone to pot and we need at least a .300 magnum to kill a deer, and we can't learn to shoot our rifles before we hunt??? The .30-30 is an excellent cartridge, many people use it and more deer have been killed with it than anything else. How many times do we have to repeat shot placement is everything, ok I said my peace.

[roy reali]

The .30-30 does have a major drawback. The word magnum is not part of its name. The word magnum automatically extend the range of whatever cartridge that the name is attached to. It also increases the size of the game it can be used for.

You need a brass making company to add the word "magnum" to the rim of a regular .30-30 Winchester round. Then they add that word to several locations on the box. Now you have increased the effectiveness of the round.

[Dirty_Harry]

Thats great, and so true, if the .30-30 had some extra word like magnum or super or improved, people would have more confidence in it, I mean for example, I read in a magazine (I think it was rifle shooter) the comparison between the regular good ole .270 win and the new .270 wsm (magnum in the name) and they are the same ballistics, my main point though is that the good ole cartridges like the .30-30, .270, .30-06, and .45-70 are still very effective and to say that you would not take one on a hunt because you dont want to actually HUNT just sets me off a little.

Magnums pooey

[youp]

The 30-30 is a very adequate cartridge. There are one or two around here somewhere and they see regular use. Do not think that you can take a big buck throught the front shoulder. Look at the pictures and see where they were shot. The 30-30 requires a cool hand to wait for proper shot placement.

[roy reali]

Take a .22 long rifle round and place it in the palm of your left hand. Place a .30-30 round in the palm of your right hand. There is hardly any comparison between the two, don't you agree.

Now look at that tiny round in your left hand. Half ton beef are routinely killed by that. Granted, the range and shot placement are precise, but it is still capable of killing a large animal.

Look at the round in your right hand. Now tell me that it is barely adequete for deer. An animal one-tenth the size of a cow.

Unless you are Mr. Magoo's near sighted brother, you will plainly see that the .30-30 debate is silly.

[BIGR]

The 30- 30 has taken many large game animals at different ranges. Yea it might not be a super dooper magnum with a ton of energy at 400 yards but its one heck of a brush gun. I can't complain because years ago on my first deer hunt I took a 4 point buck with my grandpa's pre 64 model 94 Winchester with open sights. And just recently If I recall correctly Hornady has come out with some new bullet technology that will take the 30-30 to the next level.

[roy reali]

A friend of mine has a wife that bags a deer every year. To some of you that may hardly raise an eyebrow. But I am talking about California were the deer hunter success rate is around ten percent.

She uses a rifle that she has used for over twenty years. It is an old, beat up model 94. It has an equally beat up, side mounted scope on it. She has gotten every deer with exactly one shot each. She does not pracice with this rifle. She does no preseason sighting in. She just kills deer with it.

Her husband has on several occasions offered to buy her a brand new, shiny rifle and scope. The look she gives him when he has made these offers could kill a deer.

[chemist308]

Nice job with a classic cartridge. 30-30 is not for me though. IMO it is one of the most overrated cartidges out there. It will kill deer, even PA black bear--don't even hesitate to shoot at either with it. And it certainly adds to the experience of hunt like the photos show.
I don't have anything against the 30-30 it. It worked 70 years ago for deer, and deer haven't evolved in a manner to change that. It's just that there's better stuff out there and has been for decades. I don't believe in using a 375H&H on whitetail, but there is 30-06, 308, 270, 243...a few decades ago there was 300 savage and 30-40 Kraig. Most of the other cartidges I mentioned are acceptable for larger game as well, and of the one that's not--well the 243 doubles as a varmit gun

[PSE]

i guess my point was missed. to sum up...
those are not whitetails. they are paid and penned trophy exotics and they cost to hunt.
ME, I, MYSELF cannot see hunting exotics that cost that much money without a sure clean killer like a weatherby mag.
you want a challenge and have 2 grand to spend? good to go, have at it.
i have and hunt w/ a 30-30. it actually a very nice DRC custom marlin. i use it in Arkansas on whitetail. i wouldnt take it to hunt Muffon sheep or sikas moose. would it kill them, yep.

[Art Eatman]

Aw, now, PSE, where did it say $2,000?

A buddy of mine moved from Terlingua to Rio Frio, Texas. He commented that it was nice to be able to open his bedroom window and shoot a deer any hour of the day or night, any day of the year.

I says, "Do what?"

He says, "Axis deer."

"Oh. Yeah. Not a game animal."

"Yeah. But, I don't feel right unless I lie down alongside when I gut him, so nobody will see me."

Old crop-dusters, old race-car drivers, old poachers...Some folks never change.

, Art

[Wisby]

We had a lease out neer Banderia that Axis on it and all kinds of other Stuff. The place was surrounded by Game Ranch's and the lease had no High fence so any escape's from the Game ranch's roamed free. There was Rumor of a Elk running around the Lease at one point the guy that saw it hauled butt back to Camp to ask if it was legal to shoot, but by the time he got back to where he saw it they couldn't find it.

[mete]

30-30 muzzle velocity is about the same as a 300Win at 250 yds so just keep the range reasonable !!!

[Jack O'Conner]

I'm always amazed at the diversity of comments inspired by the 30-30 cartridge.
Yet so far, no one has hurled unkind insults and for that I'm thankful.

For those assume hunting exotics is a cake walk: These animals are often quite spooky indeed. Let's remember that they're hunted nearly year round. Fallow deer are hefty animals. A mature buck routinely weighs in at 180 lbs after field dressing. It takes a careful hunter to make a perfect shot and these men appear to fit that description. I admire them for choosing open sights.

Good hunting to you all.
Jack

[Desertfox]

God forbid that you should have to put an effort forth to get close to the game.
Maybe scent free laundry and body soap. Maybe cover and camo. Maybe even a tree stand or ground blind. Play the wind?

It is easy to use a "reach out and touch em" round with a nice scope. Not a guarantee, but much easier than open sights and a 30-30. A little effort in scent control and terrain study might make it more like hunting and less like shooting fish in a barrell. At thirty yards from an elevated stand, 30-30 wins every time.
Hunting, like a craft not like a casual hobby.

[Dirty_Harry]

Well said Desertfox

[Wild Bill Bucks]

Back about 30 years ago (Before I got rich ) the only gun I could afford was a marlin 30-30.
It put meat on the table until my first son got old enough to hunt, and he past it on to my second son, and he past it on to my daughter.
It has yet to kill some kind of deer every year for the last 30 years.
It doesn't look to good, but it still continues to kill a deer every year.
I don't see why it couldn't be used on about any game you can get close enough to shoot. The way it looks, I could not get $25.00 for it, but it is worth it's weight in gold to my daughter. She also has a 7mm-08, but she takes her 30-30 every year.

[Jack O'Conner]

Most of my friends hunt mulies each Fall with 270, 25-06, or other flat shooting rifles. Yet typically, I still slay mulies with my older 30-30 carbine. I enjoy hunting very much and stalking to get within range is very enjoyable to me.

30-30 is a keeper!
Jack

[Scorch]

Maybe the deer nowadays are a lot tougher than they used to be, but for years the 30-30 was king. Shots inside of 200yards used to be as good as dead, out to 350 you had to know the range pretty well because of the trajectory. Magnums mostly just make it easier to hit at long range (flatter trajectory). Oh yeah, and they help sell guns, too.

Of course, now that the deer are bulletproof, only a (insert favorite number here) super magnum will kill them. Only problem is nobody told the deer they're not supposed to die when you poke 'em with a 30-30. Or a 44-40, or whatever. I still shoot my 7X57 and love it. And I don't miss very many meals, either.

I remember reading once to make sure your rifle had 600 ft-lbs at whatever range you were shooting to ensure clean, one shot kills. Pretty soon it became 1000 ft-lbs. Pretty soon it was absolutely required to have at least 1000 ft-lbs at whatever range or you wouldn't kill the deer at all! I wonder how those guys ate back when 45 caliber muzzleloaders shot a 180 gr roundball at 600 ft/second? If you do the math, the animals were safe (280 ft-lbs at the muzzle). Also, if you check, you only need 28 ft-lbs to pierce hide, 80 ft-lbs to break bone, so theoretically you could kill deer with a 22 LR, which a lot of poachers did (and likely still do). Lucky nobody told the deer.

Hunt with whatever you enjoy hunting with! Do it safely and aim well. Enjoy your meal.

[roy reali]

Here in California our deer are into BALCO products. They saw what it could do for ball players. The added bulk makes bullet penetration porblematic at best. They have also developed nasty personalities.